“Who took him to the doctor’s?”

“It was a couple, the doctor said, who explained that they had found Dean lying in the road under his wrecked motorcycle.  The doctor could not remember what the couple looked like.  Said he had been too busy looking after the injured man.  I did worm out of him, though, that the man had left two hundred dollars with him to take care of Dean.”

“That’s funny,” said the chief.

“It sure is,” said Carter.  “Looks like hush money to me.  What does the girl say?”

“Nothing yet,” said Fleck.  “She wouldn’t talk at all last night, but she’s coming here at ten.”

“That’s funny,” said Carter.  “Why wouldn’t she talk?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Fleck decisively, “but I am going to find out.  Do you really suppose that she has fallen in love with young Hoff?”

Carter shook his head.

“Dean thought so, and I know that Dean was in love with her himself, but I don’t know.  I’d bank on that girl somehow, even if she is in love.”

“There she comes now,” said the chief as he heard the door of the outer office open.

As Jane entered she faced the two men almost defiantly.  She too had had a sleepless night.  Although she herself had been physically uninjured in the accident the shock to her nerves had left her unstrung, and besides she had been bothering all through the dark hours as to how much of what had happened in the last few hours it was her duty to tell to Chief Fleck.

As her personal relations with Frederic Hoff and her feelings toward him had in no way affected her sense of duty she felt that it was unnecessary for her to report the declaration of love he had made to her.  Surely an affair that involved only the heart was her own property so long as she faithfully reported anything and everything that might lead to the exposure of the Hoffs’ plots.  She could not see that it was any of Chief Fleck’s business, nor her country’s either, if Frederic Hoff had fallen in love with her.  At any rate it would be utterly impossible for her to make any statement about her own feelings toward him.  Even in her own heart and mind she was not quite sure what they were.  From the first his forceful personality had had great charm for her.  His obvious interest in her she had found delightful and flattering.  When she recalled how gallantly he had insisted on remaining to rescue Dean and herself, even before he knew her identity, she was filled with admiration for him.  Yet always matched against all that she found lovable in him was the knowledge that he was a German, a traitor, a spy, perhaps a murderer, and at times she felt that she hated him with a hatred that never could be overcome.

“Well,” said Fleck, studying her countenance, “what have you to tell us?”

“How is Dean?” she asked.  “Will he live?”

Fleck and Carter exchanged glances.  Was she, they wondered, really concerned in the handsome young chauffeur’s welfare, or had she merely put the question to gain time in framing what she was going to say?