Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 34
“If he starts transmitting again you might rig up a frame aerial and try to get the bearing of the transmitter,” Northfleet suggested. “In the meantime, if you want to help, let me have your copy of the message. That doesn’t involve you to any extent.”
Colin considered for a few moments before replying. Northfleet had put some of his cards on the table; and clearly enough he had gone as far as he could go at the moment, if he was to keep faith with the people who employed him. And Colin had still one bargaining counter left, even if he parted with the code message: he had the gold brick up his sleeve.
“All right,” he decided aloud. “I’ll give you the copy. What’s more, I’ll give you a copy of another message I took down this evening. I happened to turn on the set after dinner, and he was shouting away, same as before. Began just like last time: “Hello! Hello, London! Attention! I am calling and testing . . . testing and calling.’ You remember how the thing went. And he ended up with the same gramophone record. The message was a lot shorter to-night—the Morse part, I mean—and quite different from the last lot. Just as much gibberish, though. Could make neither head nor tail of it myself.”
“Thanks,” Northfleet said briefly. “It’s good of you to let me have it.”
“I’ll give you the pair of them when we go inside. Now there’s one thing more. Do you know any hare-lipped man mixed up in this affair, whatever it is?”
“No, I don’t,” Northfleet answered, with a touch of surprise which vouched for his frankness. “Didn’t Mrs. Trent ask me something of the same sort?”
“She knows nothing about it,” Colin hastened to assure him, “Don’t go stirring that up. She was just repeating something I’d said. I don’t want her worried by this business. Understand?”
“I shan’t mention it.”
“Final question,” Colin added, as he rose from the seat: “Is this a big business? Important, I mean. Thing that there’s big money at stake in?”
“Can’t tell you that,” Northfleet responded curtly.
Colin calculated his effect with care, allowing a long enough pause to make his next words tell effectively.
“Matter of gold, eh?”
Even in the dark, it was plain enough that Northfleet was startled.
“How the hell did you guess that?” he demanded, losing his usual politeness in his astonishment.
“So it is,” Colin rejoined triumphantly. “I rather thought it was. Now come inside and I’ll give you the copies.”
When he handed over the papers he watched Northfleet’s face as he read over the second cypher message:
“Make anything of it?”
“Not by inspection,” Northfleet admitted. “But cryptograms always interested me. I’ll see what I can make out of it.”
“You’ll let me see the translation, if you solve it?”
“Of course,” Northfleet agreed, stowing the papers away in his pocket as he spoke. “And now, Trent, how did you guess that about the gold?”
But before Colin needed to answer Jean came into the room.
“I heard you talking,” she said. “Colin! the yacht’s gone. “I’ve just been watching her go out, with the night glasses. I heard them starting up her motor, so I went to the window and looked. The lamps on the headland were lit again, to show her the line of the channel. It was rather a relief to see her go, Mr. Northfleet. These men gave me a regular shock to-night, and I’m much more comfortable now that I’ve seen them sail way.”
“I shan’t miss ’em,” said Colin lightly.
“Nor I,” Jean concurred. “You know, in spite of what you said, Mr. Northfleet, I was still a bit nervous about them, and it’s a relief to know they’ve gone.”
“Probably they were just as startled as you were, when the motor-boat slid alongside,” Northfleet assured her. “They’ve gone, anyhow, so that worry’s off your mind, I hope.”
“If they come again, I’ll take good care not to startle them a second time,” said Jean decidedly.
CHAPTER IX
THE CRYPTOGRAMS
YOU’VE really got some sense out of that stuff?” Colin demanded, with a note of suspicion in his tone. “Not pulling my leg, I mean, and planting a fake decipherment on a simple soul?”
“Your middle name’s Thomas, evidently,” Northfleet retorted good-humouredly. “No, there’s no fake about it. I’ll show you just how I solved the thing, if you’re so sceptical. Will that satisfy you?”
Colin paused in lighting his pipe and nodded in reply.
“Been worrying over the thing for a whole day myself and got no further. Be a relief to my mind to see how it’s done.”
They were sitting at the door of the shieling. Northfleet rose, went into the hut and brought out a camp-table and some papers. He planted the table before Colin and drew up his own chair alongside.
“There wasn’t much to work on,” he pointed out. “A preliminary call en clair, a Morse message of 336 letters, a final call: that was the first message. Then you gave me another cipher of 160 letters which also came over in Morse. With so little material, it’s plain enough that we’ve got to wring the last drop of information out of it. We can’t afford to overlook small points.”
“That’s horse-sense,” said Colin approvingly. “Bother is, they were so small that I didn’t see ’em at all.”
“Well, take it bit by bit,” Northfleet suggested. “The call en clair began: ‘Hello! Hello, London!’ That’s not the usual amateur’s way of ringing up a friend, is it?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Colin admitted doubtfully. “You hear that in transatlantic official stuff.”
“So it wouldn’t attract attention, eh? And it gives no clue to the sender or receiving station? But the fellow receiving would be listening on the right wave-length and when he heard that call—prearranged, of course—he’d know who was talking.”
“That’s so,” Colin agreed.
“The next bit was: ‘Attention! I am