“Wouldn’t I shoot them all on sight, gladly, the damned spies,” he responded.  “That’s the great trouble with this country, Miss Strong.  We’re too soft-hearted and chivalrous.  The Germans realize that war and sentiment have no place together.  If killing babies and destroying churches will in their opinion help them win the war they do it without compunction.  The civilized world decided that poison gas was too brutal and dastardly for use, even against an enemy, but that didn’t stop the Huns from using it.  They put duty to Germany above all else, and if their country expects it are ready to rob, murder, use bombs, betray friends, do anything and everything, comforted by the knowledge that even if we do catch them at it here in this country all we will do to them will be put them in jail for a year or two.  If I had my way I’d shoot them all on sight.”

“Without any evidence—­without trying them?” questioned Jane.

“Without trial, yes—­without evidence, no; but in the case of these Hoffs we have evidence enough to stand them both up and shoot them.”

“Have you learned more?” she asked quickly.  “Is Frederic, too, involved with his uncle?”

He shot an appraising glance at her.  He had been inclined to regard Dean’s suspicion that she was in love with the younger Hoff as the mere figment of jealousy, but where two young persons of the opposite sex are thrown together, there is always the possibility of romance.  Jane colored a little under his searching glance, yet what he read in her face seemed to satisfy his doubts, and he made up his mind to take her fully into his confidence.

“Thanks to your quick wit in reading those advertisements,” he said, “we have now a fairly complete index of the Hoffs’ activities in the last six months.  I have been spending the last two hours in going over all the Dento advertisements that have appeared.  For weeks they have been sending out a regular series of bulletins.”

“Bulletins about what?” asked Jane.

“About everything of interest to the secret enemies of our country:  explanations of where and how to get false passports, detailed statements of the sailings of our transports, directions for obtaining materials for making bombs, instructions for blowing up munition plants, suggestions for smuggling rubber, orders for fomenting strikes.  They even had the nerve to use the name of William Foxley, signed to a testimonial for Dento.”

“Who is William Foxley?” asked Jane curiously.

“In the Wilhelmstrasse code that was in use when Von Bernstorff was still in this country; in sending their wireless messages they made frequent use of proper names which had a code meaning.  Boy-ed was ‘Richard Houston,’ Von Papen was ‘Thomas Hoggson’ and Bolo Pascha was always mentioned as ‘St. Regis,’ In this same code ‘William Foxley’ always meant the German Foreign Office.”

“But surely you did not learn this from the advertisements?”