"Bob drew this in a hurry, or at least he had no appreciation of the value of minute details which, I believe, are more important than a thousand baskets of eggs," the young soldier mused as he gazed at the cleverly drawn, but rather inaccurate, copy in the light of the trench lamp. "He disregarded most of those clots and dashes, except in a few places, thinking, I suppose, that continuous lines would do just as well. And he was right so far as the picture is concerned. In fact, I believe those dots and dashes that were on Tourtelle's arm detracted from the art of the artist, if I may pose as an art critic; but for the purpose intended they are absolutely essential.

"Now, I wish I could get hold of an officer who would listen to me and maybe I could start an investigation that would result in something worth while. But Sergt. Wilson, who messes in here, is out with some other men in a listening post and I'm sure it would be better to approach the lieutenant through him. That means I've got to wait here probably until morning before I can get this great weight of responsibility off my mind."

And that was exactly what he did. He lay there thinking over and over again the events of his own and his cousin's adventures concerning Lieut. Tourtelle. There was no use of his attempting to slumber, and it was not long before he gave up the idea entirely. However, he was in no great need of sleep, inasmuch as he had almost reveled in the luxury of rest ever since he was ordered to the field hospital for treatment of his shoulder.

Through all the rest of the night, Irving continued to review and analyze the strange case of "freak art." And perhaps it was fortunate that he had ample opportunity to do this, for it is quite possible that otherwise he would not have had certain important points sufficiently in mind to make a strong and convincing case when at last he found opportunity to make his report.

"It seems to me those dots and dashes explain Tourtelle's anxiety to keep that tattooing on his arm," the boy mused. "Now, if he's a spy, he was putting over just a clever 'con game' when he sent for me and begged my forgiveness and then asked me to do him a favor. After all, I've got to admit that that fellow is pretty smooth. No, I don't think he overdid it at all. I did think it a little strange when he followed his plea for forgiveness with a request that I do him a favor. But the favor was so simple, although unusual enough, goodness knows, and there appeared to be so little opportunity for him to trick me into something I wouldn't like to do, that it seemed foolish for me to hesitate. It looks now as if he tricked not only me, but the surgeon and nurses, too. I wonder what that surgeon would say if he knew that a spy had made clever use of him to prevent a very deep enemy plot from going to pieces at a time when the bottom was about to drop out of it. He'd be a lot sorer, I bet, than he was when I contradicted him after he said Tourtelle's mind was wandering under the anæsthetic.

"'A Basket of Eggs Spilling Down Stairs'-that's some name for a painting. I wonder what's behind it. Now, it's just possible that that name's written somewhere in cipher in the picture, and maybe a key goes with it and that key applied to the name will produce the message he's carrying to the enemy. I suppose he'll watch his opportunity and-

"My goodness!"

Irving uttered this exclamation aloud and the sound of his voice awoke one of the sleepers in the dugout, who asked what was the matter. The soliloquist replied "nothing," that he had merely startled himself with a "bright idea," whereupon the awakened soldier grumbled, "You're a nut," and rolled over and went to sleep again.

"I wonder if the sergeant will call me a nut, too, when I tell him my story," Irving reflected a little apprehensively. "In spite of the way everything fits into everything else as logically as can be, the whole account is bound to sound a good deal like a fairy story. Sometimes I feel like giving it up and casting the whole affair out of my mind, but-but-I can't. Now, that idea that made me burst out like a 'nut,' as that soldier called me, fits in just as pat as can be with all he rest. It looks, it looks, yes, sir, it looks just as if Tourtelle was trying to surrender out in No Man's Land the other night when we were scouting there together. I don't know how I can prove it, but it's plain enough to me, unless my whole theory falls down, and I don't see how it can."

At last, shortly before the break of day, reliefs were sent to the various sentry posts, and Sergt. Wilson returned to the dugout with several other men. Irving seized the first available opportunity to tell the "non com" that he had some important information that he wished to "get off his mind," and they withdrew to one side of the underground room to talk the matter over.

In a few minutes Private Ellis had Sergt. Wilson interested by his simple, direct method of presenting his subject. In fifteen minutes, the boy had finished his narrative and turned over his cousin's letter to the officer to read. The latter pored with intense interest over not only the epistle but the accompanying copy of the mysterious "Basket of Eggs Spilling Down Stairs." Presently he said:

"You've got something very important here, Ellis. I'm going to see Lieut. Osborne right away. I think you had better come along. Unless I'm badly mistaken this matter will get to the major in a very short time and something important will be doing."

The sergeant climbed up out of the dugout into the trench, and Irving followed, and soon they were making their way to another similar excavation which was the headquarters of Lieut. Osborne.

CHAPTER XII
QUIZZING A SPY

Sergt. Wilson's prediction that Private Ellis's spy story would go to the major of the battalion was more than realized. Affairs moved rapidly from the time when the non-commissioned officer got a clear idea of the importance of the situation. He and Irving made a rapid transit from their trench cave to the dugout where Lieut. Osborne was stationed, and there the story was repeated. The lieutenant was interested at once and took the matter up with the captain. The latter instructed the lieutenant to remain at the telephone until he could communicate with his superior officers.

There followed a wait of rather nervous expectancy for Irving. It really was not more than half an hour, although it seemed much longer to the young soldier who made the original complaint. At last, however, came a ring of the muffled telephone bell, and Lieut. Osborne lifted the receiver to his ear. He listened a minute or two, then hung up the receiver and said:

"Ellis, you and I are ordered to proceed to the hospital and confront this young spy of yours with the fact that we have the goods on him. The captain communicated with the major, and the major with the colonel; so, you see, your story has gone up to the head of the regiment. Sergt. Wilson, I am going to leave you here in my place while I'm gone. I hope to be back before nightfall. If I'm delayed longer than I expect to be, I'll communicate with you by 'phone. Ellis, we'll start at once. The colonel has ordered an automobile to be ready to meet us at the nearest relief station back of the lines. Come on."

In a few minutes the officer and the private were racing through the nearest communication trench, which was deep, sinuous and well camouflaged, on past the second and third lines to the relief station just beyond a small inn covered with a growth of trees and a thicket of tall bushes. The promised automobile was waiting for them, and they were soon speeding away toward the field hospital which, in the last hour, as a result of Private Ellis's story, had become a center of very serious interest in a strange admixture of an elaborate spy system and "high art."

Lieut. Osborne and his companion were both apprehensive lest they find the second lieutenant in condition so weakened that it would be inadvisable to subject him to the strain of a "third degree." They discussed this possibility on the way, and the officer decided that he would broach the subject gently in order to avoid the danger of defeating their purpose through a physical and mental collapse of the patient.

But Lieut. Tourtelle proved to have withstood the shock of the operation much better than might have been expected. They found him looking really bright and vigorous. Apparently he had had the best of care and had rested well. Nevertheless, Lieut. Osborne called a nurse aside and asked her to administer a stimulant to him, as he had important business with the patient under instructions from the commander of the regiment. The nurse did as requested without arousing any suspicion in the "cubist art spy."

"This is quite a surprise to receive a visit from a superior officer under such circumstances, and I'm sure it's very much appreciated," Tourtelle remarked after he had answered several questions put by Lieut. Osborne regarding his condition and the attention he was receiving.

"The occasion fully warrants our coming to see you," the superior officer replied in a purposely peculiar tone of voice. Tourtelle noticed it and looked inquiringly at Lieut. Osborne.

"Private Ellis told me about that art souvenir that was peeled off your arm and I have come to see it," continued the leader of the "visiting expedition."

Tourtelle shot a furtive, searching glance at each of his callers. These glances did not escape the observation of either the officer or the private, for both were looking for evidence of this sort; but they were well on their guard and did not betray, by the slightest expression, any evidence of what was going on in their minds.

"Of course you have it here," Lieut. Osborne continued in tone of assurance. "Ellis tells me he laid it by the side of your pillow and asked the nurse to call your attention to it after you came out from the effects of the anæsthetic."

Plainly enough Tourtelle was struggling within himself over something, and his visitors did not have much trouble convincing themselves what it was. But finally he settled the problem tentatively in favor of the evident inevitable and replied:

"Yes, of course, I have it here, only I hate to unpack it; but if your curiosity over a freak idea is uncontrollable, I must submit. I'm very jealous over that affair, because the average person is utterly incapable of appreciating it and would only laugh at me."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of our doing anything of the kind," returned the lieutenant reassuringly. "We're deeply interested, both of us."

"You must be profoundly interested if you can leave your places at the battle front just to inspect a sample of what most people would call freak art. You didn't call a truce and sign an armistice just for this, did you?"

The lieutenant realized by this time, as Irving had realized before, that he was dealing with a young fellow of no puny intelligence. Tourtelle, although signifying willingness to do as requested, was evidently fencing with weapons of jest and banter, intended to be accepted as conversational pleasantry. He made no motion as yet to produce the box containing the tattooed section of skin packed in salt.

"No," the visiting officer replied quietly; "but I'm sure you won't disappoint me after I've gone to the trouble to get permission from the colonel to come here and see that remarkable curiosity that Ellis says you possess. Where is it? – under your pillow?"

Lieut. Osborne made a move as if to reach under the pillow. The patient made no motion to object; he maintained a passiveness of manner which the inspecting officer accepted as an admission as to the whereabouts of the article of interest. The next moment the box was produced from its "hiding place," for Irving and the lieutenant were certain that when Tourtelle put it under the pillow his purpose was primarily to conceal it from inquisitive eyes.

The officer opened the box and poured the contents out on a paper lying on the floor. Then he picked out the "cubist parchment" and gazed at it with deep interest.

"By the way, Lieut. Tourtelle," he said after an inspection lasting a minute or two, "would you mind telling me what these dots and dashes mean in this work of art? They look to me like letters of the Morse telegraph code."

As he spoke he looked sharply at the soldier on the cot, whose face in an instant became an interesting study of struggling effort to appear calm and curious and only superficially concerned. Irving realized, however, that Lieut. Osborne was getting down to business without any preliminary foolishness.

CHAPTER XIII
TOURTELLE ADMITS

"Nonsense," replied Tourtelle, with remarkable calmness, after what must have been a desperate effort at self-control. "Nothing of the kind. I drew the original picture and I don't know the first thing about telegraphy."

"But it's here," Lieut. Osborne insisted. "I've had a course in wireless and can read the code like a book. Let me read some of it to you-'h-e-f-c-k-a-w-r-t-m-c-a-a-b-l'-and so on, all around every one of these cubes."

"Is that so?" exclaimed the patient, rising slightly on his remaining elbow, but falling back. "Let me see it. I never noticed that. Bickett must have put one over on me if you're right. Bickett was the student who tattooed the picture on my arm."

"Where was that tattooing done?" asked Lieut. Osborne.

"In our room in Montreal," replied Tourtelle, without hesitation. "He and I roomed together and attended art school."

"You're sure it wasn't in a laboratory of a hospital in Toronto?" was the inquisitor's next query.

This was too much for the bedridden "second looie." He opened his mouth as if to speak, but his jaw dropped and remained in its lowered position half a minute as if paralyzed. At last, however, he managed to find his voice again, but it came with a succession of stammers.

"Wh-wh-why," he said, with a brave enough effort to transform confusion into astonishment. "Wh-wh-what do you mean? I-I don't understand you. You talk like a sphinx. I hope you're not questioning my word. I can't understand what your motive can be. But maybe you're making sport of me. If I told you that I was born in-in New Brunswick, would you try to make out it was in Saskatchewan?"

"Not unless the fellow who was seized out in the hall and dragged into the laboratory should appear suddenly and contradict your statement," the investigating officer answered. "By the way, did you know the hospital was raided by government agents a few days after the tattooing operation?"

By this time, Tourtelle, who must have realized the gravity of the situation, had summoned all the nerve needed to provide him with a bold front to meet the emergency. He just sat and stared blankly at his visitors.

"Why don't you answer?" Lieut. Osborne demanded.

"Because I haven't the faintest idea what you're driving at," Tourtelle replied, with well assumed mystification. "But I'm sure of one thing, or rather one of two things, and that is that either somebody has put you on a very bum steer, or you have got things very badly twisted. You'll have to straighten matters out some way or else stop this line of questioning, for I don't know how to answer you except by denying absolutely more than half you say."

"Now, see here, Tourtelle," returned the visiting officer severely; "this camouflage of yours has gone far enough. I came here to get from you an admission of the main truth and some additional information. I already have all the proof needed to convict you of being a spy. Unless you do what I ask you to do, undoubtedly you will be courtmartialed and shot. Now, the question is, do you want to save yourself from such a fate?"

"That is a grave accusation," Tourtelle answered icily. "At any rate, I'll listen to the evidence you have against me. Suppose you tell me what it is."

"It's right here in this," Lieut. Osborne replied, unhesitatingly, holding up the section of skin containing the tattooed outlines of strange art. "You have here a message of secret information for someone on the other side of the Rhine. I want to know whom it is for and the substance of the message."

"But how do you figure that I could get it into the hands for whom it is intended, admitting for the sake of argument that you are correct in your inference?" the soldier on the bed inquired.

"By surrendering to our enemy at the first opportunity," was the answer. "That's what you tried to do out in No Man's Land the night you were wounded."

This was a new startler for the wounded spy, as was evident from the expression on his countenance. After a few moments of undoubtedly painful meditation, he continued:

"Again, just for the sake of argument, how could I be certain that you would keep your word after promising to save my life if I acted according to your instruction?"

"All you have is my word for it and your own common sense. If you give us some valuable information that could not have been obtained otherwise, it stands to reason-doesn't it? – that we'd forget that you'd been a spy, particularly so if the value of your information was greater than your menace as a spy."

"All right, I'll admit I'm a spy," said Tourtelle, a little doggedly; "but I'm not going to tell you anything until I have more authoritative assurance that I'll not be courtmartialed."

"I don't mean to assure you that you won't be courtmartialed," Lieut. Osborne answered, hastily. "I mean that I will intercede for you. Moreover, there is no evidence that can be produced against you except through Private Ellis and me. We have the information, and will either produce it or keep it under cover as we see fit."

"But suppose I really have no information of great value; suppose I'm merely a bearer of a cipher message, which I can't read and don't even know the person to whom it is addressed-what then?"

"I don't ask anything impossible," the inquisitor replied. "All I want is a straight-forward story from you, with all details. If you keep anything back or lie to me, I'm very likely to find it out, and then you'll fare worse than if you refused point blank to enter into an agreement with me."

"All right," said Tourtelle, "I suppose I may as well give in, for you seem to have some real information, although I can't understand where or how you got it. Anyway, here's my story:

CHAPTER XIV
TOURTELLE'S STORY

"I must first tell you who I am," Lieut. Tourtelle began, after some moments' deliberation. Ordinarily his countenance was almost expressionless, for he belonged to a certain type of pulseless-souled humanity that talks little with the face, except through that orifice where the tongue wig-wags the signals of the mind. But on this occasion, he looked not only serious, but seriously concerned over his predicament. Before he got farther with his introduction, however, Lieut. Osborne interrupted him with this warning:

"I want to urge you, Tourtelle, to be very careful to tell the truth and the whole truth, because you are surely going to get yourself into trouble if you don't. We know a good deal more than I have told you, and I promise you that I have some information on which I can catch you if you tell me any lies."

"You needn't be afraid of my lying to you," the spy returned quickly; "for, to tell the truth, I'm sick of this whole business. I wish I'd never got into it, and if I succeed in getting out with a whole skin, I'll admit I'm glad you caught me.

"I've done a whole lot of thinking since I agreed to put this thing over or try to put it over. There's a lot of difference between sitting still and dreaming how you love your father's fatherland before he emigrated, and plotting in the midst of your fellow countrymen to help a lot of tyrants whom you've never seen on the other side o' the world. I didn't think of that until I got up to my neck in this business and found it almost impossible to get out.

"You see, my father was an Austrian, and my mother was from Alsace-Lorraine. Both of them died when I was five or six years old and I was adopted by a brother of my father, also an Austrian, of course. By the way, my name is not Tourtelle and never was. That was just a bit of camouflage, so that I might pass as being of French descent. My real name is Hessenburg. My uncle was most bitterly anti-British in this war, and is yet. He was a man of considerable means and position in the business world, was a member of the board of directors of that hospital in Toronto where my arm was tattooed. Yes, that hospital was a hotbed of spies, and I'm glad they raided it.

"I wasn't taken into the confidence of the high-ups in the spy organization in Canada, but I know it was a big one. I suppose they thought I was too young to be trusted with any more information than was necessary to make me useful. And for that reason, you see, they did not translate to me the message that was tattooed on my arm, and they didn't give me the key to work out the cipher. Besides, I'm no telegrapher. You'll understand, therefore, that they didn't pick much of an expert to carry their message."

"Didn't you know that there were telegraphic characters in that picture on your arm?" asked Lieut. Osborne.

"Yes, or rather I suspected it pretty strongly," was the reply.

"And you don't know what the message is?"

"No, I don't."

"Haven't you any idea?"

"Well, yes, I have an idea, but it's pretty vague. I overheard a little of a conversation not intended for my ears, and from that I got the notion, or perhaps it's only a suspicion, that the message contains the British naval or aeronautical wireless code."

"At any rate, it's of great importance," suggested Lieut. Osborne.

"Oh, there's no doubt about that," Tourtelle, or Hessenburg, assured.

"Are you an artist?" was the inquisitor's next question.

"Yes, I am; that is, I was an art student, and the story I told Ellis about making a hit with a cubist painting is true. That's what started the scheme of tattooing a picture message on my arm."

"Who suggested it?"

"One of the fellows who did the work. He was something of an artist as well as a chemist.

"The fellow with whiskers?"

"Yes," replied the spy. "I see you have had a pretty thorough report of that affair."

"We have. Did you know that the boy who was seized in the hall and dragged into the laboratory left with the pen-and-ink sketch of your painting crumpled up in his hand?"

"No. Is that what became of it? One of the men suggested that he must have stolen it, but I didn't think he was right."

"Did you know they put detectives on his track?"

"No. Did they?"

"That's what they did. And that is probably the reason why the hospital was raided a few days later. If they hadn't followed him, the boy probably would have passed the matter up and dismissed it from his mind. But he became restlessly curious and reported the affair to the police."

"Hm!" Tourtelle grunted at this elucidation.

"Do you mean for me to understand that you have no idea whom this message is for?" asked Lieut. Osborne, indicating the section of skin illuminated with cubist art.

"That's exactly what I mean," the cubist spy replied.

"But what were you supposed to do after you got over into Germany?"

"Seek out an army officer and tell him my story. Any officer, I was told, would know at once what to do with me."

"Do you speak German?"

"Not much, nor Austrian, either. I studied German at school and learned enough to be able to make myself understood on the other side of the Rhine."

"Come on, Ellis," said Lieut. Osborne, rising suddenly. "We've got all we want now. I'll report to the colonel and probably in a day or two Tourtelle will hear from us again. I'm going to take this cubist souvenir with me."

In the course of the conversation he had repacked the section of tattooed skin in the salt, and as he arose to leave he put the box in one of his overcoat pockets. Irving followed him out of the building, and soon they were speeding back over the road by which they had reached the field hospital.