THE MESSAGE
A little group of laughing young women came scurrying up the ladder from
the promenade, and the Admiral and his companion sat stonily silent
until they had passed. Then the Admiral spoke again, still in a whisper,
but his voice was under control.
"The most astounding thing has happened," he said. "I cannot understand
it. The operator in there has just received a message from Cherbourg,
asking if there is not on board, in stateroom 514, a man named Ignace
Vard, accompanied by his daughter. It is signed by Lepine, chief of the
French secret service."
The younger man drew a quick, sibilant breath, and his face, too, turned
pale beneath the tan.
"But how could he know?" he gasped. "How could he suspect?"
"Lepine is the very devil!" growled the other. "Perhaps it was that
wireless installation, as you suggested."
"But that could not betray the man's name--the boat--even his
stateroom!"
"No; I cannot understand it," and Pachmann mopped his face again. Then
he thrust his handkerchief back into his pocket and sprang to his feet.
"However it occurred, we must stop it," he said. "Come."
"Stop it--but how?"
"There is only one way. Come!"
The Admiral hurried down the ladder, his companion at his heels. From
the upper promenade he descended to the deck below, and then, without
hesitating, climbed another ladder and stepped over a low gate which
gave entrance to the first-class promenade. The gate, it is true, bore a
sign stating that second-class passengers must not pass it; but Pachmann
did not even glance at it. He seemed to know the ship, for he pressed
on, disregarding the curious glances cast at himself and his companion,
mounted again to the boat-deck, and did not pause until he had reached
its extreme forward end, just under the bridge. There he stopped at a
door just abaft the ladder leading to the bridge and knocked sharply.
"Enter!" cried a voice, and the younger man, following the Admiral,
found himself in a large and handsome stateroom, whose windows looked
straight forward over the bow. At the desk a bearded man of middle-age
was glancing through some papers. He looked up at the intruders with
evident astonishment. "Really, gentlemen," he began, and then he
stopped, his gaze shifting from one face to the other and back again in
frank bewilderment.
"Captain Hausmann," said the Admiral, stepping forward, "probably you do
not remember me, since we have met but once. But I think you know the
Prince."
Captain Hausmann's eyes widened, and he sprang quickly to his feet, his
hand at the visor of his cap.
"Your Highness," he began, but the Prince stopped him.
"I am not a Highness at present, Captain," he said, laughing; "only a
humble passenger of the second class. I am very glad to see you again,"
and, holding out his hand, he gave that of the astonished mariner a
hearty clasp.
"A passenger of the second class!" stammered the Captain. "But I do not
understand!"
"It is not necessary that you should," said the Admiral, curtly, and at
the words, the Captain reddened a little.
"Ah, now I know you," he said, quietly. "Admiral Pachmann," and again he
saluted.
"Yes," said the Admiral, acknowledging the salute. "We had not intended
to betray, even to you, our presence on board, but an unforeseen
circumstance has made it necessary. No one else, of course, must suspect
it. All that you need to know--indeed, all that we are permitted to tell
you--is that His Highness and myself are at this moment engaged upon an
affair of state of the first importance. Here are my credentials."
He took from an inner pocket a long leather pocket-book, extracted from
it a heavy envelope sealed with a great black seal, and passed it to the
Captain.
The latter took it, glanced at the seal and hesitated, for it bore the
Imperial crown.
"Do you intend that I should open this?" he asked.
"I wish you to do so," answered Pachmann.
With fingers that trembled a little, the Captain loosened the seal,
lifted the flap, and drew out the sheet of paper which lay within. It
was an ivory-finished white, almost as stiff as a card, the entire upper
left quarter occupied by the Imperial crown and monogram, the other
three quarters covered by writing in a large and rather stiff hand, with
a scrawling signature at the bottom. The Captain glanced at this
signature, then, his face very grave, read the missive slowly and
carefully. Finally he returned the sheet to its envelope, and handed it
back to Pachmann, his eyes meeting the Admiral's with a kind of awed
wonder.
"I am at your service," he said. "Will you...."
There was a tap at the door. The Captain went to it and opened it,
standing so that his body filled the doorway. He exchanged a word with
some one, and then closed the door and turned back into the room, a
sheaf of papers in his hand.
"Will you not sit down?" he asked.
"We shall be but a moment," said Pachmann. "That was the wireless man,
was it not?"
"Yes."
"Among the messages you have in your hand is one from Lepine, Prefect of
the Paris Service du Surete. He asks whether you have aboard in
stateroom 514 a man named Ignace Vard, accompanied by his daughter."
Captain Hausmann, with an admirable composure, glanced through the
messages.
"Yes; here it is," he said.
"I will dictate the answer," said the Admiral.
Without a word, the Captain sat down again at his desk and wrote to
Pachmann's dictation:
"_Lepine, Paris_.
"No record of Ignace Vard and daughter on _Ottilie_.
Stateroom 514 unoccupied.
"HAUSMANN, Captain."
"It would be well to have the message sent at once," added Pachmann.
"You will also see that the name of Vard and his daughter do not appear
on your passenger list, and that they are moved from the stateroom they
now occupy to some other one. The records for the voyage must show that
that room was indeed unoccupied. You will also instruct the purser that
the tickets surrendered by Vard and his daughter are not to be turned
in, but, in case of inquiry, to be reported unused."
The Captain had listened carefully.
"On what pretext will I move these people?" he asked.
"The pretext must be found."
The Captain stroked his beard with a troubled air.
"I fear there is no second-cabin room empty--we are very crowded. Would
it matter if I brought them forward?"
Pachmann pondered a moment.
"No," he said at last. "On the whole, that might be better. You will
enter them on your passenger list by some other name--or, better still,
omit them altogether."
"But the immigration authorities!" protested the Captain. "You have
forgotten them!"
"We will think of them at the proper time," said Pachmann, impatiently.
"This is not the moment to make objections. I think you understand?"
Hausmann bowed.
"We will say good-bye, then, for the present," added the Admiral, with a
touch of irony. "We shall, perhaps, be forced again to call upon you."
A second time Hausmann bowed.
* * * * *
When Miss Vard entered her stateroom, that day, to brush her hair before
going to lunch, her nostrils were assaulted by a most unpleasant odour,
and, when a cursory inspection of the room failed to disclose its cause,
she summoned the steward and asked him to investigate. An hour later, a
white-capped official approached Mr. Vard, who was looking vainly
through the collection of books in the library for something he cared to
read, and informed him, with many apologies, that it would be necessary
for him to change his stateroom. Just what was wrong with No. 514 it was
impossible to say; but it could not be denied that there _was_ a bad
odour there, whose source had not been discovered, and the only
alternative seemed to be to shut it up until the end of the voyage and
then to overhaul it thoroughly.
"Very well," said Vard. "I have no objection to changing. But I cannot
understand how a cubicle with floor, ceiling and walls of steel, could
so suddenly become insanitary."
"It is a mystery to us also, sir, and one which we shall look into very
thoroughly. We regret it extremely."
"Not at all," said Vard, somewhat astonished that so much should be made
of the matter. "Have the steward change our baggage to the new
quarters, and then come and show me where they are, and let us forget
all about it."
"It is most kind of you to take it so good-naturedly," protested the
officer. "The embarrassing thing to us is that, as there is no vacant
stateroom in the second-cabin, we shall have to transfer you to the
first."
Vard looked at him.
"And you expect me to pay the difference?" he asked.
"Oh, no; not at all," the other hastily assured him. "We had not thought
of such a thing! But we feared you might have some objection to
first-class, and that the change would inconvenience you still more."
Vard smiled grimly.
"As a matter of fact, I _have_ an objection to first-class," he said,
"but it is largely that of wasting money for which I have a better use.
The people one sees there also do not appeal to me. I fear most of them
are idle fools. But perhaps the library is better selected."
"Oh, it is much larger than this!" the officer agreed. "I may take it,
then, that you consent?"
"Certainly. We can't stay in a stateroom that smells as ours does."
"Then," said the other, "if you will inform your daughter, I will
myself conduct you to your new quarters."
So Miss Vard was summoned, their steward was loaded with the baggage,
and after a glance around No. 514 to assure herself that nothing had
been overlooked, Miss Vard found herself following her father and the
white-capped German along a narrow passage, past a steel door that was
unlocked for them, and up the companion-way to a very handsome suite
opening on the upper promenade. It consisted of two bedrooms and a
sitting-room, and Kasia, as she glanced about it, could not repress an
exclamation of surprise.
"Are we to stay here?" she asked.
"Yes, Madame," and the official smiled. "It is the only thing we have to
offer. I am glad that it pleases you. It will help you to forget the
inconvenience of changing," and, having waited until the steward had
deposited his burden, he motioned him out before him, bowed and
withdrew.
Kasia made a quick tour of the room, admiring its elegant furnishings,
glanced into the bedrooms, and then came back to her father.
"I don't understand it!" she said. "Why should they give us all this?"
Her father regarded her in some surprise.
"Why, my dear," he said, "you have heard the explanation. I do not for a
moment imagine that the steamship company would have been so generous
if there had been any way to avoid it!"
"No, I suppose not!" Kasia agreed, and set herself to arrange their
belongings--it was almost like fitting up a flat! "This suit-case is
very heavy, father," she added, after a moment. "Will you put it in your
room?"
"Of course," and Vard lifted it, started for the bedroom, and then
turned and placed it on the little table which stood between the
windows. "I will have a look at it, first," he said, loosened the
straps, took a key from a flapped compartment of his pocket-book and put
it in the lock. "One would scarcely believe, Kasia," he added, with a
smile, "that this little bag contains the destiny of the world!"
"No," she said, and came and stood beside him, one arm about him, her
head against his shoulder.
He turned the key and raised the lid. Then he put aside some articles of
clothing and lifted from beneath them an oblong box, open at the ends.
One saw, on looking closer, that the sides of the box were of glass,
partially covered on both sides with tin-foil; and peering in at the
open end, one perceived a vague maze of wires and pinions.
Vard gazed at it for some moments without speaking.
"There it is, Kasia," he said, at last, "the wonder-worker, which,
properly tuned and connected with its batteries, generates a force which
puts an end to armies and to fleets. With it in the world, there can be
no more war--and if there is no more war, there is the end of kings and
tyrants. It is a great thought, is it not, my daughter?"
"A great thought!" she echoed, but her voice was shaking, and she
shivered a little and drew closer to him. "And yet, father, think what
an awful force it would be if it fell into unscrupulous hands! It is
that which makes me tremble sometimes!"
"You do not fear me, Kasia?" he asked reproachfully.
"No, father; of course not!"
He replaced the mechanism, covered it carefully with clothing, closed
the lid, locked it, and returned the key to his pocket. Then he carried
the bag to his bedroom and slipped it under the bed. At last he came
back to his daughter.
"I will not deny, Kasia," he said, "that I have been tempted, more than
once. Not by the prospect of wealth or power--those cannot tempt me; but
by the thought that, after subduing the world, I might 're-mould it
nearer to the heart's desire.' And yet how vain to fancy that I or any
man possesses the wisdom to do that! No; that cannot be. Each nation
must shape its own destiny, as friends and brothers. It is for me to
strike the swords from their hands!"
But still Kasia trembled and a shadow lay across her face.
"What is it you fear?" her father asked, looking at her.
"It seems too great a destiny!" she answered, with quivering lips.
"There is so great a risk! Suppose some one should steal that
instrument...."
"That would do no harm. I can make another--a hundred others! That is my
purpose. The whole world must know of it--must possess it. Every nation
must know that, the instant it marches to war, it risks annihilation. I
see no danger there."
"But suppose," Kasia persisted, "that the man who stole it should kill
you--what then? Oh, I have thought of it, father, so much, so closely,
all through the night! We must run no risk like that."
Vard took a rapid turn up and down the room. He was deeply perturbed. At
last he paused beside her.
"You are right, Kasia," he said. "I do not believe there is any
danger--and yet we must run no risk like that! Well, it is easy to avoid
it! Wait!"
He disappeared into his bedroom, and Kasia heard him pulling out the bag
and opening it. Then the lock snapped again, the bag was pushed back
under the bed, and her father rejoined her. He held in his hand a
little case of polished steel. Within it were three filament-like wires
wound peculiarly around a series of tiny pins.
"Here it is," he said, "the very heart of the mechanism. Without this it
is useless. Without this, it is merely a transformer. It can do no one
any harm--can betray no secret."
Kasia took the little box and looked at it.
"Is this difficult to make, father?" she asked.
"It took me eight years to make that one; but I can make another in two
days, or perhaps three."
"You are sure of that?"
"Oh, yes," and he smiled. "It is very intricate, yet very simple when
one has the clue. Every convolution of those filaments is photographed
on my brain. I can close my eyes and see them winding in and out."
The girl hesitated, the little box still in her hand.
"Then it would be safe to destroy this?" she asked, at last.
"Safe? Yes! That is my meaning! Let us destroy it!"
Still a moment she paused, then she closed her hand.
"Yes," she agreed; "let us destroy it."
Her father nodded his head indifferently. With him the moment of tension
had passed.
"Drop it into the sea," he said. "That will end it. Now, I think, I
shall go and examine the books in the library."
He went out and closed the door; but Kasia stood for a long time without
moving, staring at the little box of polished metal. After all, if he
_could_ not reproduce it; if there _should_ be some convolution he had
missed, some accidental conjunction he was not aware of! If to destroy
it now would be to destroy it forever! Better that, of course, than run
the other risk! But was there no other way? Perhaps, perhaps....