“Watch that young Hoff,” he whispered to Carter.  “I can’t understand his giving up so easily.  It may be only a ruse on his part.”

“Perhaps he’s afraid the girl will be hurt,” whispered Carter, but Fleck was not there to hear him, having dashed forward to where old Otto was still fighting desperately.

Somehow in the melee the old man had again got hold of a revolver, and just as Fleck seized him he fired again.  The bullet, aimed at Fleck, left him unharmed, but found a mark in Thomas Dean, who with a little gurgling cry, fell forward at Jane’s feet.  Carter turned at once to guard the prisoners, as Fleck, with a cry of rage, felled old Hoff to the floor, harmless for the present at least.

Sending one of his men to the other rooms in search of lamps Fleck soon had all the prisoners safely shackled, both hand and foot, none of them offering any resistance.  Investigation showed that old Hoff in falling had struck his head in such a way that his neck was broken, killing him instantly.  The three who had been clubbed were not seriously injured, and as soon as they revived were shackled as the others had been.

Jane, seeing Dean collapse, had turned to aid him and for some time had been bending over him, trying to revive him.  He had opened his eyes, looked up into her face and had tried to say something, and then had collapsed, dying right before her eyes.

“Take the Hoffs’ car outside,” Fleck directed some of his men, “and bring up our two cars at once.  Carter and I’ll guard the prisoners until you get back.  There’s a county jail only a few miles away.  The sooner we get them there the better it will be.  It won’t take any court long to settle their fate.  They got Dean, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” said Jane, getting up unsteadily from the floor, “I think he’s dead.”

Fleck bent to examine the body of his aide, feeling for the pulse.

“Too bad,” he murmured.  “That last bullet of old Hoff’s got him, but he died in a good cause.”

Jane, brushing away the tears that came welling unbidden into her eyes, turned now for the first time since his surrender to look at Frederic.

She had expected as she looked at him lying there shackled on the floor to read in his expression humiliation at his plight, grief at the failure of his effort to aid Germany, possibly reproach for her in having aided in entrapping him.  To her amazement there was nothing of this in his face.

As he lay there on the floor he was observing her with a tender look of love, and in his eyes what was still more puzzling was an unmistakable expression of triumph and happiness.

CHAPTER XVII

SOMETHING UNEXPECTED

Bewildered by the rapidity with which such a succession of terrifying events had taken place, Jane sank dazedly into a chair, trying her best to collect her thoughts, as she looked about on the recent scene of battle.  All of the German plotters had been overcome and captured.  There, dead on the floor, lay the arch conspirator, old Otto Hoff, his clammy face still twisted into a savage expression of malignant, defiant hate.