That two spies, a man and a woman, had penetrated the forest of Les Errues was known in Berlin on the 13th. Within an hour the entire machinery of the German Empire had been set in motion to entrap and annihilate these two people.
The formula distributed to all operators in the Intelligence Department throughout Hundom, and wherever Boche spies had filtered into civilised lands, was this: "Two enemy secret agents have succeeded in penetrating the forest of Les Errues. One is a man, the other a woman.
"Both are Americans. The man is that civilian prisoner, Kay McKay, who escaped from Holzminden, and of whom an exact description is available.
"The woman is Evelyn Erith. Exact information concerning her is also available.
"The situation is one of extremest delicacy and peril. Exposure of the secret understanding with a certain neutral Power which permits us certain temporary rights within an integral portion of its territory would be disastrous, and would undoubtedly result in an immediate invasion of this neutral (sic) country by the enemy as well as by our own forces.
"This must not happen. Yet it is vitally imperative that these two enemy agents should be discovered, seized, and destroyed.
"Their presence in the forest of Les Errues is the most serious menace to the Fatherland that has yet confronted it.
"Upon the apprehension and destruction of these two spies depends the safety of Germany and her allies.
"The war can not be won, a victorious German peace can not be imposed upon our enemies, unless these two enemy agents are found and their bodies absolutely destroyed upon the spot along with every particle of personal property discovered upon their persons.
"More than that: the war will be lost, and with it the Fatherland, unless these two spies are seized and destroyed.
"The Great Secret of Germany is in danger.
"To possess themselves of it--for already they suspect its nature--and to expose it not only to the United States Government but to the entire world, is the mission of these two enemy agents.
"If they succeed it would mean the end of the German Empire.
"If our understanding with a certain neutral Power be made public, that also would spell disaster for Germany.
"The situation hangs by a hair, the fate of the world is suspended above the forest of Les Errues."
On the 14th the process of infiltration began. But the Hun invasion of Les Errues was not to be conducted in force, there must be no commotion there, no stirring, no sound, only a silent, stealthy, death-hunt in that shadowy forest--a methodical, patient, thorough preparation to do murder; a swift, noiseless execution.