CHAPTER THREE SUSPECTS
In the busy days that followed, Nancy, with the other girls of her unit, was plunged into the intensive work of preparing for service in the fighting zones. Fully alert to the importance of these instructions, Nancy worked even harder than she had during her nurse’s training. Here they must put the lectures and discussions into practice at once.
The day after her arrival there were lectures on military courtesy and customs of the service. They were told how to wear their uniforms, and how to recognize the various insignia of office.
In their room afterwards Nancy and Mabel had lots of fun practicing the military salute.
“You’ve got to learn to do it automatically,” said Mabel. “Your fingers should go to your forehead when you see a superior officer as instinctively as your foot goes to the car brake in an emergency.”
“And I suppose it will prove to be ‘a restriction’ emergency if you don’t,” Nancy came back with a laugh.
For the next day or two they saluted every time they passed each other in their room and had some good laughs over their actions.
“Tini Hoffman says she hates to salute,” Mabel confided. “She says it makes her feel inferior.”
“If Tini isn’t careful she’s going to get kicked out of this training camp,” Nancy said. “I don’t like her attitude one bit.”
“Neither do the instructors. But she’s got an uncle who’s a colonel or something—anyhow he’s one of the bigwigs in the training program.”
“I don’t imagine that will have any influence if she doesn’t make the grade,” Nancy replied. “I’d hate to think of the kind of army we’d have if it did.”
“You may be right,” Mabel conceded. “But what’s more, I don’t even like her name. It’s much too German.”
“I think we ought to be careful about things like that,” warned Nancy. “There’re plenty of good, loyal Americans, you know, with foreign-sounding names.”
“Yes, of course. But when a foreign name goes along with a rebellious attitude it makes you wonder.”
Something happened a week later to make the two girls think more seriously than ever of Tini Hoffman and her strange conduct. After their eight hours of work, the nurses were free to seek recreation, go into the village on shopping tours or to movies. And they were usually ready for a change when their day’s work was over.
One evening Nancy and Mabel had stopped in a drugstore for a soda after going to the movies, and they came unexpectedly upon Tini. The drugstore they had entered was very narrow in the rear, with little, private booths down each wall and an aisle in between for serving. The girls slipped into one of the booths to have their soda and chat about the picture. Couples filled all the other seats and crowded around the tables in front. Most of them were men and women in uniform.
“We’re lucky to get seats,” said Mabel.
While waiting for their order to be filled, Nancy said, “Oh, I meant to get some cleansing tissues.”
“I’ll get ’em for you,” offered Mabel. “I promised to pick up a package here for Miss Hauser. She phoned her order over.”
While Mabel was at the drug counter Nancy sat idly gazing around at the chatting groups. Then suddenly she noticed Tini Hoffman directly across the aisle. Tini was so busy talking to a man in civilian clothes that she hadn’t noticed her dormitory mates. She sat with her elbows on the table, her hands folded under her dimpled chin, while her blond countenance beamed on her companion. Nancy felt sure Tini’s hair was bleached, and wondered what it would look like after several months in the Pacific islands. It was too golden-blond to be natural. It proved amusing to find Tini so pleased with her situation for once.
So fascinated was Nancy in watching Tini that Mabel was returning before she gave the gentleman opposite Tini a fleeting glance. Then suddenly her eyes became fixed. Where had she seen that lean profile before? She tried to hold herself under control as her mind tied up the loose ends of memory. The longer she stared, the more positive she became that the horn-rimmed glasses and small mustache belonged to the same man who had sat beside the blond corporal the day she left her home town. Though she had had only a hasty glance as she went down the aisle of the train those faces had become indelibly impressed upon her mind.
As Mabel came nearer, Nancy saw Tini’s companion watching covertly. She couldn’t blame any man for being attracted by Mabel, for she was really worth looking at in her trimly fitting uniform with her cap sitting jauntily on her golden curls. But the man’s heavy-lidded glance had little admiration in it, only a sort of cynical calculation.
Nancy felt she must know if he was really the blond corporal’s train mate. Impulsively she said as Mabel handed her the package she had bought, “Danke schoen.”
She deliberately used the German word for “thank you,” and spoke loud enough to be heard across the aisle.
Her trick brought the expected result, for the man turned sharply toward her. Mabel glided into the seat opposite and glanced at her with a puzzled frown. When it was too late for regrets, Nancy felt the hot blood welling to her face. Others may have heard her, too, and what would they think?
Nancy Discovered Tini Across the Aisle
There was even a chance that the man might recognize her as the same girl who had sat in front of them on the train, even though she had worn a green suit then and was now clad in olive drab.
“At least,” she thought ruefully, “I could swear he’s the same man. But what’s he doing here with Tini Hoffman?”
Mabel had to speak to her twice before she heeded.
“They make grand sodas here, don’t they?”
“Sure do!” Nancy stuck a couple of straws in hers so hard they bent double.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mabel under her breath.
Nancy glanced warily at the couple across the aisle, nudged Mabel with her foot, and laid her finger cautiously on her lips before she placed the fresh straws in her glass.
Mabel wisely changed the subject, and remarked, “Cleansing tissues are sure hard to get now. Guess we’ll have to get all ours hereafter at the P.X.”
“We’ll need plenty to take across—if we get to go over.”
“Yeah, my friend Lydia, in North Africa, wrote me we’d better take along plenty of stuff like that.”
Suddenly Nancy was impatient to be through with their sodas and out of the drugstore. She meant to take no chances on suspects this time, but report what she had seen to Captain Lewis. She finished her soda in a hurry and reached to the back of the table for her purse.
“Let’s get going,” she suggested.
“Not till I finish the last spoonful of this ice cream,” Mabel said firmly. “I’d think about it regretfully every time I’m marooned somewhere on a desert over there.”
“Then I’ll go ahead and be paying.”
“What’s all the hurry?” Mabel wanted to know, an edge in her tone.
Out of the corner of her eye Nancy saw that the sleek gentleman across the aisle was watching them. Then she noticed that Tini’s attention had wandered sufficiently from her companion to recognize them.
“Hiya!” she said with a proud toss of her head, which plainly showed her personal triumph over their dateless condition.
Nancy returned the greeting and led the way out. When they were on the street, Mabel slipped her arm through Nancy’s and inquired, “What’s wrong? You acted as though you were sitting on nettles.”
“Nettles would have been mild to the prickles I felt.”
“What do you mean?”
“That man with Tini looked exactly like the one who was with the blond corporal I told you about on the train.”
“Oh! So that’s why you thanked me in German?”
“Of course. I wanted to see if I could get a reaction out of him.”
“And did you?”
“I’ll say. He shot a glance at me as if I’d poked him in the ribs.”
Mabel grunted. “Don’t see where that proves anything. Anybody using German words in these times should surely make people sit up and take notice.”
“But I could swear he’s the same, Mabel. Dark-rimmed glasses, small mustache, lean face, and a very immaculate, tailored look about his clothes.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Go straight to Captain Lewis. I’m taking no chances again, even if it gets Tini into trouble.”
“She may be working with him.”
“She’s certainly acted in a way to make us suspicious,” agreed Nancy.
“Oh, she’s always acted like that—behind the backs of those over her. I never paid much attention to that. She’s an only child, very spoiled. Her parents have oodles of money.”
“Then she didn’t have to take nurse’s training—for a way to make a living.”
Mabel laughed significantly again. “At the time she went in she was in love with one of the hospital internes. It gave her a chance to be with him more.”
“Evidently she didn’t get him.”
“She sure didn’t. Soon after he got settled with his practice, he married a real sweet girl. By that time Tini was so nearly through her training she couldn’t quit without causing lots of talk.”
“Strange for her to take on the hardships of the Army Nurse Corps.”
“She wanted to get away from home and the catty people who enjoyed her being jilted.”
“Too bad to have such an experience so young,” said Nancy, suddenly feeling sorry for Tini.
“She surely was thrilled at having that new fellow tonight.”
They were moving into the throng at the bus stop now, and fell silent, for they had been warned about too much talk within the hearing of others.
“Spies can find meaning in your most innocent remarks,” Major Reed had warned them.
They couldn’t find seats together anyhow, so the girls rode in silence back to the camp. Quite a number of other nurses were coming back to the camp on the same bus, but Nancy was glad not to sit with any of them, for she wanted to think about what she would say to Captain Lewis.
When she went straight on to their room with Mabel, her friend said, “Thought you were going to report what you saw to Cap’n Lewis.”
“I didn’t want any of the others to see me going to her,” explained Nancy. “I’ll wait a few minutes till they’re all in their rooms. This thing is best kept under lid.”
“Sure. I agree with you.”
“Tini’s made enough enemies without adding suspicion to her troubles.”
When the halls were empty Nancy slipped downstairs. Miss Lewis’s bedroom was next to her office, but to her consternation she found all the lights out. She hesitated to wake her, yet didn’t want to wait till morning to make her revelations.
Over and over again she had been haunted by the idea that the train wreck might have been averted if those German-speaking passengers had been apprehended in time. Yet she still couldn’t see what she might have done about it. But this time she did know what to do, and she meant to do it.
She was still hesitating in the hall when she noticed a light in an office farther down, and heard men talking. Suddenly she recognized Major Reed’s hearty laughter. The hours they had worked together that night at the wreck had made him seem so human and likeable to Nancy, that their difference in station could never again be a barrier to understanding.
Eagerly she hurried toward his office. The door stood open. She paused in the doorway till her eyes came to rest on the major among the group of men.
“May I speak to you, Major Reed?” she asked. He glanced at her, surprised, then asked, “Anything wrong, Miss Dale?”
He crushed his cigarette into an ash tray before he moved toward the door.
“I meant to talk to Captain Lewis, but her lights were out,” Nancy explained, as she backed into the hall, indicating that their conversation must be private. “I must speak to someone.”
“Yes,” he said when they were outside and the door was closed. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I just saw the man who was with the corporal that day on the train.”
“Where?”
“In a drugstore in the village. I don’t want him to get away as the blond man did.”
“The blond didn’t!” stated Major Reed with a chuckle. “The FBI now have him in their possession.”
“Not really!” exclaimed Nancy, her face lighting.
“Yes. It will be some time before he’s in circulation again, if ever. But this other—where’d you say you saw him?”
Nancy gave a hurried report of her encounter with the suspect and Tini in the drugstore. While she talked the major stroked his chin and stared at the floor.
“Uh-huh. I see. You say he was dating Miss Hoffman?”
“I haven’t any idea where she met him, of course.”
Major Reed glanced at his watch. “You came in on the last bus?” he asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“Did Tini Hoffman come with you?”
“I don’t think so. In fact, I’m sure. The bunch of us came up from the bus stop together.”
“Then she’ll have to come on the next bus, or be late checking in.” He was silent a moment, then spoke again as if thinking aloud. “He would already have put her on the camp bus before anyone could make it to town in a car to follow him.”
Nancy admitted this was true. It seemed too late to put anyone on his trail tonight. “Tini will probably be dating him again,” she said. “She seemed tickled pink with him.”
Major Reed dug his hands deep in his pockets and admitted, “Yes, that seems the surest chance. But I can’t ask you to act as a spy against one of your fellow students.”
“Nor do I want any such position,” stated Nancy frankly, “but where the welfare of our unit or our country is involved, Major Reed, I fear we have no choice.”
He looked her squarely in the eyes then with frank admiration.
“You have a wise head on your shoulders, Miss Dale. If anything else comes up let me know.”
They heard the last busload of girls out front long after Mabel and Nancy were already in bed. It was so much later than Nancy expected. Major Reed might after all have reached the bus station in time to see their suspect put Tini aboard. She wondered what he had done about it.
