Tells of certain perplexities which confronted me; also of how I journeyed into Switzerland and of how I first chanced to see the Gray Meteor. The foregoing chapters which embody the story of Slade’s career, were, as I have said before, intended for the perusal of Roy Blakeley alone. They form, as you will have seen, a sort of story within a story. What went before, and what I am now about to write, would never have been written (much less published) save for the startling discoveries which I have recently made. As I feel now, I should like not only Roy Blakeley, but the whole world, to know the full truth of this strange business.
You will have noticed, no doubt, that in my somewhat rambling story of Slade’s career I refrained from mentioning the shocking revelations that were contained in the papers which I found in the Scuppers. To me (who did not know him), the death of the brave airman was not so much of a shock, but that he should have sold himself and his undoubted talents to the enemy while all the while keeping up the appearance of loyal service to the United States, was appalling—almost unbelievable. When and how, in those latter days of his brave career, he had played into their blood-guilty hands, I could not conjecture. But that is the wily genius of spies and traitors.
I tried to make allowance for him on the supposition that his mind had been polluted, his vision knocked askew, away back home by the disloyal German by whom he had been employed. I told myself that though he was brave, he was yet ignorant and weak, perhaps.
They had sent him into the enemy country partly because he had, in some measure, the German type of countenance and spoke German passably. Was there some obscure vein of German running in him, I asked myself. That might explain, though it would not excuse. He had spoken in blunt praise of his German captors and had come near to being court-martialled for it. Was that just common fairness to certain Germans in a particular instance? Or did it show the bent of his mind? It almost made me sick to think about it. And I felt guilty to be perpetuating his reckless courage for the benefit of the boy who had believed in him and still revered his memory.
It is enough for me to say now that I shall write the balance of this story with a clearer conscience.
Perhaps you will say that I should have come to believe in him when I learned of his brave, heroic acts. But I beg you to remember the watch, with T. S. engraved on the back of it, and the wallet packed full of treason which was connected with it by a heavy lock-link chain. You remember that? You remember that the watch was made in America? You remember that in that wallet was the photograph of a Bridgeboro girl? Bridgeboro, only a small place too, where he had lived and where I lived, and where Roy lived. You remember the part of that girl’s letter on the back of which was written a traitorous memorandum? Here it is now—I copy it:
... looked about it seemed as if everyone in Bridgeboro was there. And of course the Boy Scouts and that excruciating imp of a Blakeley boy were on hand—Ruth’s brother, you know. Oh, by the way, who do you suppose is in the old place on Terrace Ave? Guess. The Red Cross ladies, and I’m working with
Heaven knows how many times in my mind I afterward tried to wrench that chain asunder and separate that name from the mementoes of treachery and crime, just as I had actually tried in my amazement and bewilderment as I sat in that little dank cave away up in the Scuppers where he had fallen.
But in the end of it this was the sad conclusion that I reached—that brave and heroic exploits may be colored and exaggerated by those who tell them, but that records kept in secret do not lie. And if I did not picture the adventurous young American as a patriot in those gathered reminiscences of his career, it was because I could not, for the haunting thought of some unknown, dark activities of his were always in my mind, a stalking spectre. Yet not a hint did I give to Archer even, much less to Roy, of what I had found out.
But there were one or two things which often puzzled me in the writing of those chapters for Roy and I will mention these now. One was that Archer told me Slade had no use for girls and never received letters from them. Yet here was a very friendly, companionable letter, or part of one, at least. Perhaps that is of no importance.
But this Bridgeboro girl had said in her letter that that extraordinary imp of a Blakeley boy was on hand—Ruth’s brother. Did not Tom Slade know that Roy was Ruth Blakeley’s brother, without her saying that? Could she have supposed that he did not know who Roy was?
I thought about it a good deal and I did not cease to think of it until a certain trouble of my own intervened and put all thoughts of Tom Slade out of my mind for the time. This was the very troublesome cough I had contracted as a result of being gassed. I could not seem to get the gas out of my lungs, and it was becoming a matter of concern to me. I have seen young fellows, recovered from the immediate, acute effects of gassing, go to the wall with consumption. So when the doctors in Paris told me that a change of air would be my best physician I lost no time in seeking the mountains of Switzerland. I may mention, if you care to know it, that I am now quite recovered and that with returning strength there came to me a great light which brought me happiness and peace of mind.
Of this I must now tell you.
The little hamlet of St. Craix is about thirty miles south of Basel in a jumble of mountains which anywhere else but in Switzerland would require a couple of hundred square miles to stand in. Solothurn is the nearest place of any size but not exactly near enough to be neighborly, and the great Ramieux Mountain rears its mighty bulk to the north. Some twenty odd miles to the west is France, but I should say it would be a couple of hundred million miles, more or less, if you went over the mountains. From Ramieux Mountain I think you could slide down to Vetroz, get lunch, and then slide on down a............