As for the German, he seemed at least equally disconcerted. Dave Darrin was the first to recover.
“I cannot say that I think your German uniform becoming to a man of your name, Mr. Matthews,” Darrin uttered, in savage banter.
“Matthews?” repeated the German, in a puzzled voice, though he spoke excellent English. “I cannot imagine why you should apply that name to me.”
“It’s your own fault if you can’t,” Darrin retorted. “It’s the name you gave me at the hotel.”
“I’ve never seen you until the present moment,” declared the German, stoutly.
“Surely you have,” Danny Grin broke in. “And how is your firm in Chicago, Mr. Matthews?”
“Chicago?” repeated the German, apparently more puzzled than before.
“If Matthews isn’t your name, and I believe it isn’t,” Darrin continued, “by what name do you prefer to be addressed.”
“I am Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold,” replied the German.
“Very good, von Bechtold; will you stand back a bit and not bother the corporal?”
Dave bent over to stir the charred, smoking heap of paper with his foot. But the job had been too thoroughly done. Not a scrap of white paper could be found in the heap.
“Of course you do not object to telling me what papers you succeeded in burning,” Darrin bantered.
Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold smiled.
“You wouldn’t believe me, if I told you, so why tax your credulity?” came his answer.
“Perhaps you didn’t have time to destroy all your records,” Dave went on. “Under the circumstances I know you will pardon me for searching the boat.”
Thrusting aside a curtain, Dave entered a narrow passageway near the stern. Off this passageway were the doors of two sleeping cabins on either side. Dave opened the doors on one side and glanced in. Dan opened one on the other side, but the second door resisted his efforts.
“This locked cabin may contain whatever might be desired to conceal,” Dan hinted.
Turning quickly, Darrin saw that von Bechtold had followed. This the corporal had permitted, but he and a marine private had followed, to keep their eyes on the prisoner.
“If you have the key to this locked door, Captain, it will save us the trouble of smashing the door,” Dave warned. He had followed the usual custom in terming the ober-lieutenant a captain since he had an independent naval command.
“I do not know where the key is,” replied von Bechtold, carelessly. “You may break the door down, if you wish, but you will not be repaid for your trouble.”
“I’ll take the trouble, anyway,” Darrin retorted. “Mr. Dalzell, your shoulder and mine both together.”
As the two young officers squared themselves for the assault on the door a black cloud appeared briefly on von Bechtold’s face. But as Darrin turned, after the first assault, the deep frown was succeeded by a dark smile of mockery.
Bump! bump! At the third assault the lock of the door gave way so that Dave and Dan saved themselves from pitching into the room headfirst.
“Oh, whew!” gasped Danny Grin.
An odor as of peach-stone kernels assailed their nostrils. They thought little of this. It was a sight, rather than the odor, that instantly claimed their attention.
For on the berth, over the coverlid, and fully dressed in civilian attire of good material, lay a man past fifty, stout and with prominent abdomen. He was bald-headed, the fringe of hair at the sides being strongly tinged with gray.
At first glance one might have believed the stranger to be merely asleep, though he would have been a sound sleeper who could slumber on while the door was crashing in. Dave stepped close to the berth.
Dalzell followed, and after them came the submarine’s commander.
“You will go back to the cabin and remain there, Mr. von Bechtold,” Dave directed, without too plain discourtesy. “Corporal, detail one of your men to remain with the prisoner, and see that he doesn’t come back here unless I send for him. Also see to it that he doesn’t do anything else except wait.”
Scowling, von Bechtold withdrew, the marine following at his heels.
As Darrin stepped back into the cabin he saw the stranger lying as they left him.
“Dead!” uttered Dave, bending over the man and looking at him closely. “He lay down for a nap. Look, Dan, how peaceful his expression is. He never had an intimation that it was his last sleep, though this looks like suicide, not accidental death, for the peach-stone odor is that of prussic acid. He has killed himself with a swift poison. Why? Is it that he feared to fall into enemy hands and be quizzed?”
“A civilian, and occupying an officer’s cabin,” Dan murmured. “He must have been of some consequence, to be a passenger on a submarine. He wasn’t a man in the service, or he would have been in uniform.”
“We’ll know something about him, soon, I fancy,” Darrin went on. “Here is a wallet in his coat pocket, also a card case and an envelope well padded with something. Yes,” glancing inside the envelope, “papers. I think we’ll soon solve the secret of this civilian passenger who has met an unplanned death.”
“Here, you! Stop that, or I’ll shoot!” sounded, angrily, the voice of von Bechtold’s guard behind them.
But the German officer, regardless of threats, had dashed past the marine, and was now in the passageway.
“Here, I’ll soon settle you!” cried the marine, wrathfully. But he didn’t, for von Bechtold let a solid fist fly, and the marine, caught unawares, was knocked to the floor.
All in a jiffy von Bechtold reached his objective, the envelope. Snatching it, he made a wild leap back to the cabin, brushing the marine private aside like a feather.
“Grab him!” yelled Dave Darrin, plunging after the German. “Don’t let him do anything to that envelope!”
CHAPTER IV – THE TRAIL TO STRANGE NEWS
Fortune has a way of favoring the bold. The corporal and a marine were in the corridor behind Darrin. The ober-lieutenant’s special guard had been hurled aside.
Hearing the outcries, the other two marines in the cabin sprang toward the German officer. One of these von Bechtold tripped and sent sprawling; the other he struck in the chest, pushing him back.
Just an instant later von Bechtold went down on his back, all five of the marines doing their best to get at him in the same second. But the German had had time to knock the lid from a battery cell and to plunge the envelope into the liquid contained in the jar. Then the German was sent to the mat by his assailants.
Darrin, following, his whole thought on the envelope, plunged his right hand down into the fluid, gripping the package that had been snatched from him.
“Sulphuric acid!” he exclaimed, and made a quick dive for a lidded fire bucket that rested in a rack. The old-fashioned name for sulphuric acid is vitriol, and its powers in eating into human flesh are well known. Darrin’s left hand sent the lid of the bucket flying. Hand and envelope were thrust into the water with which, fortunately, the bucket was filled. When sulphuric acid in quantity is added to water heat is generated, but a small quantity of the acid may be washed from the flesh with water to good advantage if done instantly. After a brief washing of the hand Dave drew it out, patting it dry with a handkerchief. Thus the hand, though reddened, was saved from painful injury. The envelope he allowed to remain in the water for some moments.
“Von Bechtold, you are inclined to be a nuisance here,” Darrin said coolly. “I am going to direct these men to take you above.”
“I am helpless,” replied the German, sullenly, from the floor, where he now lay passive, two marines sitting