It had gone two o'clock. The morning's work was done, a hasty
luncheon disposed of, and the investigators were back in the
dockmaster's house discussing the curious features of the case again.
"And now, gentlemen," said Cleek, "to the unsolved part of the
riddle--the mysterious manner in which the messages were sent from
this house. For sent from here they undoubtedly were, and by Sophie
Borovonski; but the question of how still remains to be discovered."
"I make it that it's the devil's own work, Mr. Cleek," said MacInery,
"and that there must have been some accident connected with it, the
same as with the taking off of the wire-tapping chap."
"Hardly that, I'm afraid," replied Cleek. "I think it was accident
which put a _stop_ to the proceedings here, not one which created
them. We now know perfectly well that the woman was in this
house--undiscovered and unsuspected for days; and you may safely lay
your life that she wasn't idle, wasn't stopping here for nothing.
The pile of papers burnt shows very clearly that considerable
intelligence had been forwarded to her brother, so it is safe to
infer that she was wiring it to him constantly."
"But how was it possible for her to obtain that information?" queried
Sir Charles. "I again declare to you most solemnly, Mr. Cleek,
that no one entered or left the room, that no word was spoken that
could be said to have any bearing upon secret matters, so nothing
could possibly be overheard; and how could the woman read documents
which were never out of our sight for a minute? Granted that she had
some means of wiring intelligence to her brother--indeed, we now
know that to have been the case--how under God's heaven did she
obtain that intelligence?"
"Well, that's a facer, certainly, Sir Charles; but with such a
past-mistress of ingenuity as she--well, you never know. Sure she
couldn't possibly have managed to get into the room and hide herself
somewhere, you think?"
"I am positive she couldn't. The thing isn't possible. There's no
place where she _could_ have hidden. Come in and see."
He unlocked the door and, followed by the rest, led the way into the
room where the inquiry into the dockmaster's affairs had been held. A
glance about it was sufficient to corroborate Sir Charles's statement.
On one side stood a large fireproof safe, closely locked; on the
other were two windows--iron-grilled and with inside shutters of
steel; at one end was a large flat-topped table, at which Sir Charles
and MacInery had conducted their investigation of the books, et
cetera, and at the other a smaller writing-table, upon which stood a
typewriter set on a sound-deadening square of felt, and over which
hung a white-disked electric bulb. There were five chairs, and not
another mortal thing. No cupboard, no wardrobe, no chest--nothing
under heaven in which a creature any bigger than a cat could have
hidden.
"You see," said Sir Charles, with a wave of the hand, "she couldn't
have hidden in here, neither could she have hidden outside and
overheard, for nothing was said that could have been of any use
to her."
"Quite confident of that?"
"Oh, I can answer for that, Mr. Cleek," put in young Grimsdick. "We
were so careful upon that point that Sir Charles never dictated
even the smallest thing that he wanted recorded; merely passed over
the papers and said: 'Copy that where I have marked it'; and to
save my table from being overcrowded, I scratched down the marked
paragraphs in shorthand, and prepared to transcribe them on the
typewriter later. Why, sir, look here; the diabolical part of the
mystery is that those two fragments of sentences flashed out at the
telegraph office at the time of that frightful peal of thunder,
and at that very instant I was in the act of transcribing them on
the typewriter."
"Hello! Hello!" rapped out Cleek, twitching round sharply. "Sure of
that, are you--absolutely sure?"
"Beyond all question, Mr. Cleek. Sir Charles will tell you that
the thunder-clap was so violent and so sudden that both he and Mr.
MacInery fairly jumped. As for me, I was so startled that I struck a
wrong letter by mistake and had to rub out a word and type it over
again. Come and see. The paper is still on my table, and I can show
you the erasure and the alteration. Now, nobody could have seen that
paper, at that particular time; not a solitary word had been spoken
with regard to it, and it wasn't more than half a minute before
that Sir Charles himself had taken it out of the safe. Look, sir,
here's the paper and here's the place where I erased the word--see?"
Cleek walked over to the typewriter and looked at the paper, saw the
erasure, lifted it, looked at other typed sheets lying under it, and
then knotted up his brows.
"H'm!" he said reflectively, and looked farther. "You've got a
devilish hard touch for a man who does this sort of thing constantly,
and ought therefore to be an adept in the art of typewriting evenly.
And there are other errors and erasures. Look here, my friend, I
don't believe you're used to this machine."
"No, sir, I'm not. I'm not accustomed to a shift key. My own machine
hasn't one."
"Your own! By Gad! What are you using this machine for, then, if
you've got one of your own? And why didn't you bring your own when
you came here on important business like this?"
"I did; but as we found this one already here I started in on it;
and when I found it difficult to work, I went out to get my own,
which I'd left in the outer room, just as I'd taken it from the
carrier who brought it over. But the careless beggar must have
handled it as if it were a trunk, for the spring was broken, the
carriage wouldn't work, and two of the type bars were snapped off."
"By _Jupiter!_" Cleek's voice struck in so suddenly and with such
vehemence that it was almost a bark, like that of a startled terrier,
and Mr. Narkom, knowing the signs, fairly jumped at him.
"You've found out something, _I_ know!" he cried. "What is it, old
chap--eh?"
"Let me alone, let me alone!" flung back Cleek, irritably. "I want
the dockmaster! I want him at once! Where is the man? Oh, there you
are, Mr. Beachman. Speak up--quickly. Was that 'Hilmann' woman ever
allowed to enter this room? Did she ever make use of this typewriter
at any time?"
"Yes, sir--often," he replied. "She was one of the best and most
careful typists I ever saw. Used to attend to all my correspondence
for me and----Good God, man, what are you doing? Don't you know that
that thing's Government property?"
For Cleek, not waiting for him to finish what he was saying, had
suddenly laid hands on the machine, found it screwed fast to the
table and, catching up the nearest chair, was now smashing and
banging away at it with all his force.
"Government destruction, you mean!" he gave back sharply. "Didn't
I tell you she was a very demon of ingenuity, stupid? Didn't I
say----Victory! Now then, look here--all of you! Here's a pretty
little contrivance, if you like."
He had battered the typewriter from its fastenings and sent it
crashing to the floor, a wreck, not ten seconds before; now, his
hand, which, immediately thereafter, had been moving rapidly over the
surface of the sound-deadening square of felt beneath, whisked
that, too, from the table, and let them all see the discovery he
had made.
Protruding from the surface of that table and set at regular
intervals there were forty-two needle points of steel--one for each
key of the typewriter--which a moment before had pierced the felt's
surface just sufficient to meet the bottom of the "key" above it,
and to be driven downward when that key was depressed.
Spectacular as ever in these times, he faced about and gave his hand
an outward fling.
"Gentlemen, the answer to the riddle," he said. "You have been
supplying her with the needed information yourselves. A ducat to
a door knob, every time a letter was struck on this machine its exact
duplicate was recorded somewhere else. Get a saw, Mr. Beachman,
and let us see to what these steel points lead."
They led to a most ingenious contrivance, as it turned out. A highly
sensitive spiral spring attached to an "arm" of thin, tough steel
beneath the surface of the table communicated with a rigid wire
running down the wall behind one of that table's back legs and,
passing thence through a small gimlet-hole in the floor, descended
and disappeared.
Following that wire's course, they, too, descended until, in the
fulness of time, the end was reached in a far corner of the cellar
underneath the building.
There, behind an upturned empty cask, they came upon yet another
wire, which wound upward, and was found afterward to travel out and
up beside the "leader" until it joined the private wire of the
dockyard just outside the dormer window of what had once been Miss
Greta Hilmann's bedroom. And to these wires--the one descending and
the other ascending from behind that empty cask in the cellar--there
was a singular contrivance attached. To one, a plain, everyday
instrument for dispatching telegrams by the Morse system; to the
other, a curious little keyboard which was an exact counterpart
of the keyboard to the typewriter upstairs; and besides this there
lay some remnants of food from the store cupboard of the house,
and a sheaf of paper leaves covered with typewritten characters.
"Gentlemen, the absolute end of the riddle at last," said Cleek
as he took up one of those leaves. "Look at them--Government
secrets every one. And I, like an ass, forgot to remember that Nicolo
Ferrand was one of the cleverest mechanicians and one of the
craftiest 'wire workers' that the underworld boasts. Look, Sir
Charles; look, Mr. Narkom. Every touch of a letter on the keyboard
of the typewriter upstairs registered its exact duplicate on this
infernal contrivance down here, and fast as it was recorded, that
vixen wired it on to Boris Borovonski. Can't you understand now
why she left her post and flew to him? The shock which killed him
and travelled with lessened force down the wire to the telegraph
operator was felt here, and the instrument she used was, in all
probability, disabled. She knew then, of course, that something
had happened to her brother, and in a panic flew to find out what.
"But even the shrewdest slip up sometimes and overlook things. Her
foolish slip lay in this: that she forgot to take with her these
original drafts of the intelligence she had wired to the dead man."
"Ah, weel," said Mr. Alexander MacInery, who, like a true Scotsman,
never liked to be found at the small end of the horn upon any
occasion, "after all, 'tis no more than I expected. I said it was
accident that was at the bottom of it, and accident it's turned out
to be."
"No doubt," agreed Cleek, with one of his peculiar smiles. "But,
personally, I always like to think that there's a Power above, and
when men--_and_ nations--have played the game squarely----Shan't we
be going upstairs, Sir Charles? Mr. Narkom and I have a long ride
back to town, and the afternoon is on the decline."
It was still farther on that road, however, before he was able to
actually tear himself away from the dockyard and be off home; for
there were those little legal necessities which are the penalty
of dealing with Government affairs to be attended to; there was
the boring business of meeting high officials, and listening to
compliments and congratulations, and he was really glad when the
limousine, answering to orders, rolled up, the final good-byes were
said, and he and Mr. Narkom swung off townward together.
But despite the fact that he had just carried to a successful
conclusion a case which would go far to enhance his reputation and
to hasten the day for which he had so long and so earnestly worked,
Cleek was singularly uncommunicative, markedly abstracted, as they
rode back through the streets of Portsmouth Town on their way to
the highroad; and had the superintendent been more observant and
less wrapped up in the glory that was to be theirs as the result of
the day's adventure, he might have discovered that, while his
ally seemed to be dozing stupidly when he was not leaning back
in a corner and smoking, he was all the time keeping a close watch of
the crowded streets through which they were speeding as if looking
for some one or something he expected to see. Nor did he relax
this peculiar system of vigilance even after the town itself had
dropped away into the far distance, and the car was scudding along
over the broad stretches and the less-frequented thoroughfares of
the open country.
"I shall not go all the way back with you, if you don't mind, Mr.
Narkom," he said, breaking silence abruptly, as they raced along.
"Just set me down at the place where you picked me up this morning,
please, and I will do the rest of the journey by train."
"Cinnamon! Why?"
"Oh, just a mere whim of mine, that's all. No--don't press me for an
explanation, please. 'Where ignorance is bliss,' et cetera. Besides,
I'm a whimsical beggar at best, you know--and who bothers to inquire
why a donkey prefers thistles to hay? So just drop me down when we
reach the outskirts of Guildford, if you will be so kind."
Mr. Narkom was discreet enough to drop the subject at that and to
make no further allusion to the matter until they came, in the
fulness of time, to the place in question. Here he called Lennard
to a halt, and Cleek alighted--not furtively, nor yet in haste--and,
standing beside the car, reached in and shook hands with him.
"Until you want me again," he smiled in his easy, offhand way. "And
if that turns out to be a long time off I shan't be sorry. Meanwhile,
if you wish to do me a favour, look about for a limousine of another
make and a quite different colour. I've an odd idea that this one is
fast coming to the end of its career of usefulness. Good-bye. All
right, Lennard--let her go."
Then the door of the car closed with a smack, and he was off and
away--so openly and at such a leisurely pace that it was clear he
had neither need nor desire to effect a getaway unobserved.
"Well, I'll be dashed!" was Mr. Narkom's unspoken comment upon the
proceeding--for, under his hat, he had come to the conclusion that
Cleek had, in some way, by some unconfessed means, learned that
Waldemar or the Apache had come back into the game and were again
on his heels, but had said nothing for fear of worrying him. "Walking
off as cool as you please and never the first attempt to come any
of his old Vanishing Cracksman's dodges. Amazing beggar! What's he up
to now, I wonder?"
It is just possible that could he have followed he would have
wondered still more, for Cleek was bearing straight down upon the
populous portions of the town, and about ten minutes after the two
had parted, struck into the High Street, walked along it for a
short distance, studying the signs over the various buildings until,
sighting one which announced that it was the Guildford Office of the
Royal British Life Assurance Society, he crossed the street, and
with great deliberation passed in under it, and disappeared from
sight.
It was one of the contradictory points of his singularly
contradictory character, that whereas he had chafed under the delay
in getting away from the Royal dockyard at Portsea because he was
eager to get back to his work in the little old walled garden, and
all his thoughts were with the flowers he was preparing for _her_,
in the end he did not see the place until after the moon was up,
and all hope of gardening for that day had to be abandoned
entirely, yet--he came back to Dollops whistling and as happy as a
sandboy.
He was up with the first cock crow next morning, and dawn found him
plying fork and rake and trowel among the flowers, and positively
bubbling over with enthusiasm; for the budding roses were just
beginning to show colour and to give promise of full bloom for the
day of days--and more than that he did not ask of heaven.
Indeed, it was written that he might not, for the balance had again
swung over, the call of Nature again sounded, and the Great Mother,
taking him to her bosom, had again merged the Man in the Idealist
and cradled him into forgetfulness of all spells but hers. So that
all through the day he went in and out among his flowers whistling
and singing and living in a sort of ecstasy that ran on like a
dream without end.
On the morrow the little garden was all finished and ready, and
nothing now remained but to sit in idleness and wait.