As it happened, all three were wrong, for a moment later, after he had asked them to be seated, Captain Bedell touched a bell on his desk.  An orderly answered and he was told: 

“These are the young gentlemen.”

“Does that mean we are to get our permits?” asked Joe eagerly.

“I am sorry to say it does not,” was the grave answer.  “I am also sorry to inform you that you are in custody.”

“In custody!” cried the three at once.  And Blake a moment later added: 

“On what grounds?”

“That I am not at liberty to tell you, exactly,” the officer replied.  “You are arrested under the Defense of the Realm Act, and the charges will be made known to you in due course of time.”

“Arrested!” cried Joe.  “Are we really arrested?”

“Not as civil but as military prisoners,” went on Captain Bedell.  “There is quite a difference, I assure you.  I am sorry, but I have to do my duty.  Orderly, take the prisoners away.  You may send for counsel, of course,” he added.

“We don’t know a soul here, except some moving picture people to whom we have letters of introduction,” Blake said despondently.

“Well, communicate with some of them,” advised the captain.  “They will be able to recommend a solicitor.  Not that it will do you much good, for you will have to remain in custody for some time, anyhow.”

“Are we suspected of being spies?” asked Joe, determined to hazard that question.

Captain Bedell smiled for the first time since the boys had entered his office.  It was a rather grim contortion of the face, but it could be construed into a smile.

“I am not at liberty to tell you,” he said.  “Orderly, take the prisoners away, and give them the best of care, commensurate, of course, with safe-keeping.”

CHAPTER XV

THE FRONT AT LAST

Well, wouldn’t this get your——­”

“Billiard table!” finished Joe for his chum Blake, who seemed at a loss for a word.

“Why billiard table?” asked Blake.

“Because they’ve sort of put the English on us!” And Joe laughed at his joke—­if it could be called that.

“Huh!” grunted Blake, “I’m glad you feel so about it.  But this is fierce!  That’s what I call it—­fierce!”

“Worse than that!” murmured Charlie.  “And the worst of it is they won’t give us a hint what it’s all about.”

“There is a good deal of mystery about it,” chimed in Joe.

“All but about the fact that we’re in a jail, or the next thing to it,” added Blake, with a look about the place where he and his chums had been taken from the office of Captain Bedell.

They were actually in custody, and while there were no bars to the doors of their prison, which were of plain, but heavy, English oak, there were bars to the windows.  Aside from that, they might be in some rather ordinary hotel suite, for there were three connecting rooms and what passed for a bath, though this seemed to have been added after the place was built.