THE MESSAGE IN CIPHER
The house to which Chief Flynn had directed the wireless patrol proved to
be a private residence on a side street that ran between Central Park and
the Hudson River. It was a tall house, standing two stories higher than
any other structure in the block. Like most of its neighbors it had
evidently seen better days. In places the brownstone front was cracked
and great chips had flaked off. The broken stones in the long flight of
steps that led up to the first floor were patched with colored cement
that had faded so the patches stood out baldly. The brass handrail above
the stone balustrade was battered and dirty. Altogether it was not a
very attractive looking place.
The old lady who opened the door eyed them sharply.
"A gentleman named Flynn recommended me to your place," said Captain
Hardy. "We shall need accommodations for quite a while."
"You must be the gentleman from Washington that he 'phoned me about. You
are Captain Hardy?"
"I am."
"Come in," said the landlady cordially. "Any friends of Mr. Flynn's are
welcome. Your rooms are ready for you. Mr. Flynn said you wanted to be
together, so I have given you the entire top floor."
She led the way up one narrow stairway after another until the party
reached the top floor. There she threw open the door to the front room
and withdrew.
An exclamation of pleasure burst from the lips of the four boys. The
shabby exterior of the house and the dim and dingy hallways through which
they had come gave no hint of the cozy comfort that awaited them. The
room they now entered was of generous size, with soft gray wallpaper and
white woodwork. Along one side ran low, well-filled book-shelves. In
the middle of the opposite wall, with fire-making materials already piled
in it, was a small open grate, surmounted by an attractive mantel of
white woodwork. There were a writing-table, a comfortable couch, and
easy chairs. And what was most unusual for a city house, the room
possessed windows on three sides--two overlooking the street and one
giving a view over the housetops on either side. A door at the rear
opened into a second room that was equipped as a writing room, with a
broad table and several straight-backed chairs. Here, too, was an open
grate set in a white mantel. In the room behind this were a number of
cots. Back of all was the bath room. A snugger and more comfortable
place it would have been hard to find. But nowhere was there anything
that suggested a wireless outfit.
The boys looked at one another questioningly. "He said there was an
outfit here," said Lew, "so there must be. But I don't see where it can
be."
"It would be somewhere by itself," said Roy, "so that the operator
wouldn't be disturbed. It must be on another floor."
"But if we are to keep a twenty-four-hour watch," argued Henry, "it ought
to be right in our apartment."
"Let's look at the aerial, anyway," suggested Lew.
A door at the end of the hallway quite evidently led to the roof. They
had noticed it as they followed their landlady up the stairs. Willie led
the way through it and the boys found themselves on the roof, which, like
the roofs of most city houses, was flat. Like its neighbors, also, this
roof was encumbered with a number of long, wire clothes-lines, but the
boys found nothing that suggested an aerial to them. Puzzled, they
returned to their apartment.
Presently there was a rap at the door. Captain Hardy opened it and a man
dressed as a waiter, whom they had seen in the hallway as they entered,
stepped into the room.
"I came to show you your outfit," he said.
Stepping into the writing room, he grasped the corners of the mantel and
gave a sharp pull. The entire upper half of the mantel swung outward and
came to rest on the writing-table, revealing a compact but wonderfully
well-equipped wireless outfit, including even a wireless detector for
telling the direction a wireless message came from. The boys stared in
astonishment while the waiter grinned.
"What kind of a boarding-house is this, anyway?" asked Lew.
"This ain't no boardin'-house," replied the man. "This is a sort of
headquarters for secret service men from out of town."
"Where's your aerial?" demanded Willie.
"If you go on the roof you'll see it--that is you will if your eyes are
sharp enough."
"I'll bet it's those wire clothes-lines," said Willie.
"Nothin' wrong with your eyes," said the waiter with a smile. "But I
guess there wouldn't be, if the Chief sent you here."
Naturally each of the boys was eager to test the outfit before them.
They crowded round it, sliding the coil, shifting the condenser,
examining this and that, and voicing their approval and pleasure in the
different instruments.
"We may as well begin our watch at once," said Captain Hardy. "Each of
you will have to listen in six hours a day. If we divide the watches
into two tricks of three hours each, it will be easier for you."
The matter was arranged accordingly, and the first trick given to the
most experienced operator, Henry. After the others had seen him take his
seat and adjust his receivers to his head, they withdrew from the
wireless room.
But Henry was far from being in solitude. Sitting apparently alone, he
was listening to a multitude of voices; for before beginning his vigil he
wanted to test out his instruments and see how well they worked and how
sharply they would register sounds. So he sat at his table, tuning now
to this wave length and now to that, now catching a land message and now
one from the sea. Distinctly he caught the signal NAA from the great
navy wireless plant at Arlington. He recognized it before the operator
had finished sending his call signal. Night after night with his
home-made outfit at Central City, Henry had heard this station send forth
the time signals at ten o'clock; and during his brief period as radio man
for Uncle Sam he had often talked with Arlington, both sending and
receiving messages from the great station. But though he recognized the
voice, he did not know the language he heard; for Arlington was flinging
abroad a message in the secret code of the navy. Press messages and
commercial communications were buzzing through the air like swarms of
bees. Orders to departing steamships came surging over his line.
Suddenly a strong whining note filled the air, drowning out all other
notes, and Henry knew the Brooklyn Navy Yard was talking. He caught
messages from the Waldorf, from the Wanamaker station, from the police
wireless. Never had he heard so many messages or imagined that the air
could be so filled with talk. And had he not been a very able operator,
he would have been so confused by the babel that he would have understood
none of it clearly. But he tuned sharply, shutting out interfering
vibrations, and caught clearly message after message. But every message
that he intercepted was sent by a regularly licensed station.
After he had sufficiently tested his instruments, and assured himself of
their ability to register even the faintest sounds sharply and
distinctly, Henry shifted his coils and condensers again and began to
listen in for messages of less than three hundred meters' wave length.
Instantly the room that had hummed with voices grew silent as a cave. No
message, no vibrations, no whisper of sound came to his waiting ears.
For three hours he sat, continually shifting his coils, but he heard
nothing. As well might he have sat three hours by a rock, waiting for it
to speak. And well he knew that this was only the first of many long
weary watches that would be kept ere the voice they looked for would come
out of the air.
Vividly Henry recalled the long vigils at Camp Brady, when he sat for
many hours at a time listening for the call of the dynamiters. He
remembered how irksome that had been. He remembered the chill of the
night and the silence of the great forest. Here the watchers would be
more comfortable, but the vigil was likely to be as tedious and trying as
their watch in the Pennsylvania mountains had proved. But that watch had
been rewarded. The dynamiters had been located and captured. And Henry
never doubted that this vigil, too, would meet with success. So he
schooled himself to patience and keyed his ear and his instrument to the
keenest pitch.
Meantime his companions had lost not a moment in beginning their study of
the city. When Captain Hardy emerged from the wireless room, he ran his
eye over the contents of the bookshelves; and one section he discovered
was filled with maps and guide-books and local histories, not only of New
York but also of other American cities. He found a large-scale map of
the metropolis and spread it out on the table, true to the indicated
compass points. Clustered about this outspread map, the other members of
the patrol followed with eager eyes and retentive minds their
instructor's every word.
Dr. Hardy called their attention to the contour of Manhattan Island, long
and tongue-shaped, and running almost north and south. He showed them
the main thoroughfares, the great arteries of north and south traffic.
He traced for them the routes of subway, surface, and elevated car lines.
Together they located the tunnels and the ferries. They studied the
harbor and the different shipping districts, coming quickly to know where
the transatlantic liners docked, where the coastwise steamers were
berthed, and where tramp steamers could find safe anchorages. They
examined the harbor and adjacent waterways. They studied the locations
of police stations and hospitals, of passenger stations and freight
depots. They noted the location of the forts. They identified the sites
of the largest buildings.
When they had finished with Manhattan, they studied one by one the other
boroughs--the Bronx, the boroughs east of Manhattan, Staten Island, and
finally the Jersey shore, searching always for what would lend itself to
spying or the use of a secret wireless. Especially they studied all that
related to ships that cross the Atlantic.
Not in one evening or in one day was this accomplished, but through the
long hours of many days, as one boy after another took his turn at the
wireless. And between tricks at listening in or studying maps and
guide-books, they roamed the streets, traveled on subway and surface and
elevated trains, crossed the ferries, rode in the sightseeing motors,
visited the bridges, the museums, the public buildings, and within a
short time knew more about the topography and geography of the city than
nine-tenths of the people who lived in it. As they became accustomed to
the noise and the confusion and were able to find their way about with
ease, they scraped acquaintances on every side, and soon knew a multitude
of newsies, porters, policemen, truck drivers, car-conductors, and others.
Hour after hour, day after day, night after night, they listened in. A
week passed. Then another went by. But excepting for one or two
snatches of talk, seemingly innocent, the watchers at the wireless caught
nothing.
Then, as Roy was listening in one noon while his comrades were
down-stairs at luncheon, there was a sudden buzzing in his ear. Rapidly
he shifted coil and condenser until the vibrations came sharp and clear.
A call was sounding. 2XB was calling 5ZM. Roy seized his pencil and
copied the signals, at the same time trying hard to locate the direction
from which the signals came. It was well that Roy was a fast operator,
for the message that followed came with such rapidity that it taxed Roy's
ability to catch it. But he managed to get every letter. When the
message was ended, Roy reached for his list of stations and rapidly ran
through it. The stations he had overheard were not listed. There could
be no doubt about it. He had caught a message from a secret wireless.
He turned to the paper with the message. Here is what he had written
down: SRPSTSNIAOLTMIXNREHONTSTFIRG. But he could make no sense of it.
The letters would not form themselves into words, combine them as he
would. He rose and ran to the dining-room with the paper.
Captain Hardy studied it for an instant. "Take this at once to Chief
Flynn," he said. "He may want to ask some questions about it. Willie
will relieve you at the wireless."
Several hours passed before Roy returned, and Captain Hardy began to fear
lest, despite the training in the geography of the city, Roy had become
confused and gotten lost. Then suddenly the door of the wireless
apartment burst open and Roy flew in.
"Chief Flynn told me he thought his men could unravel that message and
that I should wait a while," panted Roy, breathless from running up the
stairs. "And they did get it. It's what they call a transposition
cipher. Here is what it says."
He held out a sheet of paper. On it the letters Roy had picked out of
the air were arranged in four lines, as follows:
S R P S T S N
I A O L T M I
X N R E H O N
T S T F I R G
"Read down instead of across," explained Roy.
Captain Hardy studied the cipher a moment more, then read aloud: "Six
transports left this morning."