skilled draughtsman or other civilian employe. At any rate, the thief
knew what to take and its value. There is, at least, one nation, it is
asserted, which faces the problem of bringing its ships up to the
standard of our own to which the plans would be very valuable.
“The building had been thrown open to the public for the display of
fireworks on the Monument grounds before it. The plans are said to have
been on one of the draughting-tables, drawn upon linen to be made into
blue-prints. They are known to have been on the tables when the
draughting-room was locked for the night.
“The room is on the third floor of the Department and has a balcony
looking out on the Monument. Many officers and officials had their
families and friends on the balcony to witness the celebration, though
it is not known that any one was in the draughting-room itself. All
were admitted to the building on passes. The plans were tacked to a
draughting-board in the room, but when it was opened in the morning the
linen sheet was gone, and so were the thumb-tacks. The plans could
readily have been rolled into a small bundle and carried under a coat
or wrap.
“While the authorities are trying to minimise the actual loss, it is
believed that this position is only an attempt to allay the great
public concern.”
I paused. “Now then,” I added, picking up one of the other papers I had
brought up-town myself, “take the Express. It says that the plans were
important, but would have been made public in a few months, anyhow.
Here:
“The theft—or mislaying, as the Department hopes it will prove to
be—took place several days ago. Official confirmation of the report is
lacking, but from trustworthy unofficial sources it is learned that
only unimportant parts of plans are missing, presumably minor
structural details of battle-ship construction, and other things of a
really trivial character, such as copies of naval regulations, etc.
“The attempt to make a sensational connection between the loss and a
controversy which is now going on with a foreign government is greatly
to be deplored and is emphatically asserted to be utterly baseless. It
bears traces of the jingoism of those ‘interests’ which are urging
naval increases.
“There is usually very little about a battle-ship that is not known
before her keel is laid, or even before the signing of the contracts.
At any rate, when it is asserted that the plans represent the dernier
cri in some form of war preparation, it is well to remember that a
‘last cry’ is last only until there is a later. Naval secrets are few,
anyway, and as it takes some years to apply them, this loss cannot be
of superlative value to any one. Still, there is, of course, a market
for such information in spite of the progress toward disarmament, but
the rule in this case will be the rule as in a horse trade, ‘Caveat
emptor.’”
“So there you are,” I concluded. “You pay your penny for a paper, and
you take your choice.”
“And the Star,” inquired Kennedy, coming to the door and adding with an
aggravating grin, “the infallible?”
“The Star,” I replied, unruffled, “hits the point squarely when it says
that whether the plans were of immediate importance or not, the real
point is that if they could be stolen, really important things could be
taken also. For instance, ‘The thought of what the thief might have
stolen has caused much more alarm than the knowledge of what he has
succeeded in taking.’ I think it is about time those people in
Washington stopped the leak if—”
The telephone rang insistently.
“I think that’s for me,” exclaimed Craig, bounding out of his room and
forgetting his quiz of me. “Hello—yes—is that you, Burke? At the
Grand Central—half an hour—all right. I’m bringing Jameson. Good-bye.”
Kennedy jammed down the receiver on the hook.
XIX
THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY
“The Star was not far from right, Walter,” he added, seriously. “If the
battleship plans could be stolen, other things could be—other things
were. You remember Burke of the secret service? I’m going up to Lookout
Hill on the Connecticut shore of the Sound with him to-night. The
rewrite men on the Record didn’t have the facts, but they had accurate
imaginations. The most vital secret that any navy ever had, that would
have enabled us in a couple of years to whip the navies of the world
combined against us, has been stolen.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“The practical working-out of the newest of sciences, the science of
telautomatics.”
“Telautomatics?” I repeated.
“Yes. There is something weird, fascinating about the very idea. I sit
up here safely in this room, turning switches, pressing buttons,
depressing levers. Ten miles away a vehicle, a ship, an aeroplane, a
submarine obeys me. It may carry enough of the latest and most powerful
explosive that modern science can invent, enough, if exploded, to rival
the worst of earthquakes. Yet it obeys my will. It goes where I direct
it. It explodes where I want it. And it wipes off the face of the earth
anything which I want annihilated.
“That’s telautomatics, and that is what has been stolen from our navy
and dimly sensed by you clever newspaper men, from whom even the secret
service can’t quite hide everything. The publication of the rumour
alone that the government knows it has lost something has put the
secret service in a hole. What might have been done quietly and in a
few days has got to be done in the glare of the limelight and with the
blare of a brass band—and it has got to be done right away, too. Come
on, Walter. I’ve thrown together all we shall need for one night—and
it doesn’t include any pajamas, either.”
A few minutes later we met our friend Burke of the secret service at
the new terminal. He had wired Kennedy earlier in the day saying that
he would be in New York and would call him up.
“The plans, as I told you in my message,” began Burke, when we had
seated ourselves in a compartment of the Pullman, “were those of
Captain Shirley, covering the wireless-controlled submarine. The old
captain is a thoroughbred, too. I’ve known him in Washington. Comes of
an old New England, family with plenty of money but more brains. For
years he has been working on this science of radio-telautomatics, has
all kinds of patents, which he has dedicated to the United States, too.
Of course the basic, pioneer patents are not his. His work has been in
the practical application of them. And, Kennedy, there are some secrets
about his latest work that he has not patented; he has given them
outright to the Navy Department, because they are too valuable even to
patent.”
Burke, who liked a good detective tale himself, seemed pleased at
holding Kennedy spellbound.
“For instance,” he went on, “he has on the bay up here a submarine
which can be made into a crewless dirigible. He calls it the Turtle, I
believe, because that was the name of the first American submarine
built by Dr. Bushnell during the Revolution, even before Fulton.”
“You have theories of your own on the case?” asked Craig.
“Well, there are several possibilities. You know there are submarine
companies in this country, bitter rivals. They might like to have those
plans. Then, too, there are foreign governments.”
He paused. Though he said nothing, I felt that there was no doubt what
he hinted at. At least one government occurred to me which would like
the plans above all others.
“Once some plans of a submarine were stolen, I recall,” ruminated
Kennedy. “But that theft, I am satisfied, was committed in behalf of a
rival company.”
“But, Kennedy,” exclaimed Burke, “it was bad enough when the plans were
stolen. Now Captain Shirley wires me that some one must have tampered
with his model. It doesn’t work right. He even believes that his own
life may be threatened. And there is scarcely a real clue,” he added
dejectedly. “Of course we are watching all the employes who had access
to the draughting-room and tracing everybody who was in the building
that night. I have a complete list of them. There are three or four who
will bear watching. For instance, there is a young attache of one of
the embassies, named Nordheim.”
“Nordheim!” I echoed, involuntarily. I had expected an Oriental name.
“Yes, a German. I have been looking up his record, and I find that once
he was connected in some way with the famous Titan Iron Works, at Kiel,
Germany. We began watching him day before yesterday, but suddenly he
disappeared. Then, there is a society woman in Washington, a Mrs.
Bayard Brainard, who was at the Department that night. We have been
trying to find her. To-day I got word that she was summering in the
cottage colony across the bay from Lookout Hill. At any rate, I had to
go up there to see the captain, and I thought I’d kill a whole flock of
birds with one stone. The chief thought, too, that if you’d take the
case with us you had best start on it up there. Next, you will no doubt
want to go back to Washington with me.”
Lookout Hill was the name of the famous old estate of the Shirleys, on
a point of land jutting out into Long Island Sound and with a
neighbouring point enclosing a large, deep, safe harbour. On the
highest ground of the estate, with a perfect view of both harbour and
sound, stood a large stone house, the home of Captain Shirley, of the
United States navy, retired.
Captain Shirley, a man of sixty-two or three, bronzed and wiry, met us
eagerly.
“So this is Professor Kennedy; I’m glad to meet you, sir,” he welcomed,
clasping Craig’s hand in both of his—a fine figure as he stood erect
in the light of the portecochere. “What’s the news from Washington,
Burke? Any clues?”
“I can hardly tell,” replied the secret service man, with assumed
cheerfulness. “By the way, you’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes
while I run back into town on a little errand. Meanwhile, Captain, will
you explain to Professor Kennedy just how things are? Perhaps he’d
better begin by seeing the Turtle herself.”
Burke had not waited longer than to take leave.
“The Turtle,” repeated the captain, leading the way into the house.
“Well, I did call it that at first. But I prefer to call it the Z99.
You know the first submarines, abroad at least, were sometimes called
Al, A2, A3, and so on. They were of the diving, plunging type, that is,
they submerged on an inclined keel, nose down, like the Hollands. Then
came the B type, in which the hydroplane appeared; the C type, in which
it was more prominent, and a D type, where submergence is on a
perfectly even keel, somewhat like our Lakes. Well, this boat of mine
is a last word—the Z99. Call it the Turtle, if you like.”
We were standing for a moment in a wide Colonial hall in which a fire
was crackling in a huge brick fireplace, taking the chill off the night
air.
“Let me give you a demonstration, first,” added the captain. “Perhaps
Z99 will work—perhaps not.”
There was an air of disappointment about the old veteran as he spoke,
uncertainly now, of what a short time ago he had known to be a
certainty and one of the greatest it had ever been given the inventive
mind of man to know.
A slip of a girl entered from the library, saw us, paused, and was
about to turn back. Silhouetted against the curtained door, there was
health, animation, gracefulness, in every line of her wavy chestnut
hair, her soft, sparkling brown eyes, her white dress and hat to match,
which contrasted with the healthy glow of tan on her full neck and
arms, and her dainty little white shoes, ready for anything from tennis
to tango.
“My daughter Gladys, Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson,” introduced the
captain. “We are going to try the Z99 again, Gladys.”
A moment later we four were walking to the edge of the cliff where
Captain Shirley had a sort of workshop and signal-station.
He lighted the gas, for Lookout Hill was only on the edge of the town
and boasted gas, electricity, and all modern improvements, as well as
the atmosphere of old New England.
“The Z99 is moored just below us at my private dock,” began the
captain. “I have a shed down there where we usually keep her, but I
expected you, and she is waiting, thoroughly overhauled. I have
signalled to my men—fellows I can trust, too, who used to be with me
in the navy—to cast her off. There—now we are ready.”
The captain turned a switch. Instantly a couple of hundred feet below
us, on the dark and rippling water, a light broke forth. Another
signal, and the light changed.
It was moving.
“The principle of the thing,” said Captain Shirley, talking to us but
watching the moving light intently, “briefly, is that I use the
Hertzian waves to actuate relays on the Z99. That is, I send a child
with a message, the grown man, through the relay, so to speak, does the
work. So, you see, I can sit up here and send my little David out
anywhere to strike down a huge Goliath.
“I won’t bore you, yet, with explanations of my radio-combinator, the
telecommutator, the aerial coherer relay, and the rest of the
technicalities of wireless control of dirigible, self-propelled
vessels. They are well known, beginning with pioneers like Wilson and
Gardner in England, Roberts in Australia, Wirth and Lirpa in Germany,
Gabet in France, and Tesla, Edison, Sims, and the younger Hammond in
our own country.
“The one thing, you may not know, that has kept us back while wireless
telegraphy has gone ahead so fast is that in wireless we have been able
to discard coherers and relays and use detectors and microphones in
their places. But in telautomatics we have to keep the coherer. That
has been the barrier. The coherer until recently has been spasmodic,
until we had Hammond’s mercury steel-disc coherer and now my own. Why,”
he cried, “we are just on the threshold, now, of this great science
which Tesla has named telautomatics—the electric arm that we can
stretch out through space to do our work and fight our battles.”
It was not difficult to feel the enthusiasm of the captain over an
invention of such momentous possibilities, especially as the Z99 was
well out in the harbour now and we could see her flashing her red and
green signal-lights back to us.
“You see,” the captain resumed, “I have twelve numbers here on the keys
of this radio-combinator—forward, back, stop propeller motor, rudder
right, rudder left, stop steering motor, light signals front, light
signals rear, launch torpedoes, and so on. The idea is that of a
delayed contact. The machinery is always ready, but it delays a few
seconds until the right impulse is given, a purely mechanical problem.
I take advantage of the delay to have the message repeated by a signal
back to me. I can even change it, then. You can see for yourself that
it really takes no experience to run the thing when all is going right.
Gladys has done it frequently herself. All you have to do is to pay
attention, and press the right key for the necessary change. It is when
things go wrong that even an expert like myself—confound it—there’s
something wrong!”
The Z99 had suddenly swerved. Captain Shirley’s brow knitted. We
gathered around closer, Gladys next to her father and leaning anxiously
over the transmitting apparatus.
“I wanted to turn her to port yet she goes to starboard, and signals
starboard, too. There—now—she has stopped altogether. What do you
think of that?”
Gladys stroked the old seafarer’s hand gently, as he sat silently at
the table, peering with contracted brows out into the now brilliantly
moonlit night.
Shirley looked up at his daughter, and the lines on his face relaxed as
though he would hide his disappointment from her eager eyes.
“Confound that light! What’s the matter with it?” he exclaimed,
changing the subject, and glancing up at the gas-fixture.
Kennedy had already been intently looking at the Welsbach burner
overhead, which had been flickering incessantly. “That gas company!”
added the Captain, shaking his head in disgust, and showing annoyance
over a trivial thing to hide deep concern over a greater, as some men
do. “I shall use the electricity altogether after this contract with
the company expires. I suppose you literary men, Mr. Jameson, would
call that the light that failed.”
There was a forced air about his attempt to be facetious that did not
conceal, but rather accentuated, the undercurrent of feelings in him.
“On the contrary,” broke in Kennedy, “I shouldn’t be surprised to find
that it is the light that succeeded.”
“How do you mean?”
“I wouldn’t have said anything about it if you hadn’t noticed it
yourself. In fact, I may be wrong. It suggests something to me, but it
will need a good deal of work to verify it, and then it may not be of
any significance. Is that the way the Z99 has behaved always lately?”
“Yes, but I know that she hasn’t broken down of herself,” Captain
Shirley asserted. “It never did before, not since I perfected that new
coherer. And now it always does, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes
after I start her out.”
Shirley was watching the lights as they serpentined their way to us
across the nearly calm water of the bay, idly toying with the now
useless combinator.
“Wait here,” he said, rising hurriedly. “I must send my motor-boat out
there to pick her up and tow her in.”
He was gone down the flight of rustic steps on the face of the cliff
before we could reply.
“I wish father wouldn’t take it to heart so,” murmured Gladys.
“Sometimes I fear that success or failure of this boat means life or
death to him.”
“That is exactly why we are here,” reassured Kennedy, turning earnestly
to her, “to help him to settle this thing at once. This is a beautiful
spot,” he added, as we stood on the edge of the cliff and looked far
out over the tossing waves of the sound.
“What is on that other point?” asked Kennedy, turning again toward the
harbour itself.
“There is a large cottage colony there,” she replied. “Of course many
of the houses are still closed so early in the season, but it is a
beautiful place in the summer. The hotel over there is open now,
though.”
“You must have a lively time when the season is at its height,”
ventured Kennedy. “Do you know a cottager there, a Mrs. Brainard?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I have known her in Washington for some time.”
“No doubt the cottagers envy you your isolation here,” remarked
Kennedy, turning and surveying the beautifully kept grounds. “I should
think it would be pleasant, too, to have an old Washington friend here.”
“It is. We often invite our friends over for lawn-parties and other
little entertainments. Mrs. Brainard has just arrived and has only had
time to return my first visit to her, but I expect we shall have some
good times this summer.”
It was evident, at least, that Gladys was not concealing anything about
her friend, whether there was any suspicion or not of her.
We had gone into the house to await the return of Captain Shirley.
Burke had just returned, his face betraying that he was bursting with
news.
“She’s here, all right,” he remarked in an undertone to Kennedy, “in
the Stamford cottage—quite an outfit. French chauffeur, two Japanese
servants, maids, and all.”
“The Stamford cottage?” repeated Gladys. “Why, that is where Mrs.
Brainard lives.”
She gave a startled glance at Kennedy, as she suddenly seemed to
realise that both he and the secret-service man had spoken about her
friend.
“Yes,” said Burke, noting on the instant the perfect innocence of her
concern. “What do you know about Mrs. Brainard? Who, where is, Mr.
Brainard?”
“Dead, I believe,” Gladys hesitated. “Mrs. Brainard has been well known
in Washington circles for years. Indeed, I invited her with us the
night of the Manila display.”
“And Mr. Nordheim?” broke in Burke.
“N-no,” she hesitated. “He was there, but I don’t know as whose guest.”
“Did he seem very friendly with. Mrs. Brainard?” pursued the detective.
I thought I saw a shade of relief pass over her face as she answered,
“Yes.” I could only interpret it that perhaps Nordheim had been
attentive to Gladys herself and that she had not welcomed his
attentions.
“I may as well tell you,” she said, at length. “It is no secret in our
set, and I suppose you would find it out soon, anyhow. It is said that
he is engaged to Mrs. Brainard—that is all.”
“Engaged?” repeated Burke. “Then that would account for his being at
the hotel here. At least, it would offer an excuse.”
Gladys was not slow to note the stress that Burke laid on the last word.
“Oh, impossible,” she began hurriedly, “impossible that he could have
known anything about this other matter. Why, she told me he was to sail
suddenly for Germany and came up here for a last visit before he went,
and to arrange to come back on his return. Oh, he could know
nothing—impossible.”
“Why impossible?” persisted Burke. “They have submarines in Germany,
don’t they? And rival companies, too.”
“Who have rival companies?” inquired a familiar voice. It was Captain
Shirley, who had returned out of breath from his long climb up the
steps from the shore.
“The Germans. I was speaking of an attache named Nordheim.”
“Who is Nordheim?” inquired the captain.
“You met him at the Naval building, that night, don’t you remember?”
replied Gladys.
“Oh, yes, I believe I do—dimly. He was the man who seemed so devoted
to Mrs. Brainard.”
“I think he is, too, father,” she replied hastily. “He has been
suddenly called to Berlin and planned to spend the last few days here,
at the hotel, so as to be near her. She told me that he had been
ordered back to Washington again before he sailed and had had to cut
his visit short.”
“When did you first notice the interference with the Turtle?” asked
Burke. “I received your message this morning.”
“Yesterday morning was the first,” replied the captain.
“He arrived the night before and did not leave until yesterday
afternoon,” remarked Burke.
“And we arrived to-night,” put in Craig quietly. “The interference is
going on yet.”
“Then the Japs,” I cut in, at last giving voice to the suspicion I had
of the clever little Orientals.
“They could not have stolen the plans,” asserted Burke, shaking his
head. “No, Nordheim and Mrs. Brainard were the only ones who could have
got into the draughting room the night of the Manila celebration.”
“Burke,” said Kennedy, rising, “I wish you would take me into town.
There are a few messages I would like to send. You will excuse us,
Captain, for a few hours? Good evening, Miss Shirley.” As he bowed I
heard Kennedy add to her: “Don’t worry about your father. Everything
will come out all right soon.”
Outside, in the car which Burke had hired, Craig added: “Not to town.
That was an excuse not to alarm Miss Shirley too much over her friend.
Take us over past the Stamford cottage, first.”
The Stamford cottage was on the beach, between the shore front and the
road. It was not a new place but was built in the hideous style of some
thirty years ago with all sorts of little turned and knobby ornaments.
We paused down the road a bit, though not long enough to attract
attention. There were lights on every floor of the cottage, although
most of the neighbouring cottages were dark.
“Well protected by lightning-rods,” remarked Kennedy, as he looked the
Stamford cottage over narrowly. “We might as well drive on. Keep an eye
on the hotel, Burke. It may be that Nordheim intends to return, after
all.”
“Assuming that he has left,” returned the secret-service man.
“But you said he had left,” said Kennedy. “What do you mean?”
“I hardly know myself,” wearily remarked Burke, on whom the strain of
the case, to which we were still fresh, had begun to tell. “I only know
that I called up Washington after I heard he had been at the hotel, and
no one at our headquarters knew that he had returned. They may have
fallen down, but they were to watch both his rooms and the embassy.”
“H-m,” mused Kennedy. “Why didn’t you say that before?”
“Why, I assumed that he had gone back, until you told me there was
interference to-night, too. Now, until I can locate him definitely I’m
all at sea—that’s all.”
It was now getting late in the evening, but Kennedy had evidently no
intention of returning yet to Lookout Hill. We paused at the hotel,
which was in the centre of the cottage colony, and flanked by a hill
that ran back of the colony diagonally and from which a view of both
the hotel and the cottages could be obtained. Burke’s inquiries
developed the fact that Nordheim had left very hurriedly and in some
agitation. “To tell you the truth,” confided the clerk, with whom Burke
had ingratiated himself, “I thought he acted like a man who was
watched.”