The Argosy, April 1916 — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

146 moving picture play, pure and simple, as you must know, if you have any brains. You get the papers and Dart the credit of assisting you in your plan to foil the spies, provided Miss Granger is not brought into the thing. Agreed?” A light passed swiftly over Clarkin’s face. “Sure, it’s agreed,” he nodded. “Now those papers.” Dart reached into his pocket and tossed them into the man’s hands. “T haven’t looked into them,” he said, “but we'll have that opportunity when we get ashore at the fort. Now if you all are ready we'll go in.” The Secret Service men nodded and look- ing at them more closely, Lansing recog- nized Griscom. “Hello, Griscom!” he grinned. climax.” The detective nodded and smiled and then ordered his boat to the fort in the wake of the submarine. Clarkin turned and signaled to the petty officer in the navy launch to follow also, and then seating him- self on the deck greedily ripped open the packet and began to study the various doc- uments inside. “Tt’s all right, Griscom,” he finally called to the Secret Service launch. ‘“Everything’s here. We'll read them in the command- ant’s office.” Griscom, who had arrived at Newport on the General at six o’clock in the morning, and was therefore willing to allow his subordinate to clean up, nodded and smiled. “Vou keep hold of them, Clarkin. It was good work—fine.” The little flotilla of craft swept in toward the fort, a detail of submarine sailors guard- ing the captives, among whom were in- cluded, as Lansing saw, the professional ap- pearing man, whom Miss Granger had designated as Damon Beal, the film com- pany president. Besides there were a num- ber of foreign looking men, at some of whom Griscom was gazing with itching fin- gers. It appeared to him as though a round-up of practically every person who had given his department trouble in the past six months had been consummated. As the submarine approached the fort slips Captain Granger came running down to meet the newcomers. His face was white as chalk and he was gesticulating wildly. “Did you get those papers?”’ he called. ““Ves!”? Dart indicated Clarkin, who had remained in the background. ‘Some THE ARGOSY. “Thank God!” The officer stopped short, breathing, heavily, waiting for the submarine to make her landing. A plank was thrown aboard the war ves- sel by one of several soldiers loitering about the slips, and the prisoners were led ashore, each escorted by a jackie with a revolver in hand. “We'll go right up to Colonel Atwater’s office,” said Griscom, coming forward and taking charge. ‘Come on, Clarkin.” Clarkin, who had remained to see that the navy launch was made fast, nodded his head. “Ill be right along,” he said. And so the little procession, brought up in the rear by Helen Granger, clad in a heavy blue sweater of the engineers, walked up the slope toward the commandant’s offices. Atwater, the colonel of the fort, was a heavy-set, grizzled warrior, approaching sixty, who viewed the entrance of the crowdginto his office with an inquiring lift of his beetling brows. As the party grouped themselyes about the desk, the prisoners being huddled in a corner with their sailor guards, Captain Granger stepped forward. “Colonel Atwater, I have an explanation to make which I think should come first,” he began. “I—” Here his sister interposed. “No, colonel, I think I should speak.” “Let the girl speak,” Griscom said, nod- ding at the colonel, with whom he was well acquainted. The officer signified assent by turning to the girl. “Colonel,” she began, “‘in order to make up some of my mother’s losses through stock-market conditions I accepted a con- tract with a moving picture concern, the Mammoth Film Company, to appear in a play called ‘The Beautiful Spy.’ ” “Tt was well named, if you were the spy,” chuckled the old officer, who had early fallen a prey to Helen’s attractions. She blushed and went on. “The main part of the picture, that in which I was to play a principal part, re- lated to my taking plans of some sort from an officer of this fort and leaping into the water with them. My brother was an offi- cer here and I naturally asked him to assist me by handing me the papers. In fact, the play required that a real officer do it, so that everything should be realistic.” MICLOOOK C@