CHAPTER XVI
Meanwhile public indignation ran high, the investigation of the dockmaster's books, papers, and accounts proceeded _in camera_, and allEngland waited breathlessly for the result to be made known.
Thus matters stood when on Thursday night at half-past seveno'clock--exactly one week after the discovery of that packet on thebody of the drowned man--an amazing thing happened, a thing whichsmacked almost of magic, and put to shame all that had gone beforein the way of mystery, surprise, and terror.
The wildest storm that had been known on that coast for years hadbeen raging steadily ever since daybreak and was raging still. Ahowling wind, coming straight over the Channel from France, waspiling ink-black seas against an ink-black shore, and all the devilsof the pit seemed to be loose in the noisy darkness.
In the suspended dock master's house the Admiral Superintendent,Sir Charles Fordeck, together with his private secretary, Mr. PaulGrimsdick, and the auditor, Mr. Alexander MacInery, who had beencontinuing their investigations since morning, were now comingwithin sight of the work's end--the only occupants of a locked andguarded room, outside of which a sentry was posted, while roundabout the house in the stormy outer darkness other guards patrolledceaselessly. Over the books Sir Charles and the auditor bent atone end of the room; at the other Paul Grimsdick tapped on histypewriter and made transcripts from the shorthand notes besidehim. It was at this instant, just when the clock on the mantel wasbeginning to chime the half-hour after seven, that such a crashof thunder ripped out of the heavens that the very earth seemed totremble with the force of it, and the three men fairly jumped intheir seats.
"Gad! that was a stunner, if you like!" exclaimed Sir Charles with alaugh. "Something went down that time, or I miss my guess."
Something had "gone down"--gone down in black and white, too, atthat--and before another half-hour had passed the mystery and theappalling nature of that something was made known to him and to histwo companions.
The operator at the central telegraph office, sitting beside asilent instrument with the key open deciphering a message whicha moment before had come through, jumped as they had jumped whenthat crash of thunder sounded; then without hint or warning upspoke the open instrument, beginning a sentence in the middle andchopping it off before it was half done.
"Hullo! that deflected something--crossed communication or I'm aDutchman!" he said, and bent over to "take it." In another moment hegot more of a shock than twenty thunderbolts could possibly havegiven him. For, translated, that interrupted communication ran thus:
"... and eight-inch guns. The floating conning tower's lateral plates of ..."
And there, as abruptly as it began, the communication left off.
"Good God! There's another damned German spy at it!" exclaimedthe operator, jumping from his seat and grabbing for his hat."Gawdermity, Hawkins, take this instrument and watch for more.Somebody's telegraphin' naval secrets from the dockyard, and thestorm's 'tapped' a wire somewhere and sent the message to us!"Then he flung himself out into the storm and darkness and ran andran and ran.
But the mystery of the thing was all the greater when the facts cameto be examined. For those two parts of sentences were found to beverbatim copies of the shorthand notes which Mr. Paul Grimsdickhad just taken down. These notes had never left the sight of thethree men in the guarded room of that guarded house for so muchas one second since they were made. No one but they had passedeither in or out of that room during the whole seven days of theinquiry. There was no telegraph instrument in the room--in thehouse--or within any possible reach from it. Yet somebody in thatbuilding--somebody who could only know the things by standing inthat room and copying them, for never once had they been spoken ofby word of mouth--some invisible, impalpable, superhuman body waswiring State secrets from it. How? And to whom?
Naturally, this state of affairs set the whole country by the earsand evoked a panicky condition which was not lessened by the Press'frothing and screaming.
Thus matters stood on the evening of Wednesday, the twenty-second ofMay, and thus they still stood on the morning of the twenty-third,when the telephone rang and Dollops rushed into Cleek's bedroomcrying excitedly and disjointedly:
"Mr. Narkom, sir. Ringing up from his own house. Wants you in ahurry. National case, he says, and not a minute to lose."
Cleek was out of bed and at the instrument in a winking; but he hadno more than spoken the customary "Hello!" into the receiver, whenthe superintendent's voice cut in cyclonically and swept everythingbefore it in a small tornado of excited words.
"Call of the Country, dear chap!" he cried. "That infernal dockyardbusiness at Portsmouth. Sir Charles Fordeck just sent through a callfor you. Rush like hell! Don't stop for anything! Train it over toGuildford if you have to charter a special. Meet you there--in thePortsmouth Road--with the limousine--at seven-thirty. We'll show'em--by God, yes! Good-bye!"
Then "click!" went the instrument as the communication was cut off,and away went Cleek, like a gunshot, on a wild rush for his clothes.
The sun was but just thrusting a crimson arc into view in thetransfigured east when he left the house--on a hard run; for partat least of the way must be covered afoot, and the journey waslong--but by four o'clock it was almost as bright as midday, and thepossibility of securing a conveyance for the rest of the distance wasconsiderably increased by that fact; by five, he _had_ secured one,and by seven he was in the Portsmouth Road at Guildford munching thesandwiches Dollops had thoughtfully slipped into his pocket andkeeping a sharp lookout for the coming of the red limousine.
It swung up over the rise of the road and came panting toward him ata nerve-racking pace while it still lacked ten minutes of being theappointed half-hour, and so wild was the speed at which Lennard, inhis furious interest, was making it travel that Cleek could thinkof nothing to which to liken it but a red streak whizzing across abackground of leaf-green with splatters of mud flying about it and anowl-eyed demon for pilot.
It pulled up with a jerk when it came abreast of him, but sogreat was Lennard's excitement, so deep seated his patrioticinterest in the business he had in hand, he seemed to begrudgeeven the half-minute it took to get his man aboard; and beforeyou could have turned around twice the car was rocketing on again ata demon's pace.
"Gad! but he's full of it, the patriotic beggar!" said Cleek witha laugh, as he found himself deposited in Narkom's lap instead ofon the seat beside him, so sudden was the car's start the instanthe was inside. "It might give our German friends pause, don't youthink, Mr. Narkom, if they could get an insight into the spirit ofthe race as a fighting unit?"
"It'll give 'em hell if they run up against it--make no bloomingerror about that!" rapped out the superintendent too "hot in thecholer" to be choice of words. "It's a nasty little handful to fallfoul of when its temper is up; and this damned spy business, donebehind a mask of friendship in times of peace----Look here, Cleek!If it comes to the point, just give me a gun with the rest. I'llshow the Government that I can lick something beside insurance stampsfor my country's good--by James, yes!"
"Just so," said Cleek, with one of his curious, crooked smiles.He was used to these little patriotic outbursts on the part of Mr.Narkom whenever the German bogey was dragged out by the Press. "Butlet us hope it will not come to that. It would be an embarrassmentof riches so far as our friends the editors are concerned, don'tyou think, to have two wars on their hands at the same time? AndI see by papers that the long-threatened Mauravanian revolutionhas broken out at last. In short, that our good friend Count Irmahas made his escape from Sulberga, put himself at the head of theInsurgents, and is organizing a march on the capital----"
Here he pulled himself up abruptly, as if remembering something, and,before Mr. Narkom could put in a word, launched into the subject ofthe case in hand and set him thinking and talking of other things.