XX
THE WIRELESS DETECTOR
Remembering Jules Verne's enticing picture of life on the palatialNautilus, I may as well admit that I was not prepared for a realsubmarine. My first impression, as I entered the hold, was that ofdiscomfort and suffocation. I felt, too, that I was too close to toomuch whirring machinery. I gazed about curiously. On all sides wereelectrical devices and machines to operate the craft and the torpedoes.I thought, also, that the water outside was uncomfortably close; onecould almost feel it. The Z99 was low roofed, damp, with an intricatesystem of rods, controls, engines, tanks, stop-cocks, compasses,gauges--more things than it seemed the human mind, to say nothing ofwireless, could possibly attend to at once.
"The policy of secrecy which governments keep in regard to submarines,"remarked the captain, running his eye over everything at once, itseemed, "has led them to be looked upon as something mysterious. Butwhatever you may think of telautomatics, there is really no mysteryabout an ordinary submarine."
I did not agree with our "Captain Nemo," as, the examination completed,he threw in a switch. The motor started. The Z99 hummed and trembled.The fumes of gasoline were almost suffocating at first, in spite of theprompt ventilation to clear them off. There was no escape from thesmell. I had heard of "gasoline heart," but the odour only made me sickand dizzy. Like most novices, I suppose, I was suffering excruciatingtorture. Not so, Kennedy. He got used to it in no time; indeed, seemedto enjoy the very discomfort.
I felt that there was only one thing necessary to add to it, and thatwas the odour of cooking. Cooking, by the way, on a submarine isuncertain and disagreeable. There was a little electric heater, Ifound, which might possibly have heated enough water for one cup ofcoffee at a time.
In fact, space was economised to the utmost. Only the necessaries oflife were there. Every inch that could be spared was given over tomachinery. It was everywhere, compact, efficient--everything forrunning the boat under water, guiding it above and below, controllingits submersion, compressing air, firing torpedoes, and a thousand otherthings. It was wonderful as it was. But when one reflected that allcould be done automatically, or rather telautomatically, it was simplyastounding.
"You see," observed Captain Shirley, "when she is working automaticallyneither the periscope nor the wireless-mast shows. The wirelessimpulses are carried down to her from an inconspicuous float whichtrails along the surface and carries a short aerial with a wire runningdown, like a mast, forming practically invisible antennae."
As he was talking the boat was being "trimmed" by admitting water asballast into the proper tanks.
"The Z99," he went on, "is a submersible, not a diving, submarine. Thatis to say, the rudder guides it and changes the angle of the boat. Butthe hydroplanes pull it up and down, two pairs of them set fore and aftof the centre of gravity. They lift or lower the boat bodily on an evenkeel, not by plunging and diving. I will now set the hydroplanes at tendegrees down and the horizontal rudder two degrees up, and the boatwill submerge to a depth of thirty feet and run constant at that depth."
He had shut off the gasoline motor and started the storage-batteryelectric motor, which was used when running submerged. The great motorsgave out a strange, humming sound. The crew conversed in low,constrained tones. There was a slightly perceptible jar, and the boatseemed to quiver just a bit from stem to stern. In front of Shirley wasa gauge which showed the depth of submergence and a spirit-level whichshowed any inclination.
"Submerged," he remarked, "is like running on the surface underdense-fog conditions."
I did not agree with those who have said there is no difference runningsubmerged or on the surface. Under way on the surface was one thing.But when we dived it was most unpleasant. I had been reassured at thestart when I heard that there were ten compressed-air tanks under apressure of two thousand pounds to the square inch. But only oncebefore had I breathed compressed air and that was when one of our casesonce took us down into the tunnels below the rivers of New York. It wasnot a new sensation, but at fifty feet depth I felt a little tinglingall over my body, a pounding of the ear-drums, and just a trace ofnausea.
Kennedy smiled as I moved about. "Never mind, Walter," he said. "I knowhow you feel on a first trip. One minute you are choking from lack ofoxygen, then in another part of the boat you are exhilarated by toomuch of it. Still," he winked, "don't forget that it is regulated."
"Well," I returned, "all I can say is that if war is hell, a submarineis war."
I had, however, been much interested in the things about me. Forward,the torpedo-discharge tubes and other apparatus about the little doorsin the vessel's nose made it look somewhat like the shield used inboring a tunnel under compressed air.
"Ordinary torpedo-boats use the regular automobile torpedo," remarkedCaptain Shirley, coming ubiquitously up behind me. "I improve on that.I can discharge the telautomobile torpedo, and guide it either from theboat, as we are now, or from the land station where we were last night,at will."
There was something more than pride in his manner. He was deadly inearnest about his invention.
We had come over to the periscope, the "eye" of the submarine when sheis running just under the surface, but of no use that we were below."Yes," he remarked, in answer to my half-spoken question, "that is theperiscope. Usually there is one fixed to look ahead and another that ismovable, in order to take in what is on the sides and in the rear. Ihave both of those. But, in addition, I have the universal periscope,the eye that sees all around, three hundred and sixty degrees--a veryclever application of an annular prism with objectives, condenser, andtwo eyepieces of low and high power."
A call from one of the crew took him into the stern to watch theoperation of something, leaving me to myself, for Kennedy was roamingabout on a still hunt for anything that might suggest itself. Thesafety devices, probably more than any other single thing, interestedme, for I had read with peculiar fascination of the great disasters tothe Lutin, the Pluviose, the Farfardet, the A8, the Foca, the Kambala,the Japanese No 6, the German U3, and others.
Below us I knew there was a keel that could be dropped, lightening theboat considerably. Also, there was the submarine bell, immersed in atank of water, with telephone receivers attached by which one could"listen in," for example, before rising, say, from sixty feet to twentyfeet, and thus "hear" the hulls of other ships. The bell was struck bymeans of air pressure, and was the same as that used for submarinesignalling on ships. Water, being dense, is an excellent conductor ofsound. Even in the submarine itself, I could hear the muffled clang ofthe gong.
Then there were buoys which could be released and would fly to thesurface, carrying within them a telephone, a light, and a whistle. Iknew also something of the explosion dangers on a submarine, both fromthe fuel oil used when running on the surface, and from the storagebatteries used when running submerged. Once in a while a sailor wouldtake from a jar a piece of litmus paper and expose it, showing only aslight discolouration due to carbon dioxide. That was the least of mytroubles. For a few moments, also, the white mice in a cage interestedme. White mice were carried because they dislike the odour of gasolineand give warning of any leakage by loud squeals.
The fact was that there was so much of interest that, the firstdiscomfort over, I was, like Kennedy, beginning really to enjoy thetrip.
I was startled suddenly to hear the motors stop. There was no more ofthat interminable buzzing. The Z99 responded promptly to the airpressure that was forcing the water out of the tanks. The gauge showedthat we were gradually rising on an even keel. A man sprang up thenarrow hatchway and opened the cover through which we could see alittle patch of blue sky again. The gasoline motor was started, and weran leisurely back to the dock. The trip was over--safely. As we landedI felt a sense of gladness to get away from that feeling of being cutoff from the world. It was not fear of death or of the water, as nearlyas I could analyse it, but merely that terrible sense of isolation fromman and nature as we know it.
A message from Burk
e was waiting for Kennedy at the wharf. He read itquickly, then handed it to Captain Shirley and myself.
Have just received a telegram from Washington. Great excitement at the embassy. Cipher telegram has been despatched to the Titan Iron Works. One of my men in Washington reports a queer experience. He had been following one of the members of the embassy staff, who saw he was being shadowed, turned suddenly on the man, and exclaimed, "Why are you hounding us still?" What do you make of it? No trace yet of Nordheim
BURKE.
The lines in Craig's face deepened in thought as he folded the messageand remarked abstractedly, "She works all right when you are aboard."Then he recalled himself. "Let us try her again without a crew."
Five minutes later we had ascended to the aerial conning-tower, and allwas in readiness to repeat the trial of the night before. Vicious andsly the Z99 looked in the daytime as she slipped off, under the unseenguidance of the wireless, with death hidden under her nose. Just asduring the first trial we had witnessed, she began by fulfilling thehighest expectations. Straight as an arrow she shot out of theharbour's mouth, half submerged, with her periscope sticking up andbearing the flag proudly flapping, leaving behind a wake of white foam.
She turned and re-entered the harbour, obeying Captain Shirley's everywhim, twisting in and out of the shipping much to the amazement of theold salts, who had never become used to the weird sight. She cut afigure eight, stopped, started again.
Suddenly I could see by the look on Captain Shirley's face thatsomething was wrong. Before either of us could speak, there was a spurtof water out in the harbour, a cloud of spray, and the Z99 sank in amass of bubbles. She had heeled over and was resting on the mud andooze of the harbour bottom. The water had closed over her, and she wasgone.
Instantly all the terrible details of the sinking of the Lutin andother submarines flashed over me. I fancied I could see on the Z99 theoverturned accumulators. I imagined the stifling fumes, the strugglefor breath in the suddenly darkened hull. Almost as if it had happenedhalf an hour ago, I saw it.
"Thank God for telautomatics," I murmured, as the thought swept over meof what we had escaped. "No one was aboard her, at least."
Chlorine was escaping rapidly from the overturned storage batteries,for a grave danger lurks in the presence of sea water, in a submarine,in combination with any of the sulphuric acid. Salt water and sulphuricacid produce chlorine gas, and a pint of it inside a good-sizedsubmarine would be sufficient to render unconscious the crew of a boat.I began to realise the risks we had run, which my confidence in CaptainShirley had minimised. I wondered whether hydrogen in dangerousquantities might not be given off, and with the short-circuiting of thebatteries perhaps explode. Nothing more happened, however. All kinds oftheories suggested themselves. Perhaps in some way the gasoline motorhad been started while the boat was depressed, the "gas" had escaped,combined with air, and a spark had caused an explosion. There were somany possibilities that it staggered me. Captain Shirley sat stunned.
Yet here was the one great question, Whence had come the impulse thathad sent the famous Z99 to her fate?
"Could it have been through something internal?" I asked. "Could acurrent from one of the batteries have influenced the receivingapparatus?"
"No," replied the captain mechanically. "I have a secret method ofprotecting my receiving instruments from such impulses within the hull."
Kennedy was sitting silently in the corner, oblivious to us up to thispoint.
"But not to impulses from outside the hull," he broke in.
Unobserved, he had been bending over one of the little instrumentswhich had kept us up all night and bad cost a tedious trip to New Yorkand back.
"What's that?" I asked.
"This? This is a little instrument known as the audion, a wirelesselectric-wave detector."
"Outside the hull?" repeated Shirley, still dazed.
"Yes," cried Kennedy excitedly. "I got my first clue from thatflickering Welsbach mantle last night. Of course it flickered from thewireless we were using, but it kept on. You know in the gas-mantlethere is matter in a most mobile and tenuous state, very sensitive toheat and sound vibrations.
"Now, the audion, as you see, consists of two platinum wings, parallelto the plane of a bowed filament of an incandescent light in a vacuum.It was invented by Dr. Lee DeForest to detect wireless. When the lightis turned on and the little tantalum filament glows, it is ready forbusiness.
"It can be used for all systems of wireless--singing spark, quenchedspark, arc sets, telephone sets; in fact, it will detect a wirelesswave from whatever source it is sent. It is so susceptible that a manwith one attached to an ordinary steel-rod umbrella on a rainy nightcan pick up wireless messages that are being transmitted within somehundreds of miles radius."
The audion buzzed.
"There--see? Our wireless is not working. But with the audion you cansee that some wireless is, and a fairly near and powerful source it is,too."
Kennedy was absorbed in watching the audion.
Suddenly he turned and faced us. He had evidently reached a conclusion."Captain," he cried, "can you send a wireless message? Yes? Well, thisis to Burke. He is over there back of the hotel on the hill with someof his men. He has one there who understands wireless, and to whom Ihave given another audion. Quick, before this other wireless cuts in onus again. I want others to get the message as well as Burke. Send this:'Have your men watch the railroad station and every road to it.Surround the Stamford cottage. There is some wireless interference fromthat direction.'"
As Shirley, with a half-insane light in his eyes, flashed the messagemechanically through space, Craig rose and signalled to the house.Under the portecochere I saw a waiting automobile, which an instantlater tore up the broken-stone path and whirled around almost on twowheels near the edge of the cliff. Glowing with health and excitement,Gladys Shirley was at the wheel herself. In spite of the tenseness ofthe situation, I could not help stopping to admire the change in thegraceful, girlish figure of the night before, which was now all litheenergy and alertness in her eager devotion to carrying out the minutestdetail of Kennedy's plan to aid her father.
"Excellent, Miss Shirley," exclaimed Kennedy, "but when I asked Burketo have you keep a car in readiness, I had no idea you would drive ityourself."
"I like it," she remonstrated, as he offered to take the wheel."Please--please--let me drive. I shall go crazy if I'm not doingsomething. I saw the Z99 go down. What was it? Who--"
"Captain," called Craig. "Quick--into the car. We must hurry. To theStamford house, Miss Shirley. No one can get away from it before wearrive. It is surrounded."
Everything was quiet, apparently, about the house as our wild ridearound the edge of the harbour ended under the deft guidance of GladysShirley. Here and there, behind a hedge or tree, I could see a lurkingsecret-service man. Burke joined us from behind a barn next door.
"Not a soul has gone in or out," he whispered. "There does not seem tobe a sign of life there."
Craig and Burke had by this time reached the broad veranda. They didnot wait to ring the bell, but carried the door down literally off itshinges. We followed closely.
A scream from the drawing-room brought us to a halt. It was Mrs.Brainard, tall, almost imperial in her loose morning gown, her darkeyes snapping fire at the sudden intrusion. I could not tell whethershe had really noticed that the house was watched or was acting a part.
"What does this mean?" she demanded. "What--Gladys--you--"
"Florence--tell them--it isn't so--is it? You don't know a thing aboutthose plans of father's that were--stolen--that night."
"Where is Nordheim?" interjected Burke quickly, a little of his "thirddegree" training getting the upper hand.
"Nordheim?"
"Yes--you know. Tell me. Is he here?"
"Here? Isn't it bad enough to hound him, without hounding me, too? Willyou merciless detectives drive us all from,
place to place with yourbrutal suspicions?"
"Merciless?" inquired Burke, smiling with sarcasm. "Who has beenhounding him?"
"You know very well what I mean," she repeated, drawing herself up toher full height and patting Gladys's hand to reassure her. "Read thatmessage on the table."
Burke picked up a yellow telegram dated New York, two days before.
It was as I feared when I left you. The secret service must have rummaged my baggage both here and at the hotel. They have taken some very valuable papers of mine.
"Secret service--rummage baggage?" repeated Burke, himself now inperplexity. "That is news to me. We have rummaged no trunks or bags,least of all Nordheim's. In fact, we have never been able to find themat all."
"Upstairs, Burke--the servants' quarters," interrupted Craigimpatiently. "We are wasting time here."
Mrs. Brainard offered no protest. I began to think that the whole thingwas indeed a surprise to her, and that she had, in fact, been reading,instead of making a studied effort to appear surprised at our intrusion.
Room after room was flung open without finding any one, until wereached the attic, which had been finished off into several rooms. Onedoor was closed. Craig opened it cautiously. It was pitch dark in spiteof the broad daylight outside. We entered gingerly.
On the floor lay two dark piles of something. My foot touched one ofthem. I drew back in horror at the feeling. It was the body of a man.
Kennedy struck a light, and as he bent over in its little circle ofradiance, he disclosed a ghastly scene.
"Hari-kiri!" he ejaculated. "They must have got my message to Burke andhave seen that the house was surrounded."
The two Japanese servants had committed suicide.
"Wh-what does it all mean?" gasped Mrs. Brainard, who had followed usupstairs with Gladys.
Burke's lip curled slightly and he was about to speak.
"It means," hastened Kennedy, "that you have been double crossed, Mrs.Brainard. Nordheim stole those plans of Captain Shirley's submarine forhis Titan Iron Works. Then the Japs stole them from his baggage at thehotel. He thought the secret service had them. The Japs waited herejust long enough to try the plans against the Z99 herself--to destroyCaptain Shirley's work by his own method of destruction. It was clever,clever. It would make his labours seem like a failure and woulddiscourage others from keeping up the experiments. They had planned tosteal a march on the world. Every time the Z99 was out they worked uphere with their improvised wireless until they found the wave-lengthShirley was using. It took fifteen or twenty minutes, but they managed,finally, to interfere so that they sent the submarine to the bottom ofthe harbour. Instead of being the criminal, Burke, Mrs. Brainard is thevictim, the victim both of Nordheim and of her servants."
Craig had thrown open a window and had dropped down on his knees beforea little stove by which the room was heated. He was poking eagerly in apile of charred paper and linen.
"Shirley," he cried, "your secret is safe, even though the duplicateplans were stolen. There will be no more interference."
The Captain seized Craig by both hands and wrung them like the handleof a pump.
"Oh, thank you--thank you--thank you," cried Gladys, running up andalmost dancing with joy at the change in her father. "I--I couldalmost--kiss you!"
"I could let you," twinkled Craig, promptly, as she blushed deeply."Thank you, too, Mrs. Brainard," he added, turning to acknowledge hercongratulations also. "I am glad I have been able to be of service toyou."
"Won't you come back to the house for dinner?" urged the Captain.
Kennedy looked at me and smiled. "Walter," he said, "this is no placefor two old bachelors like us."
Then turning, he added, "Many thanks, sir,--but, seriously, last nightwe slept principally in day coaches. Really I must turn the case overto Burke now and get back to the city to-night early."
They insisted on accompanying us to the station, and there thecongratulations were done all over again.
"Why," exclaimed Kennedy, as we settled ourselves in the Pullman afterwaving a final good-bye, "I shall be afraid to go back to that townagain. I--I almost did kiss her!"
Then his face settled into its usual stern lines, although softened, Ithought. I am sure that it was not the New England landscape, with itsquaint stone fences, that he looked at out of the window, but therecollection of the bright dashing figure of Gladys Shirley.
It was seldom that a girl made so forcible an impression on Kennedy, Iknow, for on our return he fairly dived into work, like the Z99herself, and I did not see him all the next day until just beforedinner time. Then he came in and spent half an hour restoring hisacid-stained fingers to something like human semblance.
He said nothing about his research work of the day, and I was justabout to remark that a day had passed without its usual fresh alarumand excursion, when a tap on the door buzzer was followed by theentrance of our old friend Andrews, head of the Great Eastern LifeInsurance Company's own detective service.
"Kennedy," he began, "I have a startling case for you. Can you help meout with it?"
As he sat down heavily, he pulled from his immense black wallet somescraps of paper and newspaper cuttings.
"You recall, I suppose," he went on, unfolding the papers withoutwaiting for an answer, "the recent death of young Montague Phelps, atWoodbine, just outside the city?"
Kennedy nodded. The death of Phelps, about ten days before, hadattracted nation-wide attention because of the heroic fight for life hehad made against what the doctors admitted had puzzled them--a new andbaffling manifestation of coma. They had laboured hard to keep himawake, but had not succeeded, and after several days of lying in acomatose state he had finally succumbed. It was one of those strangebut rather frequent cases of long sleeps reported in the newspapers,although it was by no means one which might be classed asrecord-breaking.
The interest in Phelps lay, a great deal, in the fact that the youngman had married the popular dancer, Anginette Petrovska, a few monthspreviously. His honeymoon trip around the world had suddenly beeninterrupted, while the couple were crossing Siberia, by the news of thefailure of the Phelps banking-house in Wall Street and the practicalwiping-out of his fortune. He had returned, only to fall a victim to agreater misfortune.
"A few days before his death," continued Andrews, measuring his wordscarefully, "I, or rather the Great Eastern, which had been secretlyinvestigating the case, received this letter. What do you think of it?"
He spread out on the table a crumpled note in a palpably disguisedhandwriting:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
You would do well to look Into the death of Montague Phelps, Jr. I accuse no one, assert nothing. But when a young man apparently in the best of health, drops off so mysteriously and even the physician in the case can give no very convincing information, that case warrants attention. I know what I know.
AN OUTSIDER.