"Yes, sir."
"Then I believe you are right, Darrin," gasped the Amba.s.sador, sinking back into his chair, his face paling slightly. "Oh the villains!"
"Then you believe, sir, that I have really discovered the plot?" asked Dave, who looked only a whit less agitated.
"If what you have just told me is true, then it must be that you have made a correct guess."
"Will you send word by wireless to Admiral Timworth, then, sir?"
"I dare not trust such news, even to the cipher, which the international gang thought they had filched, and which they did not get," replied Mr. Caine. "I believe that the wisest course will be for you to take the midnight train to Genoa."
"Then I shall take this paper with me?"
"Yes, Mr. Darrin, for the Admiral is far more capable than I of estimating it at its true worth. It is a matter for a naval man to comprehend and decide."
The Amba.s.sador did not neglect to provide the young ensign with doc.u.ments, approved by the French Foreign Office, that would take them safely over the border into Italy on their return trip.
CHAPTER XVII
DAVE"S GUESS AT THE BIG PLOT
"Friends tell me that in being in the Navy I have such a grand chance to see the world," grumbled Dan Dalzell, as the launch headed for the anchorage of the American warships. "I went to Paris and had two short taxicab rides through the city. That was all I saw of Paris. Then a long railway journey, and I reached Genoa. I spent twenty-eight minutes in Genoa, and boarded this launch. Oh, I"m seeing the world at a great rate! By the time I"m an admiral I shall know nearly as much of the world as I did when I studied geography in the Central Grammar School of Gridley."
"Don"t be a kicker, Danny boy," smiled Dave. "And just think! When you get home, if any one asks you if you"ve been in Paris, you can say "Yes." Should any one ask you if you"ve seen Genoa, you can hold up your head and declare that you have."
"But my friends will ask me to tell them about those towns,"
complained Dalzell.
"Read them up in the guide books," advised Jetson, who was of the party. "I"ve known a lot of Navy officers who got their knowledge of foreign places in that way."
Dave and Dan had had but a fleeting glimpse of the fine city that now lay astern of them. Hundreds of sailormen and scores of officers, on sight-seeing bent, had been ash.o.r.e for two days.
But now the recall to the fleet had come. All save Darrin, Dalzell and Jetson, with Seaman Runkle, who was now up forward on the launch, were already aboard their respective ships. The Admiral waited only for the coming of this launch before he gave the sailing order.
Jetson was a.s.signed to the battleship "Allegheny," a craft only a trifle smaller than the ma.s.sive "Hudson."
The three brother officers and Runkle had traveled by express from Paris to Genoa, and had come through without incident. At last even the watchful Runkle was convinced that they had eluded all spies.
"Boatswain"s Mate," said Dave, "as this launch belongs to the flagship, it will be better to take Mr. Jetson, first, over to his ship."
"Aye, aye, sir," responded the man in charge of the launch.
Twenty minutes later Dave Darrin found himself leading his own party up over the side of the "Hudson."
"Captain Allen wishes to see Ensigns Darrin and Dalzell at once,"
announced Lieutenant Cranston, the officer of the deck. "You will report to the Captain without further instructions."
"Very good, sir," Dave answered, saluting.
Exactly ten minutes later the two young ensigns were ushered into the presence of their commanding officer.
"Admiral Timworth has been notified by wireless from Paris that you have important communications to make to him," began the Captain. "I will not waste your time or the Admiral"s in questioning you here. You will come with me to the fleet commander"s quarters. The Admiral is awaiting you."
Admiral Thomas Timworth, seated at his desk, and with his flag lieutenant standing by, greeted his callers with exceeding briskness.
"Gentlemen," he said, "time presses, and we must dispense with formalities. Ensign Darrin, I am advised by the Amba.s.sador at Paris of the importance of your news, but he does not tell me what the news is."
"Its importance, sir, depends on whether the evidence I have to present supports the guess I have made as to the nature of the plot that has been planned against the peace and safety of Great Britain and our own country."
As Dave spoke he produced from an inner pocket the sheet of paper dropped by Gortchky, that he had picked up in the Rue d"Ansin.
"This piece of paper, sir," Darrin continued, pa.s.sing it to the fleet commander, "is one that I _saw_ Emil Gortchky drop from a packet of several papers that he took from his pocket at night on one of the worst streets in the slums of Paris."
Admiral Timworth scanned the paper, then read it aloud. It was a receipted bill, made out in the name of one unknown to those present, though perhaps an alias for Gortchky himself. The bill was for a shipment of storage batteries. At the bottom of the sheet was a filled-in certificate signed by a French government official, to the effect that the batteries had been shipped into Italy "for laboratory purposes of scientific research." Just below this statement was an official Italian certificate of approval, showing that the batteries had been admitted into Italy. In time of war, with the frontier guarded tenfold more vigilantly than in ordinary times, such certificates are vitally necessary to make shipments from France into Italy possible.
"In other words, sir," Dave went on eagerly, when the fleet commander scanned his face closely, "it needed some very clever underhand work, very plausibly managed, to make it possible to buy those batteries in France and to secure their admittance into Italy."
"Why?" quizzed Admiral Timworth, as though he did not know the answer himself.
"Because, sir," Dave went on keenly, full of professional knowledge of the subject, "these batteries are the best that the French make for use aboard submarines."
"True," nodded the fleet commander. "What then?"
"Why, sir, by the use of the cleverest kind of lying that spies can do, Gortchky and his a.s.sociates have hoodwinked the French and Italian governments into believing that the batteries are to be lawfully used for research purposes, when, as a matter of fact, they are to be used aboard a submarine which the plotters intend to use for destroying a British battleship."
"We will admit, then," said Admiral Timworth, as a poser, "that the plotters have probably gotten into Italy storage batteries that can be used serviceably on a submarine. But where and how can the plotters have obtained the submarine craft itself? Or, if they haven"t got it yet, how are they to obtain one? For submarines are not sold in open market, and it would be difficult to steal one."
"I cannot answer that, as yet, sir," Dave admitted gravely.
"And such storage batteries might be used for purposes of scientific research," continued the fleet commander.
"Yes, sir; but the habits of the buyers should be considered, should they not? Gortchky and his a.s.sociates can be hardly believed to be interested in science. On the other hand, they are arch plotters, which would lead us to suppose that they have bought these batteries to further a plot. Outside of scientific work the batteries would not be likely to be used anywhere except on board a submarine. Storage batteries of different size and pattern are used for industrial purposes, but those described in this bill are used on board submarines."
"Your reasoning is plausible, Darrin, and probably correct, too,"
nodded Admiral Timworth.
"Besides which, sir," Dave pressed home, "if we admit that the plotters have conspired to sink a British battleship at Malta, the easiest way in war-time, when unidentified strangers cannot get aboard a warship, would be to effect the sinking by means of a submarine"s torpedo. And, if this be the plan of the plotters, then the crime is likely to be attempted only when there are British and American war craft, and none others, in the Grand Harbor of Malta."
"Yet surely the plotters must know that, between good friends like Britain and America, it would take more than the mere sinking of a British ship to make the English suspect us, as a nation, of being involved in such a dastardly plot."
"Our country couldn"t be suspected, as a government or a nation, of being guilty of such a wicked deed," Dave answered. "But Englishman and Frenchmen might very easily believe that the torpedoing was the work of a group of officers and men in our Navy who hated England enough to strike her below the belt. With the British ship sunk, sir, and with none to suspect but the Americans, there is no telling to what heights British pa.s.sion might rise. The British are feeling the tension of the great war severely, sir."
"There is one flaw in your reasoning, Mr. Darrin," Admiral Timworth replied. "We will admit that the torpedoing happens at a time when only American and British war craft are visible in Grand Harbor. Why would it not be wholly reasonable for the British to suppose that the torpedoing was the work of a German submarine that had sneaked into the harbor of Malta under the surface of the water?"