The Message of the Tracing
Inspector French spread the photograph on his desk, and Cheyne and
Price having drawn up chairs, all three gazed at it as if expecting
that in the light of their great idea its message would have become
obvious.
But in this they were disappointed. The suggestion did not seem in any
way to help either French or Cheyne, and Price, who of course had not
seen the document before, was satisfactorily mystified. Granted that
the thing was a map, granted even that it was a map of England, its
meaning remained just as provokingly hidden as ever.
Presently Price gave vent to an exclamation. “Hang it all!” he cried
irritably, and then: “I suppose those numbers couldn’t be soundings?
Could they give depths at the circles?”
“That’s an idea,” Cheyne cried, but French shook his head.
“I think there’s more in it than that,” he observed. “If you examine
those numbers you’ll find that they’re consecutive, they run from one
to thirty-six. Soundings wouldn’t lend themselves to such an
arrangement. You may be right, Mr. Price, and we must keep your idea
in view, but I don’t see it working out for the moment.”
Silence reigned for a few moments, then Price sat back from the table
and spoke again.
“Look here, Inspector,” he said, knocking the ashes out of his pipe
and beginning to fill it with his strong, black mixture, “you said
something just now I didn’t quite follow. Let’s get your notion clear.
You talked of this thing beginning with the sea—at Schulz, and ending
with the sea—at _L’Escaut_, and Schulz’s message being a map. Just
what was in your mind?”
“Only the obvious suggestion that if you leave a message which
provokes an expedition, you must also convey in your message the
destination of that expedition, and a map seems the simplest way of
doing it. But on second thoughts I question my first conclusion. There
must be an explanation of the secret as well as a direction of how to
profit by it, and it would seem to me doubtful that such an
explanation could be covered by a map.”
“Sounds all right, that,” Price admitted. “Have you any idea what the
secret might be? Sounds like treasure or salvage or something of that
kind.”
“I scarcely think salvage,” French answered. “The _L’Escaut_ is not a
salvage boat, and a boat not specially fitted for the purpose would be
of little use. But I thought of treasure all right. This Schulz might
have robbed his ships—there would always be money aboard, and even
during the war many women traveled with jewelry. The man might easily
have made a cache of valuables somewhere round the coast.”
“Easily,” Cheyne intervened, “or he might have learned of some
valuable deposit in some out of the way cove round the coast, like
those chaps in that clinking tale of Maurice Drake’s, _WO₂_.”
“As at Terneuzen?” said French. “I read that book—one of the best I
ever came across. It’s a possibility, of course.”
The talk here became somewhat rambling, Price not having read _WO₂_
and wanting to know what it was about, but French soon reverted to his
photograph. He reminded his hearers that they were all interested in
its elucidation. Miss Merrill’s safety, his own professional credit,
Cheyne’s peace of mind, and Price’s fortune, all were at stake.
“We have,” he went on, “evolved the idea that perhaps this tracing may
be a map of England. On further thought that suggestion does not seem
promising, but as we have no other let us work on it. Assume it is a
map of England, and let us see if it leads us anywhere.” There were
murmurs of assent from his hearers, and he continued: “Now it seems to
me the first thing to do is to try if we can fit these circles and
lines into the map of England. Is there anything corresponding to them
in English geography?”
No one being able to answer this query, French went on:
“I think we must distinguish between the letter circles on the one
hand and those of the numbers and lines on the other. The position of
the former was not altered in the faked copy; that of the latter was.
From this may we not assume that the message lies in the numbers and
lines only? Possibly the letters were added as a blind, as we have
already assumed the words ‘expects every man to do his duty’ were
added as a blind to ‘England.’ Suppose at all events that we eliminate
the letter circles and concentrate on the others for our first
effort?”
“That sounds all right.”
“Good. Then let us go a step further. Have you noticed the
distribution of the numbers, letters and lines? The numbers are
bunched, roughly speaking, towards the center, the letters round the
edge, and the irregular lines between the two. Does this central mass
give us anything?”
“I get you,” Price replied. He had risen and begun to pace the room,
but now he returned to the table and stood looking down at the
photograph. “You know, as a matter of fact,” he went on slowly, “if,
as you say, you take that central part which contains numbers only,
the shape of the thing is not so very unlike England after all.
Suppose the numbers represent land and the letters sea. Then this
patch of letters in the top left-hand corner might be the Irish Sea,
and this larger patch to the right the North Sea. And look, the letter
circles form a band across the bottom. What price that for the English
Channel?”
French crossed the room, and taking a small atlas from a shelf, opened
it at the map of England and laid it down beside the photograph. With
a rising excitement all three compared them. Then Cheyne burst out
irritably:
“Confound the thing! It’s like it and it’s not like it. Let’s draw a
line round those number circles and see if it makes anything like the
shape.” He seized the photograph and took out a pencil.
But just as in the scientific and industrial worlds discoveries and
inventions seldom come singly, so among these three men the begetting
of ideas begot more ideas. Scarcely had Cheyne spoken when French made
a little gesture of comprehension.
“I believe I have it at last,” he said quietly but with ill-concealed
eagerness in his tones. “Those irregular lines in certain of the
circles are broken bits of the coast line. See here, those two between
8 and U are surely the Wash, and that below H is Flamborough Head.
Let’s see if we can locate correspondingly shaped outlines on the
atlas, and fill in between those on the photograph with pencil.”
A few seconds’ examination only were needed. Opposite, but slightly
above the projection which French suggested as Flamborough Head was an
angled line between GU and 31 which all three simultaneously
pronounced St. Bee’s Head. Short double lines on each side of 24
showed two parts of the estuary of the Severn, and projections along
the bottom near X and 27 were evidently St. Alban’s Head and Selsey
Bill.
That they were on the right track there could now no longer be any
doubt, and they set themselves with renewed energy to the problem
still remaining—the meaning of the circles and the numbers they
contained.
“We can’t locate the blessed things this way,” French pointed out.
“We’ll have to rule squares on the atlas to correspond. Then we can
pencil in the coast line accurately, and see just where the circles
lie.”
For a time measuring and the drawing of lines were the order of the
day. And then at last the positions of the circles were located. They
were all drawn round towns.
“Towns!” Price exclaimed. “Guess we’re getting on.”
“Towns!” Cheyne echoed in his turn. “Then you must have been right,
Inspector, about those letters being merely a blind.”
“I think so,” French admitted. “Look at it in this way. If only the
towns and coast were marked, the shape of England would show too
clearly. But adding those letter circles disguises the thing—prevents
the shape becoming apparent. Now, I may be wrong, but I am beginning
to question very much if this map has anything to do with indicating a
position—I mean directly. I am beginning to think it is merely a
cipher. Let us test this at all events. Let us write down the names of
the towns in the order of the numbers and see if that gives us
anything.”
He took a sheet of paper, while Price found No. 1 on the photograph
and Cheyne identified its position with that of a town on the atlas
map.
“No. 1,” said Cheyne, “is Salisbury.”
French wrote down: “1, Salisbury.”
“No. 2,” went on Cheyne, “is Immingham.”
“2, Immingham,” wrote French, as he remarked, “Salisbury—Immingham:
S—I. That goes all right so far.”
The next three towns were Liverpool, Uttoxeter, and Reading, and
though none of the men could see where SILUR was leading, it was at
least pronounceable.
But when the next three letters were added French gave a mighty shout
of victory. No. 6 was Ipswich, No. 7 Andover, and No. 8 Nottingham.
IAN added to SILUR made Silurian.
“_Silurian!_” French cried, striking the table a mighty blow with his
clenched fist. “_Silurian!_ That begins to show a light!”
The others stared.
“Don’t you recognize the name?” went on French. “The _Silurian_ was a
big Anchor liner, and she was torpedoed on her way to the States with
two and a half millions in gold bars aboard!”
The others held their breath and their eyes grew round.
“Any of it recovered?”
“None: it was in mid-Atlantic.”
“But,” stammered Cheyne at last, “I don’t follow—”
“I don’t follow myself,” French returned briskly, “but when the cipher
which leads to a maritime expedition begins with a wreck with two and
a half millions aboard, well then, I say it is suggestive. Come along,
let’s read the rest of the thing. We’ll know more then.”
With breathless eagerness the other towns were looked up, and at last
French’s list read as follows:
1. Salisbury
2. Immingham
3. Liverpool
4. Uttoxeter
5. Reading
6. Ipswich
7. Andover
8. Nottingham
9. Oxford
10. Northampton
11. Evesham
12. Doncaster
13. Exeter
14. Gloucester
15. Ripon
16. Ely
17. Eastbourne
18. Wigan
19. Exmouth
20. Swansea
21. Tonbridge
22. Nuneaton
23. Ilfracombe
24. Newport
25. Eaglescliff
26. Taunton
27. Eastleigh
28. Ebbw Vale
29. Northallerton
30. Folkestone
31. Appleby
32. Tamworth
33. Huntingdon
34. Oldham
35. Middlesborough
36. Southend
Taking the initials in order read:
Silurianonedegreewestnineteenfathoms, or dividing it into its obvious
words—“_Silurian_ one degree west nineteen fathoms.”
The three men stared at one another.
“Nineteen fathoms!” Price gasped at last. “But if she’s in nineteen
fathoms that gold will be salvable!”
French nodded.
“And I guess Dangle and Company have gone to salve it. They wouldn’t
want a salvage boat for gold. They’d get it with a diver’s outfit.”
“But,” Cheyne went on in a puzzled tone, “I’ve not got this straight
yet. If she’s in nineteen fathoms, why has she not been salved by the
Admiralty? Look at the _Laurentic_. She was put down off the Swilly in
Ireland, and they salved her gold. Five million pounds’ worth. Salved
practically every penny, and in twenty fathoms too.”
Price was considering another problem.
“One degree west,” he murmured. “What under heaven does that mean? One
degree west of what? Surely not the meridian of Greenwich. If so, what
is the latitude: there’s no mention of it?”
French could not answer either of the questions, and he did not try.
Instead he picked up his telephone receiver and made a call.
“Hallo! Is that Lloyd’s? Put me through to the Record Department,
please . . . Is Mr. Sam Pullar there? Tell him Inspector French of
Scotland Yard wants to speak to him . . . Hallo, Sam! . . . Yes . . .
Haven’t seen you for ages . . . Look here, Sam, I want you to do me a
favor. It’s rather urgent, and I’d be grateful if you could look after
it just now. . . . Yes, I’ll hold on. I want to know anything you can
tell me about the sinking of the _Silurian_. You remember, she had two
and a half millions on her in gold, and the U-boats got her somewhere
between this country and the States, I think in ’17 . . . What’s that?
. . . Yes, all that and anything else you can tell me.” He took the
receiver from his ear. “Friend of mine in Lloyd’s,” he explained. “We
ought to get some light from his reply.”
Silence reigned for a couple of minutes, then French spoke again. “Let
me repeat that,” he said, seizing a pad and scribbling furiously.
“Latitude 41 degrees 36 minutes north, longitude 28 degrees 53 minutes
west. Right. How was that known? . . . But there was no direct
information? . . . Was the gold insured? . . . Well, it’s an involved
business, I could hardly tell you over the phone. I’ll explain it
first time we meet . . . Thank you, Sam. Much obliged.”
He rang off and then made a departmental call.
“Put me through to Inspector Barnes . . . That you, Barnes? I’m on to
something a bit in your line. Could you come down here for half an
hour?”
“Barnes is our authority on things nautical,” he told the others.
“Began life as a sailor and has studied all branches of sea lore. We
always give him shipping cases. We’ll wait till he comes and then I’ll
tell you what I learned from Lloyd’s.”
“Isn’t it a strange thing,” Cheyne remarked, “that Schulz should have
chosen England for his map and English for his cipher. Wouldn’t the
natural thing have been for him to have chosen Germany and German? He
could have headed it, for instance, ‘Deutschland über Alles,’ and used
the initials of German towns for his phrase.”
“I thought of that,” French returned, “but we have to remember he
prepared the cipher to mislead Germans, not English. In that case I
think he was right to use English. It made the thing more difficult.”
He had scarcely finished speaking when the door opened, and a tall,
alert-looking young man entered the room. French introduced him as
Inspector Barnes and pointed to a chair.
“Seat yourself, Barnes, and listen to my tale. These gentlemen are
concerned with a curious story,” and he gave a brief résumé of the
strange events which had led up to the existing situation. “Now,” he
went on, “when we found it was connected with the _Silurian_ I rang up
Sam Pullar at Lloyd’s, and this is what he told me. The _Silurian_
sailed from this country on the 16th of February, 1917. She was bound
for New York, and she had two and a half millions on her in bullion as
well as a fair number of passengers. She was a big boat—an Anchor
liner of some 15,000 tons. You remember about her?”
“Well, I should think so,” Barnes returned, as he lit a cigarette.
“Why, I was on that job—getting her away, I mean. All kinds of
precautions were taken. A tale was started that she would load up the
gold at Plymouth and would sail—I forget the exact date now, but it
was three days after she did sail. It was my job to see that the
German spies about Plymouth got hold of this tale, and we had evidence
that they did get it, and moreover sent it through to Germany, and
that the U-boats were instructed accordingly. As a matter of fact the
_Silurian_ came from Brest, where she had landed army stores from
South America, and the bullion went out in a tender from Folkestone,
and was transferred at night in the Channel in the middle of a ring of
destroyers. While preparations were being made at Plymouth for her
arrival she was away hundreds of miles towards the States.”
“But they got her all the same.”
“Oh yes, they got her, but not all the same. She escaped the boats
that were looking out for her. It was a chance boat that found her,
somewhere, if I remember rightly, near the Azores.”
“That’s right,” French answered. “Instead of going directly west, so
Sam Pullar told me, she went south to avoid those submarines you spoke
of and which were supposed to be operating off the Land’s End. Her
course was followed by wireless, down to near the Spanish coast, and
then across fairly due west. She was last seen by a Cape boat some
thirty miles west of Finisterre. Then a message was received from her
when she was some 250 miles north of the Azores, that a U-boat had
come along, and had ordered her to stop. The message gave her position
and went on to say that a boat was coming aboard from the submarine.
Then it stopped, and that was the last thing that was heard of her.
Not a body or a boat or a bit of wreckage was ever picked up, and it
was clear that every one on board was lost. Then after a time
confirmation was obtained. Our intelligence people in Germany
intercepted a report from the commander of the submarine who sank her,
giving details. She had been sunk in latitude 41° 36′ north, longitude
28° 53′ west, which confirmed the figures sent out in her last
wireless message. Four boats had got away, but the commander had fired
on them and had sunk them one after another, so that not a single
member of the passengers or crew should survive.”
“Dirty savages,” Barnes commented. “But people in open boats wouldn’t
have had much chance there anyway, particularly in February. If they
had been able to keep afloat at all, they would probably have missed
the Azores, and it’s very unlikely they would have made the Spanish or
Portuguese coast—it would have been too far.”
French pushed forward his atlas.
“Just whereabouts did she sink?” he inquired.
“About there.” Barnes indicated a point north of the Azores. “But this
atlas is too small to see it. Send someone to my room for my large
atlas. You’ll see better on that.”
French having telephoned his instructions Barnes went on.
“She’s evidently lying on what is called the Dolphin Rise. The Dolphin
Rise is part of a great ridge which passes down the middle of the
Atlantic from near Iceland to well down towards the Antarctic Ocean.
This ridge is covered by an average of some 1,700 fathoms of water,
with vastly greater depths on either side. It is volcanic and is
covered by great submarine mountain chains. Where the tops of these
mountains protrude above the surface we get, of course, islands, and
the Azores are such a group.”
A constable at that moment entered with the large atlas, and Barnes
continued:
“Now we’ll see in a moment.” He ran his finger down the index of maps,
then turned the pages. “Here we are. Here is a map of the North
Atlantic Ocean: here are the Azores and hereabouts is your point,
and—By Jove!” the young man looked actually excited, “here is what
your cipher means all right!”
The other three crowded round in almost breathless excitement. Barnes
pointed with a pencil slightly to the east of a white spot about a
quarter of an inch in diameter which bore the figure 18.
“Look here,” he went on, “there’s about the point she is supposed to
have sunk. You see it is colored light blue, which the reference tells
us means over 1,000 fathoms. But measure one degree to the west—it is
about fifty miles at that latitude—and it brings us into the middle of
that white patch marked 18. That white patch is another mountain
chain, just not high enough to become an island, and the 18 means that
the peaks come within 18 fathoms of the surface. So that your cipher
message is probably quite all right, and your Antwerp party are more
than likely working away at the gold at the present time.”
French swore comprehensively.
“You must be right,” he agreed. “One can see now what that blackguard
of a U-boat commander did. He evidently put some men aboard the
_Silurian_ to dismantle their wireless, then made them sail on
parallel to his own course until he had by the use of his lead
maneuvered them over the highest peak, and then put them down. The
whole thing must have been quite deliberate. He returned to his own
government a false statement of her position, which he knew would
correspond with the last message she sent out, intending it to be
believed that she was lost in over 1,000 fathoms. But he sank her
where he could himself afterwards recover her bullion, or sell his
secret to the highest bidder. The people on the _Silurian_ would know
all about that two or three hours’ steam west, so they must be got rid
of. Hence his destroying the boats one after another. No one must be
left alive to give the thing away. To his own crew he no doubt told
some tale to account for it, but he would be safe enough there, as no
one except himself would know the actual facts. Dirty savage indeed!”
With this speech of French’s a light seemed to Cheyne suddenly to
shine out over all that strange adventure in which for so many weeks
he had been involved. With it each puzzling fact seemed to become
comprehensible and to drop into its natural place in the story as the
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle eventually make a coherent whole. He
pictured the thing from the beginning, the submarine coming up with
the ship in deep water, but comparatively close to a shallow place
where its treasure could be salved: the desire of the U-boat
commander, Schulz, to save the gold, quite possibly in the first
instance for the benefit of his nation. Then the temptation to keep
what he had done secret so as, if possible later, to get the stuff for
himself. His fall before this temptation, with its contingent false
return to his government as to the position of the wreck. Then, Cheyne
saw, the problem of passing on the secret in the event of his own
death would arise, with the evolution and construction of the cipher
as an attempted solution. As a result of Schulz’s fatal wound the
cipher was handed to Price, and Schulz was doubtless about to explain
how it should be read, when he was interrupted by the nurse. Before
another chance offered he was dead.
Given the fact that Dangle overheard the dying man’s story, and that
Dangle’s character was what it was, Cheyne now saw that the remainder
of his adventure could scarcely have happened otherwise than as it
had. To obtain the cipher was Dangle’s obvious course, and there was
no reason to doubt his own statement of how he set about it. A search
among Price’s papers showed the latter had sent the document to
Cheyne, and from Cheyne Dangle had evidently decided to obtain it. But
nothing could be done till after the war, nor, presumably, without
financial and other help. In this lay, doubtless, the reason for the
application to Blessington and Sime, and these two being roped in, the
unscrupulous trio set themselves to work. Susan Dangle assisted by
obtaining a post as servant at Warren Lodge, and thus gained detailed
information which enabled the others to lay their plans. And so in a
quite orderly sequence event had followed event, until now it looked
as if the climax had been reached.
Like a flash these thoughts passed through Cheyne’s mind, and like a
flash he saw what depended on them. Now they knew where Joan Merrill
had been taken. If she was still alive—and he simply could not bring
himself to admit any other possibility—she was on that boat of
Merkel’s some two hundred and fifty miles north of the Azores! From
that something surely followed. He turned to French and spoke in a
voice which was hoarse from anxiety.
“What about an expedition to the place?”
French nodded decisively.
“We must arrange one without delay,” he said. “I think the Admiralty
is our hope. That gold wasn’t insured—it was a government business.
I’ll go and tell the chief about it now, and get him to see the proper
authorities. Meanwhile,” he looked, for French, quite sharply at the
others, “not a word of this must be breathed.”
Intense interest was excited in the higher circles of the Admiralty by
the news which reached them from the Yard. Great personages bestirred
themselves to issue orders, with the result that with enormously more
promptitude than the man in the street can bring himself to associate
with a Government Department, a fast boat, well equipped with divers
and gear, was got ready for sea. French put in a word for both Cheyne
and Price, and when, some eight hours after their reading of the
cipher, the boat put out into the Thames from Chatham Dockyard, it
carried in addition to its regular crew not only Inspector French
himself, but also his two protégés.