Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/303

 order over the first three sheets, and, bending, read to himself the words which remained in sight under the stencils. Ruth could not see what he read nor the brief transcript he made with pencil upon a pad. He shifted the stencils to the next three sheets, read the result again, made his transcript, and again shifted.

Adler came to the end and gazed up at Ruth. The other women whom Hauptmann von Forstner had invited to Lauengratz and who had used those apartments above evidently had been of unquestionable loyalty, for the secretary, when he gazed up at this guest of his dead master, did not challenge her. He sought information to prepare himself for the visit of Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch, not half an hour away.

"Besides these, gnädiges Fräulein," he appealed anxiously, "did Herr Hauptmann make no verbal mention of other matters?"

Ruth shook her head. "Personal matters between him and myself," she said. "But he did not go into the reports of others with me at all. In fact, he would not even receive my report; since I was coming into Germany I could make it myself to Oberst-Lieutenant Fallenbosch. That would be safer, he said."

This true recital threw Adler into gesturing despair. "Exactly; it is precisely what he would do! It is safest; it is most discreet to put nothing, or as little as possible, upon paper. That is always his obsession! So discreet! When I say to him it is not always safer he laughs or tells me to mind my own business! Discretion! It is because he is so obsessed by it that he directs our secret service for the district. 'Have merely an ordered mind, a good