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 "You removed these yourself from Herr Hauptmann's body?"

"No; Dittman procured them for me. I was somewhat injured myself, you see," she explained her neglect. "And a little faint, at first."

"Of course; of course! But Dittman is a thick skull! He might not have suspected where Herr Hauptmann might have concealed the most important memoranda!" Adler livened with hope. "And there were Russians, I understand, who first found you and dragged out Herr Hauptmann. They are mere brutes, incapable of understanding anything. Nevertheless they may have meddled. I shall send and see and at once myself examine the body of Herr Hauptmann!"

He turned about and gazed at his papers; he swept them together and into a drawer. The stencils, by which he had read the ciphers, went with them. "You will remain here, gnädiges Fräulein," he half commanded, half requested, and he hastened from the room.

Ruth delayed only the instant necessary to make certain that he had gone upstairs. Suspicion which now turned upon Dittman and upon the Russians swiftly must approach her; moreover, the hour of arrival of Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch was almost here. By her stroke of boldness and of luck she had succeeded in temporarily overreaching the secretary whom she had found so unbalanced by the death of his superior. But she could not possibly hope to dupe von Fallenbosch. She must fail with him as miserably as she had failed with von Forstner. And to attempt with him and to fail involved, now, not only her own destruction but delivery into German hands