They were seeing plenty to keep them interested, the arrival of sleeping-car trains bringing the wounded to the capital, the movement of troops bound for the Polish or Galician front, the daily sights of the Ring and the Kartnerstrasse. Roque, as usual, was up to his eyes in war business, ever behind the scenes but ever moving, for there is close military coöperation between Germany and Austria-Hungary. All interests related to the war have been pooled--one empire gives to the other what can be spared. The king-pin of secret agents from Berlin served a purpose wherever he went. He sat in no open councils, but privately conducted many of his own, was constantly receiving and dispatching messages, and the devices he originated to aid his disguised subordinates burrowing for information in hostile territory were too numerous for detail. These latter operations were not accompanied by band music, for officially this live wire had no identity. "If that man took a pot shot at the ocean you would never know in what direction he was aiming unless you happened to see the splash." Billy was not far from being right in the summing up of Roque's methods. Within the next hour the boys "happened to see the splash." A uniformed messenger handed Roque a telegram. The secret agent hastily read it, and sprang to his feet, his eyes aglow with triumphant satisfaction. "I've got Mr. Ardelle in a stone box at last!" CHAPTER VII. THE RAIN OF BOMBS. THE boys in silence watched the secret agent as he further displayed his gratification over the news conveyed in the telegram by snapping his fingers and slapping his knees, completing the performance by vigorous puffing of a big black cigar, of which brand he always carried a plentiful supply. Billy and Henri were just aching to learn more about the reported capture of Anglin (Ardelle), just where the "stone box" that held him was located, and how the "smiling sleuth" had happened to run into a net that he could not break through. But they were well aware that it would not be a bit of use to seek the eagerly desired information in advance of Roque's disposition to give it, and they did not dare openly to show personal interest in the matter. It was not until the master plotter had burned his cigar to inch measure that he thought to address the lads, fixing expectant gaze upon him. "They jugged the fox in Alsace, on the way to his home den, and filled up, I suppose, with some choice morsels to regale the enemy." "Maybe it's another case of 'now you see him and now you don't.'" It was Henri who plucked up courage to say this. "Not this time," insisted Roque. "He is tightly in the toils, and never a chance to show his cunning. His course is run." It soon became evident that the speaker proposed to be "in at the death," as fox chasers call the finish. In less than two hours Vienna, the city gay and unafraid, was behind the three travelers, and their next goal the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine.