acer. I have followed up
every sort of clew I have transferred a dozen men. I have left nothing
undone!"

"With no result?" persisted Westerling impatiently

"Yes, always the same result: That the leak is here in this house--here
in the grand headquarters of the army under our very noses. I know it is
not the telegraphers or the clerks. It is a member of the staff!"

"Have you gone out of your head?" demanded Westerling. "What
staff-officer? How does he get the information to the enemy? Name the
persons you suspect here and now! Explain, if you want to be considered
sane!"

Here was the blackest accusation that could be made against an officer!
The chosen men of the staff, tested through many grades before they
reached the inner circle of cabinet secrecy, lost the composure of a
council. All were leaning forward toward Bouchard breathless for his
answer.

"There are three women on the grounds," said Bouchard. "I have been
against their staying from the first. I----."

He got no further. His words were drowned by the outburst of one of the
younger members of the staff, who had either to laugh or choke at the
picture of this deep-eyed, spectral sort of man, known as a woman-hater,
in his revelation of the farcical source of his suspicions.

"Why not include Clarissa Eileen?" some one asked, Starting a chorus of
satirical exclamations.

"How do they get through the line?"

"Yes, past a wall of bayonets?"

"When not even a soldier in uniform is allowed to move away from his
command without a pass?"

"By wireless?"

"Perhaps by telepathy!"

"Unless," said the chief of the aerostatic division, grinning, "Bouchard
lends them the use of our own wires through the capital and around by
the neutral countries across the Brown frontier!"

"But the correct plans and location of their forts and the numbers of
their heavy guns and of their planes and dirigibles--your failure to
have this information is not the result of any leak from our staff since
the war began," said Turcas in his dry, penetrating voice, clearing the
air of the smoke of scattered explosions.

All were staring at Bouchard again. What answer had he to this? He was
in the box, the evidence stated by the prosecutor. Let him speak!

He was fairly beside himself in a paroxysm of rage and struck at the air
with his clenched fist.

"---- ---- Lanstron!" he cried.

"There's no purpose in that. He can't hear you!" said Turcas, dryly as
ever.

"He mi