draughtsman. He is quite a decent young fellow, and I have had him two
years. I don't consider him particularly smart, or he would have learned a
little more of his business by this time. But I don't see the least reason
to suspect him. As I said before, I can't reasonably suspect anybody."
"Very well; we will get to Chancery Lane now, if you please, and you can
tell me more as we go."
"I have a cab waiting. What else can I tell you?"
"I understand the position to be succinctly this: The drawings were in the
office when you arrived. Nobody came out, and nobody went in; and _yet_
they vanished. Is that so?"
"That is so. When I say that absolutely nobody came in, of course I except
the postman. He brought a couple of letters during the morning. I mean
that absolutely nobody came past the barrier in the outer office--the
usual thing, you know, like a counter, with a frame of ground glass over
it."
"I quite understand that. But I think you said that the drawings were in a
drawer in your _own_ room--not the outer office, where the draughtsmen
are, I presume?"
"That is the case. It is an inner room, or, rather, a room parallel with
the other, and communicating with it; just as your own room is, which we
have just left."
"But, then, you say you never left your office, and yet the drawings
vanished--apparently by some unseen agency--while you were there in the
room?"
"Let me explain more clearly." The cab was bowling smoothly along the
Strand, and the engineer took out a pocket-book and pencil. "I fear," he
proceeded, "that I am a little confused in my explanation--I am naturally
rather agitated. As you will see presently, my offices consist of three
rooms, two at one side of a corridor, and the other opposite--thus." He
made a rapid pencil sketch.
[Illustration]
"In the outer office my men usually work. In the inner office I work
myself. These rooms communicate, as you see, by a door. Our ordinary way
in and out of the place is by the door of the outer office leading into
the corridor, and we first pass through the usual lifting flap in the
barrier. The door leading from the _inner_ office to the corridor is
always kept locked on the inside, and I don't suppose I unlock it once in
three months. It has not been unlocked all the morning. The drawer in
which the missing drawings were kept, and in which I saw them at ten
o'clock this morning, is at the place marked D; it is a large chest of
shallow drawers in which the plans lie flat."
"I quite understand. Then there is the private room opposite. What of
that?"
"That is a sort of private sitting-room that I rarely use, except for
business interviews of a very private nature. When I said I never left my
office, I did not mean that I never stirred out of the inner office. I was
about in one room and another, both the outer and the inner offices, and
once I went into the private room for five minutes, but nobody came either
in or out of any of the rooms at that time, for the door of the private
room was wide open, and I was standing at the book-case (I had gone to
consult a book), just inside the door, with a full view of the doors
opposite. Indeed, Worsfold was at the door of the outer office most of the
short time. He came to ask me a question."
"Well," Hewitt replied, "it all comes to the simple first statement. You
know that nobody left the place or arrived, except the postman, who
couldn't get near the drawings, and yet the drawings went. Is this your
office?"
The cab had stopped before a large stone building. Mr. Dixon alighted and
led the way to the first-floor. Hewitt took a casual glance round each of
the three rooms. There was a sort of door in the frame of ground glass
over the barrier to admit of speech with visitors. This door Hewitt pushed
wide open, and left so.
He and the engineer went into the inner office. "Would you like to ask
Worsfold and Ritter any questions?" Mr. Dixon inquired.
"Presently. Those are their coats, I take it, hanging just to the right of
the outer office door, over the umbrella stand?"
"Yes, those are all their things--coats, hats, stick, and umbrella."
"And those coats were searched, you say?"
"Yes."
"And this is the drawer--thoroughly searched, of course?"
"Oh, certainly; every drawer was taken out and turned over."
"Well, of course I must assume you made no mistake in your hunt. Now tell
me, did anybody know where these plans were, beyond yourself and your two
men?"
"As far as I can tell, not a soul."
"You don't keep an office boy?"
"No. There would be nothing for him to do except to post a letter now and
again, which Ritter does quite well for."
"As you are quite sure that the drawings were there at ten o'clock,
perhaps the thing scarcely matters. But I may as well know if your men
have keys of the office?"
"Neither. I have patent locks to each door and I keep all the keys myself.
If Worsfold or Ritter arrive before me in the morning they have to wait to
be let in; and I am always present myself when the rooms are cleaned. I
have not neglected precautions, you see."
"No. I suppose the object of the theft--assuming it is a theft--is pretty
plain: the thief would offer the drawings for sale to some foreign
government?"
"Of course. They would probably command a great sum. I have been looking,
as I need hardly tell you, to that invention to secure me a very large
fortune, and I shall be ruined, indeed, if the design is taken abroad. I
am under the strictest engagements to secrecy with the Admiralty, and not
only should I lose all my labor, but I should lose all the confidence
reposed in me at headquarters; should, in fact, be subject to penalties
for breach of contract, and my career stopped forever. I can not tell you
what a serious business this is for me. If you can not help me, the
consequences will be terrible. Bad for the service of the country, too, of
course."
"Of course. Now tell me this: It would, I take it, be necessary for the
thief to _exhibit_ these drawings to anybody anxious to buy the secret--I
mean, he couldn't describe the invention by word of mouth."
"Oh, no, that would be impossible. The drawings are of the most
complicated description, and full of figures upon which the whole thing
depends. Indeed, one would have to be a skilled expert to properly
appreciate the design at all. Various principles of hydrostatics,
chemistry, electricity, and pneumatics are most delicately manipulated and
adjusted, and the smallest error or omission in any part would upset the
whole. No, the drawings are necessary to the thing, and they are gone."
At this moment the door of the outer office was heard to open and somebody
entered. The door between the two offices was ajar, and Hewitt could see
right through to the glass door left open over the barrier and into the
space beyond. A well-dressed, dark, bushy-bearded man stood there carrying
a hand-bag, which he placed on the ledge before him. Hewitt raised his
hand to enjoin silence. The man spoke in a rather high-pitched voice and
with a slight accent. "Is Mr. Dixon now within?" he asked.
"He is engaged," answered one of the draughtsmen; "very particularly
engaged. I am afraid you won't be able to see him this afternoon. Can I
give him any message?"
"This is two--the second time I have come to-day. Not two hours ago Mr.
Dixon himself tells me to call again. I have a very important--very
excellent steam-packing to show him that is very cheap and the best of the
market." The man tapped his bag. "I have just taken orders from the
largest railway companies. Can not I see him, for one second only? I will
not detain him."
"Really, I'm sure you can't this afternoon; he isn't seeing anybody. But
if you'll leave your name----"
"My name is Hunter; but what the good of that? He ask me to call a little
later, and I come, and now he is engaged. It is a very great pity." And
the man snatched up his bag and walking-stick, and stalked off,
indignantly.
Hewitt stood still, gazing through the small aperture in the doorway.
"You'd scarcely expect a man with such a name as Hunter to talk with that
accent, would you?" he observed, musingly. "It isn't a French accent, nor
a German; but it seems foreign. You don't happen to know him, I suppose?"
"No, I don't. He called here about half-past twelve, just while we were in
the middle of our search and I was frantic over the loss of the drawings.
I was in the outer office myself, and told him to call later. I have lots
of such agents here, anxious to sell all sorts of engineering appliances.
But what will you do now? Shall you see my men?"
"I think," said Hewitt, rising--"I think I'll get you to question them
yourself."
"Myself?"
"Yes, I have a reason. Will you trust me with the 'key' of the private
room opposite? I will go over there for a little, while you talk to your
men in this room. Bring them in here and shut the door; I can look after
the office from across the corridor, you know. Ask them each to detail his
exact movements about the office this morning, and get them to recall each
visitor who has been here from the beginning of the week. I'll let you
know the reason of this later. Come across to me in a few minutes."
Hewitt took the key and passed through the outer office into the corridor.
Ten minutes later Mr. Dixon, having questioned his draughtsmen, followed
him. He found Hewitt standing before the table in the private room, on
which lay several drawings on tracing-paper.
"See here, Mr. Dixon," said Hewitt, "I think these are the drawings you
are anxious about?"
The engineer sprang toward them with a cry of delight. "Why, yes, yes," he
exclaimed, turning them over, "every one of them! But where--how--they
must have been in the place after all, then? What a fool I have been!"
Hewitt shook his head. "I'm afraid you're not quite so lucky as you think,
Mr. Dixon," he said. "These drawings have most certainly been out of the
house for a little while. Never mind how--we'll talk of that after. There
is no time to lose. Tell me--how long would it take a good draughtsman to
copy them?"
"They couldn't possibly be traced over properly in less than two or two
and a half long days of very hard work," Dixon replied with eagerness.
"Ah! then it is as I feared. These tracings have been photographed, Mr.
Dixon, and our task is one of every possible difficulty. If they had been
copied in the ordinary way, one might hope to get hold of the copy. But
photography upsets everything. Copies can be multiplied with such amazing
facility that, once the thief gets a decent start, it is almost hopeless
to checkmate him. The only chance is to get at the negatives before copies
are taken. I must act at once; and I fear, between ourselves, it may be
necessary for me to step very distinctly over the line of the law in the
matter. You see, to get at those negatives may involve something very like
house-breaking. There must be no delay, no waiting for legal procedure, or
the mischief is done. Indeed, I very much question whether you have any
legal remedy, strictly speaking."
"Mr. Hewitt, I implore you, do what you can. I need not say that all I
have is at your disposal. I will guarantee to hold you harmless for
anything that may happen. But do, I entreat you, do everything possible.
Think of what the consequences may be!"
"Well, yes, so I do," Hewitt remarked, with a smile. "The consequences to
me, if I were charged with house-breaking, might be something that no
amount of guarantee could mitigate. However, I will do what I can, if only
from patriotic motives. Now, I must see your tracer, Ritter. He is the
traitor in the camp."
"Ritter? But how?"
"Never mind that now. You are upset and agitated, and had better not know
more than is necessary for a little while, in case you say or do something
unguarded. With Ritter I must take a deep course; what I don't know I must
appear to know, and that will seem more likely to him if I disclaim
acquaintance with what I do know. But first put these tracings safely away
out of sight."
Dixon slipped them behind his book-case.
"Now," Hewitt pursued, "call Mr. Worsfold and give him something to do
that will keep him in the inner office across the way, and tell him to
send Ritter here."
Mr. Dixon called his chief draughtsman and requested him to put in order
the drawings in the drawers of the inner room that had been disarranged by
the search, and to send Ritter, as Hewitt had suggested.
Ritter walked into the private room with an air of respectful attention.
He was a puffy-faced, unhealthy-looking young man, with very small eyes
and a loose, mobile mouth.
"Sit down, Mr. Ritter," Hewitt said, in a stern voice. "Your recent
transactions with your friend Mr. Hunter are well known both to Mr. Dixon
and myself."
Ritter, who had at first leaned easily back in his chair, started forward
at this, and paled.
"You are surprised, I observe; but you should be more careful in your
movements out of doors if you do not wish your acquaintances to be known.
Mr. Hunter, I believe, has the drawings which Mr. Dixon has lost, and, if
so, I am certain that you have given them to him. That, you know, is
theft, for which the law provides a severe penalty."
Ritter broke down completely and turned appealingly to Mr. Dixon.
"Oh, sir," he pleaded, "it isn't so bad, I assure you. I was tempted, I
confess, and hid the drawings; but they are still in the office, and I can
give them to you--really, I can."
"Indeed?" Hewitt went on. "Then, in that case, perhaps you'd better get
them at once. Just go and fetch them in; we won't trouble to observe your
hiding-place. I'll only keep this door open, to be sure you don't lose
your way, you know--down the stairs, for instance."
The wretched Ritter, with hanging head, slunk into the office opposite.
Presently he reappeared, looking, if possible, ghastlier than before. He
looked irresolutely down the corridor, as if meditating a run for it, but
Hewitt stepped toward him and motioned him back to the private room.
"You mustn't try any more of that sort of humbug," Hewitt said with
increased severity. "The drawings are gone, and you have stolen them; you
know that well enough. Now attend to me. If you received your deserts, Mr.
Dixon would send for a policeman this moment, and have you hauled off to
the jail that is your proper place. But, unfortunately, your accomplice,
who calls himself Hunter--but who has other names besides that--as I
happen to know--has the drawings, and it is absolutely necessary that
these should be recovered. I am afraid that it will be necessary,
therefore, to come to some arrangement with this scoundrel--to square him,
in fact. Now, just take that pen and paper, and write to your confederate
as I dictate. You know the alternative if you cause any difficulty."
Ritter reached tremblingly for the pen.
"Address him in your usual way," Hewitt proceeded. "Say this: 'There has
been an alteration in the plans.' Have you got that? 'There has been an
alteration in the plans. I shall be alone here at six o'clock. Please
come, without fail.' Have you got it? Very well; sign it, and address the
envelope. He must come here, and then we may arrange matters. In the
meantime, you will remain in the inner office opposite."
The note was written, and Martin Hewitt, without glancing at the address,
thrust it into his pocket. When Ritter was safely in the inner office,
however, he drew it out and read the address. "I see," he observed, "he
uses the same name, Hunter; 27 Little Carton Street, Westminster, is the
address, and there I shall go at once with the note. If the man comes
here, I think you had better lock him in with Ritter, and send for a
policeman--it may at least frighten him. My object is, of course, to get
the man away, and then, if possible, to invade his house, in some way or
another, and steal or smash his negatives if they are there and to be
found. Stay here, in any case, till I return. And don't forget to lock up
those tracings."
* * * * *
It was about six o'clock when Hewitt returned, alone, but with a smiling
face that told of good fortune at first sight.
"First, Mr. Dixon," he said, as he dropped into an easy chair in the
private room, "let me ease your mind by the information that I have been
most extraordinarily lucky; in fact, I think you have no further cause for
anxiety. Here are the negatives. They were not all quite dry when I--well,
what?--stole them, I suppose I must say; so that they have stuck together
a bit, and probably the films are damaged. But you don't mind that, I
suppose?"
He laid a small parcel, wrapped in a newspaper, on the table. The engineer
hastily tore away the paper and took up five or six glass photographic
negatives, of a half-plate size, which were damp, and stuck together by
the gelatine films in couples. He held them, one after another, up to the
light of the window, and glanced through them. Then, with a great sigh of
relief, he placed them on the hearth and pounded them to dust and
fragments with the poker.
For a few seconds neither spoke. Then Dixon, flinging himself into a
chair, said:
"Mr. Hewitt, I can't express my obligation to you. What would have
happened if you had failed, I prefer not to think of. But what shall we do
with Ritter now? The other man hasn't been here yet, by the by."
"No; the fact is I didn't deliver the letter. The worthy gentleman saved
me a world of trouble by taking himself out of the way." Hewitt laughed.
"I'm afraid he has rather got himself into a mess by trying two kinds of
theft at once, and you may not be sorry to hear that his attempt on your
torpedo plans is likely to bring him a dose of penal servitude for
something else. I'll tell you what has happened.
"Little Carton Street, Westminster, I found to be a seedy sort of
place--one of those old streets that have seen much better days. A good
many people seem to live in each house--they are fairly large houses, by
the way--and there is quite a company of bell-handles on each doorpost,
all down the side like organ-stops. A barber had possession of the ground
floor front of No. 27 for trade purposes, so to him I went. 'Can you tell
me,' I said, 'where in this house I can find Mr. Hunter?' He looked
doubtful, so I went on: 'His friend will do, you know--I can't think of
his name; foreign gentleman, dark, with a bushy beard.'
"The barber understood at once. 'Oh, that's Mirsky, I expect,' he said.
'Now, I come to think of it, he has had letters addressed to Hunter once
or twice; I've took 'em in. Top floor back.'
"This was good so far. I had got at 'Mr. Hunter's' other alias. So, by way
of possessing him with the idea that I knew all about him, I determined to
ask for him as Mirsky before handing over the letter addressed to him as
Hunter. A little bluff of that sort is invaluable at the right time. At
the top floor back I stopped at the door and tried to open it at once, but
it was locked. I could hear somebody scuttling about within, as though
carrying things about, and I knocked again. In a little while the door
opened about a foot, and there stood Mr. Hunter--or Mirsky, as you
like--the man who, in the character of a traveler in steam-packing, came
here twice to-day. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and cuddled something
under his arm, hastily covered with a spotted pocket-handkerchief.
"'I have called to see M. Mirsky," I said, 'with a confidential
letter----'
"'Oh, yas, yas,' he answered hastily; 'I know--I know. Excuse me one
minute.' And he rushed off down-stairs with his parcel.
"Here was a noble chance. For a moment I thought of following him, in case
there might be something interesting in the parcel. But I had to decide in
a moment, and I decided on trying the room. I slipped inside the door,
and, finding the key on the inside, locked it. It was a confused sort of
room, with a little iron bedstead in one corner and a sort of rough
boarded inclosure in another. This I rightly conjectured to be the
photographic dark-room, and made for it at once.
"There was plenty of light within when the door was left open, and I made
at once for the drying-rack that was fastened over the sink. There were a
number of negatives in it, and I began hastily examining them one after
another. In the middle of this our friend Mirsky returned and tried the
door. He rattled violently at the handle and pushed. Then he called.
"At this moment I had come upon the first of the negatives you have just
smashed. The fixing and washing had evidently only lately been completed,
and the negative was drying on the rack. I seized it, of course, and the
others which stood by it.
"'Who are you, there, inside?' Mirsky shouted indignantly from the
landing. 'Why for you go in my room like that? Open this door at once, or
I call the police!'
"I took no notice. I had got the full number of negatives, one for each
drawing, but I was not by any means sure that he had not taken an extra
set; so I went on hunting down the rack. There were no more, so I set to
work to turn out all the undeveloped plates. It was quite possible, you
see, that the other set, if it existed, had not yet been developed.
"Mirsky changed his tune. After a little more banging and shouting I could
hear him kneel down and try the key-hole. I had left the key there, so
that he could see nothing. But he began talking softly and rapidly through
the hole in a foreign language. I did not know it in the least, but I
believe it was Russian. What had led him to believe I understood Russian I
could not at the time imagine, though I have a notion now. I went on
ruining his stock of plates. I found several boxes, apparently of new
plates, but, as there was no means of telling whether they were really
unused or were merely undeveloped, but with the chemical impress of your
drawings on them, I dragged every one ruthlessly from its hiding-place and
laid it out in the full glare of the sunlight--destroying it thereby, of
course, whether it was unused or not.
"Mirsky left off talking, and I heard him quietly sneaking off. Perhaps
his conscience was not sufficiently clear to warrant an appeal to the
police, but it seemed to me rather probable at the time that that was what
he was going for. So I hurried on with my work. I found three dark
slides--the parts that carried the plates in the back of the camera, you
know--one of them fixed in the camera itself. These I opened, and exposed
the plates to ruination as before. I suppose nobody ever did so much
devastation in a photographic studio in ten minutes as I managed.
"I had spoiled every plate I could find, and had the developed negatives
safely in my pocket, when I happened to glance at a porcelain washing-well
under the sink. There was one negative in that, and I took it up. It was
_not_ a negative of a drawing of yours, but of a Russian twenty-ruble
note!"
This _was_ a discovery. The only possible reason any man could have for
photographing a bank-note was the manufacture of an etched plate for the
production of forged copies. I was almost as pleased as I had been at the
discovery of _your_ negatives. He might bring the police now as soon as he
liked; I could turn the tables on him completely. I began to hunt about
for anything else relating to this negative.
"I found an inking-roller, some old pieces of blanket (used in printing
from plates), and in a corner on the floor, heaped over with newspapers
and rubbish, a small copying-press. There was also a dish of acid, but not
an etched plate or a printed note to be seen. I was looking at the press,
with the negative in one hand and the inking-roller in the other, when I
became conscious of a shadow across the window. I looked up quickly, and
there was Mirsky hanging over from some ledge or projection to the side of
the window, and staring straight at me, with a look of unmistakable terror
and apprehension.
"The face vanished immediately. I had to move a table to get at the
window, and by the time I had opened it there was no sign or sound of the
rightful tenant of the room. I had no doubt now of his reason for carrying
a parcel down-stairs. He probably mistook me for another visitor he was
expecting, and, knowing he must take this visitor into his room, threw the
papers and rubbish over the press, and put up his plates and papers in a
bundle and secreted them somewhere down-stairs, lest his occupation should
be observed.