We sat without speaking, waiting for Lockhart. My brother took up the little bundle of snapshots and looked through them. Then we heard a shuffling footstep in the pa.s.sage and Lockhart entered. I introduced him and we shut and locked the door. Bernard looked the little man up and down for a minute or two, talking on indifferent subjects. And then, as if satisfied, he plunged into business. He didn"t tell my colleague all that he had told me, but he told him enough to set Lockhart quivering with eagerness and excitement.
"You shall hear all I know, Commander Carey," he said. "After all, it isn"t much, though"--he hesitated for a moment and then began:
"This man, Upjelly, our chief, is absolutely unfitted to be a schoolmaster. He takes not the slightest interest in the school. John, here, has found out, what I long more than suspected, that the Doctor"s wild-fowling is really a colossal pretence."
"Does the school pay?" my brother asked.
"Just about. There may be a small profit, but not enough to keep any man tied down here if he has the slightest ambition or is anybody at all.
And, you haven"t met the Doctor, but you may take it from me that he is no ordinary man. There has always been an air of mystery and secretiveness about him. He neither asks nor gives confidences. It struck me from the very first that he was a man with an absorbing mental interest of some sort or other. What was it?--that is what I asked myself.
"Three weeks ago, the Doctor had a guest. It was a Mr. Jones, who frequently visits him, apparently for the shooting. My bedroom is on the floor below this. As you see, I am a cripple and an invalid. I often pa.s.s nights of pain, when I cannot sleep. On one such night, three weeks ago, the window of my bedroom was open and I lay in the dark. About half-past three in the morning I heard footsteps on the gravel outside, and the Doctor"s voice. The night was quite still, though pitch dark.
Then I heard another voice which I recognised as that of the man Jones.
"The voices drew nearer until the men were almost underneath my window.
They were coming back from the marshes. I only know a few words of German, but I recognise the language when I hear it. They were speaking German."
My brother nodded.
"That Jones," I put in, "I have already told you, Bernard, was here when I arrived last night. He left for London this morning, taking the Doctor up with him in his car."
"Four days ago," Lockhart continued, "I wanted some waste paper to wrap up a pair of boots I was sending to be mended. I was in my room and I told one of the boys of my dormitory to go downstairs and get some. It was about nine o"clock at night. The boy brought back two or three newspapers. One of them was the _Cologne Gazette_, very crumpled and torn, but with the date of only five days before. I have got it locked up in my writing-desk.
"To-day, being a half-holiday, I thought I would go out for a walk upon the foresh.o.r.e. An overcoat rather impedes my movements, though I have to wear one sometimes. I thought I would take a scarf instead. I went into the hall, knowing that my scarf was in the pocket of my overcoat, and felt for it. The hall is rather dark and I could not see very well what I was doing. What I brought out of the pocket in which I felt was not my scarf, but--this!"
Lockhart quietly laid something upon the table, and we bent over to look at it. To me, at any rate, it was an extraordinary object. It was a sort of cross between a large watch and a compa.s.s, with a curious little handle. There were letters or figures, for a moment I could not say which, in a double row round the dial.
"Can you tell me what it is?"
My brother was shaken from his calm at last. He gave an exclamation.
"Yes, I can!" he said. "I know very well. But first, when was this photograph taken?"
With dramatic suddenness, he held out one of d.i.c.kson"s prints. It was a picture of Mr. Jones" motor, with that gentleman at the wheel and the Doctor sitting on the far side, taken that very morning as they left for London.
"This morning," I said. "That is the Doctor and Mr. Jones going off to town."
"Mr. Jones at the wheel?" my brother asked.
"Yes, that is the fellow."
"Let me get it quite clear. The man, you say, walks like me?"
"Yes."
"Ah!" said my brother again, and his eyes had the look of a bloodhound on a leash. "And now I will proceed to explain to you the use of this pretty thing."
CHAPTER IV
DORIS AND MARJORIE GIVE A SUPPER PARTY. THE ARROW FLIES IN MORSTONE SEA WOOD
"This," said my brother, "is what is known as Charles Wheatstone"s Cipher Instrument. It is a machine for writing in cipher. You see it has a sort of watch-face, which has the alphabet inscribed round its outer margin in the usual order, plus a blank s.p.a.ce. A second alphabet is written on a card or paper and attached to the watch-face within the first alphabet. This has no blank s.p.a.ce, and so there are but twenty-six divisions as against twenty-seven in the outer ring. Two hands are attached which travel at different speeds when the handle is turned.
Accordingly, each time the long hand is carried forward to the blank s.p.a.ce at the end of a word, the short hand will have moved forward one division on the inner ring of letters. Then a word is chosen as a key, written down in separate letters and the remaining letters of the alphabet are written in order beneath it. I"ll show you. Suppose, for example, we choose the word "English," thus." He took a pencil and scribbled for a moment upon the back of one of d.i.c.kson"s photographs:
ENGLISH ABCDFJK MOPQRTU VWXYZ.
"Now, if you read these letters downwards, you get this arrangement:
EAMVNBOWGCPXLDQYIFRZSJTHKU.
"This cryptographic alphabet is written on the inner card of the instrument, beginning at a point previously agreed on. Then, when a despatch is to be translated into cipher, the long hand is moved to that letter in the outer alphabet, and the letter to which the short hand points in the inner ring is written down. I need not go on, but I am sure the principle will be clear to you. These machines are in use in our Secret Service. But what I should like to point out to you in regard to this example is that the alphabet here _is in German_."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CIPHER MACHINE THAT MR. LOCKHART FOUND]
We all looked at each other in silence.
"That is conclusive proof," I said at length. "Of course, you will have Doctor Upjelly arrested directly he comes back."
"_And_ thank you!" said my brother. "So kind of you to put up your little turn, Johnny! Will you have a cigar or a cocoanut? My dear boy, if we had this man arrested, ten to one his tracks would be absolutely covered and we could prove nothing. Don"t you see, what we want to do is to catch him in the act, to find out what he does and how he does it. No such rough and ready methods!"--his voice became very grave and stern.
"Quarter-deck!" I thought to myself.
"This has not got to be taken lightly," he went on. "I believe that fate has put my finger upon the very pulse of what has been puzzling the Admiralty for weeks. I honestly believe that here, in this lonely house, is hidden the intellect of the Master Spy of Germany. We are up against it. We must work in silence and in the dark. The slightest slip would be fatal. I cannot exaggerate the importance of this affair, nor," he concluded, looking keenly at Lockhart and myself, "nor the danger."
Little Lockhart"s face positively brightened at this. "Danger!" he cried, as if someone had made him a present. "Then I shall be able to do something to help! We shall all be able to do something and----"
Lockhart started and broke off. At that moment, from behind Smith"s cla.s.sical dictionary and Liddell and Scott"s Greek ditto there came a faint, m.u.f.fled whirr.
"Good G.o.d, what"s that?" said Lockhart.
"Oh, it"s all right," I answered, and I expect I looked about as big an a.s.s as I felt. "That is--er--a little contrivance of my own. By the way, you fellows must keep it absolutely dark."
To say that they watched me with interest is to put it mildly. I withdrew "Our House Telephone, Not a Toy, 27_s._ 6_d._ net" from its hiding place. Doris was speaking. She knew that my brother had come and she was dying to meet him. Old Mrs. Gaunt was sleeping peacefully; in fact I fear, so p.r.o.ne are all of us to error, that Doris had administered just twice the amount of opiate that the doctor had prescribed.
Doris suggested that she and Marjorie should come at once to my room.
They also suggested that we should dine there, with the connivance of a friendly housemaid. I told her to hold the line for a minute, and explained.
My brother"s face lost all preoccupation. He was a naval officer, you will remember, and, though a distinguished one, was as young gentlemen in that Service usually are in both age and inclination.
"Can a duck swim?" said my brother.
"Well, I"ll go," Lockhart remarked, with just a trace of his old bitterness.
"You sit where you are, old soul," I told him. "Bernard, both the girls are only stepdaughters of the Doctor, who, they have told me, did not treat their mother very well and who is a perfect tyrant to them.
They"re as true as steel; I can answer for them. They will be of tremendous help."