“There’s no real evidence against him yet,” protested Jane, “not against the young man, at least.” “Didn’t we both see him in British uniform?” “Yes,” admitted the girl. “Well, that’s proof, isn’t it? A man with a German name in British uniform in wartime can’t be up to any good.” “Still we have no actual evidence against him. We don’t know what he was doing.” “I’d arrest him then for murder and get the evidence that he is a spy afterward. It would be easy to fasten the murder of K-19 on him. There’s no doubt that he did that.” “Has a witness been found?” asked Jane with a quick catch of the breath. Somehow she never had been able to persuade herself that the man next door, whatever else he might be, had really committed that brutal murder. “No, there’s no actual witness, but it could be proved by circumstantial evidence. K-19, the man whose work you took up, had instructions to shadow young Hoff to his home. At two in the morning he relieved another operative. At three you yourself saw him shadowing Hoff.” “I saw two men on the sidewalk,” corrected Jane. “One of them was Frederic Hoff. I did not see the other distinctly enough to identify him. I saw no murder. I merely saw the two of them run around the corner.” “Look here,” said Dean sharply, not wholly succeeding in suppressing a note of jealousy in his tones, “I believe you are trying to shield Frederic Hoff. What is he to you? Has he won you over to his side?” “You’ve no right to say such things to me,” cried Jane, nevertheless coloring furiously. “I’ve seen the man only three or four times. I am working just as hard as you are to prove that he is a German spy, if he is one. I am only trying to be fair. I know nothing that convicts him of murder. Any testimony I could give would not prove a single thing.” “Certainly not, if that’s the way you feel about it,” snapped Dean. After that they rode along together in silence, each busy with thoughts of their own. Dean was cursing himself for having let his enthusiasm to be of service to his government lead him into such circumstances. He felt that his chauffeur’s position handicapped him in his relations with Jane, to whom he had been strongly attracted from the beginning. The son of a distinguished American diplomat, he had been educated for the most part in Europe. Friends of his father, when he had offered his services to the government, had convinced him that his knowledge of German and French would make him most useful in the secret service. Reluctantly he had consented to take up the work, and as he had gone further and further into it and had realized the vast machinery for surreptitious observation and dangerous activity that the German agents had secretly planted in the United States, he had become fascinated with his occupation—that is, until he met Jane Strong.