“That’s not likely. She’s an English girl—from Liverpool. She has three brothers fighting on the Allies’ side. We can leave her out of it.” “Who else could have taken it?” “There’s only one answer,” said Carter slowly and impressively. “Some one went into that store between the time you copied the message and the time I met you at the drug-store. You told me no one but a couple of girls had entered. Was there any one else? Think—think!” “There was no one,” said Jane thoughtfully, “no one except the two girls together. I never thought of suspecting them.” “What did they look like? Could you identify them?” “I did not notice them particularly,” Jane confessed. “I was expecting Mr. Hoff’s confederate to be a man.” “They’re using a lot of women spies,” asserted Carter. “Don’t you remember what the girls looked like?” “One of them,” said Jane thoughtfully, “wore an odd-shaped hat, a sort of a tam with a red feather.” “Would you know the hat again if you saw it?” “I think—I’m sure I would.” “Well, that’s something. Watch for that hat, and if you ever see it again trail the girl till you find out where she lives. If you locate her telephone Mr. Fleck at once. And now, what has happened to you?” “I’ve so much to tell, important, very important, I think.” She hesitated, wondering how much Carter was in the chief’s confidence. Did he know the import of the cipher message she had discovered? Ought she to talk freely to him? “Do you know what those numbers meant?” she asked. “Yes,” he replied, “about the eight transports sailing. The Chief told me about it.” “Well,” she said, with a sigh of relief, “I have become acquainted with young Mr. Hoff already. I’ve just had luncheon with him.” “That’s fine,” he cried enthusiastically. “A lucky day it was I ran across you.” “When you ’phoned me he was there in our apartment, he and a navy lieutenant, Mr. Kramer.” Attentively he listened as she told of the ruse by which she had inveigled them into coming to luncheon, reminding him that it was the same naval officer that he himself had seen in close conversation with Hoff at the Ritz the day before. He nodded his head in a satisfied way. “They are together too much to be up to any good,” he commented. “Tell me the rest. What made you so rattled when I ’phoned you?” He listened intently as she told of finding young Hoff standing right behind her as she had inadvertently mentioned aloud “the fifth book.” “Do you suppose,” she questioned anxiously, “that he overheard me and understood what we were talking about? He left right away after that. I do hope I didn’t betray the fact that they are being watched.”