CHAPTER XIITHE VICTIMAt Intelligence Headquarters in Punta Delgada there was an expert psychologist, versed in all the latest and most scientific methods of probing a man’s veracity. With a sensitive galvanometer connected to the hands of the subject, he could detect the slightest emotional disturbance when no other evidence would reveal it. The morning after Long was taken ashore with the understanding that his skill as an electrician was to be utilized at Headquarters, Barton explained to him that the task they wanted him for was one requiring presence of mind and other faculties for which they wished to give him a psychological test. Barton was well aware that as likely as not Long knew he was caught, and was not to be fooled; but what if he did? They had him, and he would have to submit to their test in any case. And in any case their tests would reveal what they wanted. Since uncertainty as to whether he was a prisoner or not was apt to increase Long’s emotional instability, it seemed best to keep up the bluff of abona-fidetest of his fitness.Long was placed in a comfortable chair with his hands in contact with electrodes connected with the galvanometer whose mirror threw a spot of light on a screen which the psychologist could watch, but which Long could not. The psychologist then asked him questions or analyzed his association processes with test words, observing the motion of the spot of light on the screen. Some questions were calculated to test his knowledge of electricity; others were apparently frivolous and pointless. Whenever a question or word aroused an emotional response, the spot would make a quick excursion across the screen. After a series of idle-seeming questions, the psychologist made a remark which was not calculated to ruffle the composure of any one, except that it contained the name Wellman. Long continued to present an imperturbable exterior, but the spot of light made the largest excursion that had yet appeared. Some more unimportant patter followed which permitted the spot of light to come to rest again. Another insignificant remark was made containing a casual reference to the name of Rich. The spot of light moved quickly on the screen and registered an even larger excursion than had followed the name of Wellman. At this juncture Evans quietly entered the room through a door behind Long’s back. At a signal from the psychologist, he addressed a casual remark to Barton. At the sound of his voice the spot of light shot off the scale on the screen. When it had steadied again somewhat, Barton said to Evans, “By the way, you said you had some repairs to make on that small transmitter; have you got it working all right this morning?” Again the spot of light went off the scale; a pulse-recording device showed Long’s heart beating rapidly, and now beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. His agitated state was completely ignored, and the test went on, more innocuous talk being used to steady the spot of light. Barton then dropped a harmless remark to Evans about Commander Rich, and once again the spot jumped in a way that could never have been due to instrumental error or chance. Long was then formally made prisoner.Scarcely had this job been completed when Barton and Evans were fairly stunned by the news that a dispatch had been received at Communication Headquarters ordering Captain Fraser detached from duty as chief of staff and to proceed immediately to Washington on whatever cruiser could best be spared from the fleet. What on earth could this mean? With the momentous preparations for action in progress, Fraser was never needed in the fleet as much as now. The obvious inference was that some crucial question had arisen in Washington, and he was wanted for a conference. Yet Evans could not escape the feeling that something was wrong; he could not help associating this new development with the activities of Long and Rich. As head of the Radio Division of the important Bureau of Engineering, Rich had the means at his hand of wielding vast power for evil. Very likely he had created a situation for recalling Fraser, knowing his to be the controlling mind in the fleet; and quite possibly he would contrive to have a swarm of enemy submarines lurking in the path of the cruiser that was to take him home; or perhaps a mine-field would be laid across her path as she approached home waters; perhaps some intrigue was on foot to get Fraser discredited and put on the shelf when he reached Washington. As a matter of fact, Rich was at the moment considering all these possibilities of turning to account the removal of Fraser from the fleet.Evans and Barton at once held a conference on the subject. Barton was at first inclined to assume that there was a good reason for Fraser’s recall and to advise leaving matters alone until further developments should arise. He did not feel that there was adequate reason to suppose that Evans’s secret method of communication had broken down. If it had not, Mortimer would already be investigating Rich, and any unnecessary use of the method would add to the danger of its discovery. If the method had broken down, any message Evans might send would go to Rich instead of to Mortimer and would thus serve only to help the wrong man by giving him information and putting him on his guard. Finally, however, Evans succeeded in convincing Barton that a show-down might avert disaster, and should be attempted at once. He therefore went to Communication Headquarters and began once more to “test a transmitter.”Late that afternoon—the same day that Mortimer had received the message about Fraser and acted on it—Rand received this message:Go to M. in person, put nothing on paper, ask him verbally to repeat back to me all messages received from me in this way in the last two days. If you cannot do so, let me know. Avoid head of division; danger. E.Tompkins had just left the office for his rooms, whence he had gone on his long and uncomfortable motor ride. Whatever caution and watchfulness Rand possessed was now thoroughly aroused. He felt as if all the sentries, yeomen, and orderlies in the Bureau were watching him. Taking pains not to digress in any particular from his usual routine, he put on his hat and coat and started home. But when he had reached a corridor where he was unobserved, he took a roundabout way to the Secretary’s office, where he found Mortimer just getting ready to go home.Mortimer frowned as Rand repeated his message to him.“What’s troubling Jim now?” he said to himself. “Is he still having notions about Rich?”Then he said aloud to Rand, “Was there nothing more?”“No, sir.”“Well,” said Mortimer, “the only message I’ve received from him for some time was as follows: ‘Recall Fraser to Washington at once. Urgent.’ You can repeat that back to him and tell him that is all.”“When did that come?” said Rand.“This morning,” said Mortimer. “Commander Rich sent it to me by special messenger when Tompkins was called away.”“Tompkins called away? Where?”“Commander Rich said he had been wired for because his wife was very sick; he had barely time to catch his train; so the Commander delivered the message for him.”“His wife sick!” echoed Rand. “He’s not married.”“Then perhaps it was his mother, I forget which,” said Mortimer.“But he’s been working in the Bureau all day. I saw him walk out of the office not half an hour ago.”When Commander Rich planned his trick, he knew nothing of Rand’s part in the system. His only intimations were the message of warning from Long and the report of the spies he had posted in consequence of that warning, to the effect that Tompkins had been seen trying to find the Secretary. He had taken a gambler’s chance, and not an unreasonable one, that Mortimer would hear nothing of an obscure employee in the Bureau between the time of his alleged departure and the time when his kidnapers should get him away from the city. But his gambler’s luck had failed him.Mortimer was thunderstruck. The message Rand had brought him took on a new meaning. A council of war was held to guard against interception or leakage in the exchange of messages with Evans which must now proceed as rapidly as possible till the mystery should be cleared up. Rand was told to repeat back to Evans the message about Fraser at once.In half an hour Evans in the radio station at Punta Delgada received it, with difficulty containing his feelings lest the operators about him should be started speculating about what did not concern them. Without waiting to tell Barton what had happened, he sent back the following:Message as repeated was never sent from here. True message was this: “We have evidence suggesting that the man I warned you against last spring is involved in treason. Watch him closely.” To-day more evidence has appeared in confirmation. Fraser sorely needed in fleet; is already on board cruiser bound for States.Nervously Mortimer and Rand waited, discussing the ominous possibilities of this crisis, till the message from Punta Delgada arrived. Then Mortimer broke all records for speed in doing two things: one was to tell the Chief of Naval Intelligence what had happened; the other was to cable Punta Delgada canceling the orders recalling Fraser and directing him to return at once to the fleet.Captain Fraser, turning over his duties to the assistant chief of staff, had boarded a fast scout cruiser and left the harbor of Punta Delgada for the open sea late in the evening. The night was dark, and by midnight the island of Saint Michael’s had disappeared astern, when Fraser was roused from his sleep by a messenger with word that an important radio message for him had just been received. To his surprise he found that he had been directed to return at once to Punta Delgada.“Well, what next, I wonder?” he said to himself. “Something damn funny seems to be going on.”He sent back a radio ordering the arrangements to be made for opening the gates in the nets to allow the cruiser to return to harbor, and then, going up on the bridge, told the officer of the deck to change course one hundred and eighty degrees and return to port. Before dawn the cruiser was back at her moorings in the harbor.Barton and Evans had both agreed that they had best continue to keep to themselves the secret of Evans’s confidential relations with Mortimer, and especially his secret method of communicating with Washington. Barton therefore called on Fraser and merely explained that he had been advised through secret channels from Washington that Fraser’s recall had resulted in some way from the intrigue of a group of spies, and that their plot had been discovered in time to cancel the orders immediately after they were issued.Meanwhile in Washington, Mortimer, as soon as he received the message from Punta Delgada revealing the trick and casting suspicion on Rich, went to Admiral Rallston, Chief of Naval Intelligence, and discussed the problem with him. This officer cautioned him against taking anything for granted.“Clearly a dangerous spy is at work,” he said, “but let us not be too hasty in placing the guilt. It behooves us to be cautious about concluding that a man in Commander Rich’s position is guilty of treason. The spy, whoever he is, will use every means he can think of to make the blame appear unmistakably to fall on some one else. It is easy to tap wires, you know.”“That’s so,” said Mortimer. “What is the best move?”“I advise you to go to Commander Rich to-morrow morning and, without intimating that anything is amiss, refer to your telephone conversation. If he does not deny having had such a conversation, ask him to explain the discrepancy about Tompkins. You can judge from his conversation whether he’s in a hole or whether some one else has framed the thing up.”Mortimer passed an uneasy night. The next morning he went to the office of Commander Rich. While he had been in bed the message which caused Fraser to turn back to Punta Delgada had been sent and received, and his ship, turning back, had already reached the harbor. It was by no miracle that these facts had found their way to certain persons in Washington who had to do with radio apparatus; nor was it surprising that the man who controlled all radio apparatus at its source got wind of them before Mortimer made his call.Before Mortimer was up and about, Commander Rich sent for a certain henchman named Goss, and in the privacy of his room spoke to him thus: “When the supreme test of duty comes, the faithful will not fail. Our ruse has been betrayed. Yesterday morning I told the Secretary that Tompkins had been called away by family sickness. The chances were a thousand to one he would never hear that Tompkins was in the Bureau after I said he had gone. By some mischance his suspicions have been aroused; last night he canceled orders issued in the morning. Soon he will come to question me. It is of supreme importance for the cause we serve that I should stay at my post. I shall deny the telephone conversation and tell him some one has played a trick and impersonated me. But that will not suffice. To make my position secure, I must find some one who can mimic my voice well enough to have deceived the Secretary. Your power of mimicry deceived Tompkins. You will be called on to show what you can do, avowedly for another purpose, and you must play your part. I do you the honor to call on you for this sacrifice.”An agonized look spread over the face of Goss.“Master, is there no other way?” he said.“None,” replied Rich. “I must stay, and you must go; the cause demands it. By good fortune you may yet escape the extreme penalty. We must also have evidence of tampering with the wires. Go quickly to the Bureau before any one is about, and, in a well-concealed place, cut the wires from the switch-board to Tompkins’s desk, then splice them together again and put tape around the splices.“When you are questioned, protest your innocence till the case is proved against you. Own no master nearer than Constantinople. Tompkins will not return; but, remember, you know nothing of that.”When Mortimer called on Commander Rich at his office that morning, Rich received him with disarming cordiality and equanimity. Indeed, he did not look like a guilty man.“Do you recall our telephone conversation yesterday morning?” said Mortimer.“No,” said Rich with a puzzled look. “I had forgotten we had one. What was it about?”“About Tompkins.”“Tompkins?” said Rich. “Who is he?”“An expert radio aide in your division. You said he had a message for me.”“I know the man you mean now; we have several aides, and I see so little of them individually I am apt to forget their names. But I recall nothing about any message. What was it?”“You said he had a message he wished to deliver to me in person, but was in a great hurry to catch a train because of serious illness in his family. For that reason you undertook to deliver the message by special messenger.”“Mr. Secretary, I am certain that I had no such conversation with you; this is the first I have heard of it. Some one else must have impersonated me.”“That is strange,” said Mortimer, “for it was I that called this Bureau. I had received the message, and, being surprised at its contents, I called up the Radio Division, and asked for Tompkins. I was answered by your voice saying, ‘Commander Rich speaking,’ and following with the statement I just told you. I have since learned that the message as delivered to me was quite different from that which was originally sent.”“Most extraordinary,” said Rich, frowning. “There must be some one up to mischief.”He thought a moment, then resumed:“Some one understanding the wires could have cut them and connected them with a portable phone.”“But how was it that I heard your voice?”“A good mimic could easily have deceived you over the telephone. Was the message very important?”“Very.”“This looks like a serious plot,” said Rich. “Some enemy agent must have access to the wires in our Bureau; most probably he has been planted in the Bureau itself. I will track this thing down at once.”“Hadn’t you better get in touch with the Bureau of Naval Intelligence about it?” said Mortimer.“Yes; I’ll get them to send over a man who is good on wiring and that sort of thing,” said Rich. “With a clue like this we should be able to find the culprit shortly. We can question some of the officers and a few of the more trust-worthy draftsmen and yeomen as to who was in the vicinity of those wires yesterday morning. I haven’t a doubt we shall find our man.”Mortimer returned to Admiral Rallston in the Bureau of Naval Intelligence and told him of the interview. Rich had seemed so thoroughly in earnest he could not help but believe in his ignorance of the whole affair, especially since in his own opening question to Rich he had not even hinted that anything was wrong; he had merely asked if he recalled the conversation. If Rich had been the villain, why should he have changed his tactics overnight before receiving any intimation that the message had been changed? Why should he not have stood by his story of the day before? It all looked as if the spy were some one else. Admiral Rallston concurred in this view. They would give Rich what help he wanted in finding the spy, and await results.That very afternoon Rich called at the room of Secretary Mortimer. He already had two very important clues. A place had been found where the wires to Tompkins’s desk had recently been cut and then spliced together again. This explained the method whereby some one impersonating Rich had been substituted for Tompkins on the line. Besides this a certain chief electrician named Goss had been seen with a portable telephone going through some of the rooms in that vicinity yesterday morning. Goss was a man of unknown antecedents who looked like a southern European of some sort; he had been known to entertain the others by mimicry on one occasion. Rich proposed that, by way of a trap, they approach Goss and tell him they have some special detective work in which his help is desired; that they understand he is a fair mimic, and would like to see what he can do, since that faculty will be of assistance.“I feel confident that he is our man,” said Rich. “If we show no signs of suspecting him, but offer him the prospect of receiving increased confidence, it will be just what he wants, and he will probably display his talent. We can then confront him with the cut wires and the evidence that some one was tampering with the line yesterday, and that none but he could have done it. It is not unlikely that he will then break down and confess.”Mortimer agreed to this ruse, and went with Rich to his office, where they met Admiral Rallston, who recalled the name of Goss as being under suspicion of tampering with some radio gear. Goss was summoned, and Rich explained to him that the Secretary wished a good electrician for certain special duty requiring resource and presence of mind, and that he, Rich, had selected him as a good candidate for the task. Mortimer then questioned Goss as to his experience. Then Rich addressed him.“The Secretary tells me that in this work there may be occasion for you to imitate the voice of another over the telephone. They tell me that one day you amused the men in the drafting room by mimicking some other members of the division. If you can do that, it will be very useful.”“I was just doing it for fun,” said Goss. “I don’t know as I could really fool any one.”“Let me hear you mimic Commander Rich,” said Mortimer.Upon this Goss said a characteristic sentence in which he aped the voice and manner of his master with such skill that Mortimer laughed and Rich blushed in spite of himself. Goss glanced at Rich for an instant. In the glance Rich saw a look of pathetic appeal; and even in his hard and cruel heart there was a shadow of admiration and pity as he realized how his henchman had shown his talent at its best, though the revelation sealed his doom.Rich cast a knowing glance at Mortimer who saw the convincing significance of the demonstration. The action then moved swiftly. Admiral Rallston took the lead and told Goss they wanted him to look over some wires with them. Then he led the way, followed by Mortimer, Rich, and Goss, to the severed wires, and, suddenly lifting the plank that hid them, turned sharply on Goss, saying, “We want to know who cut and spliced those wires.”Goss, true to his master, appeared confused and disconcerted; then, with a visible effort to regain his composure, professed his ignorance of the matter. Mortimer and Rich looked on as Admiral Rallston grilled his victim. At last they wrung from him a confession that he served the Sultan, but when questioned as to his confederates he stoutly insisted that he was his own master; Headquarters in Constantinople had sent him and from none other had he taken orders.With the fatalism of the Moslem he faced his execution. Rich was now more strongly entrenched than ever in the good graces of the Navy Department. His promptitude in finding the real spy had won him the warmest commendation.The day after Goss had confessed to cutting the wires and impersonating Commander Rich, Mortimer instructed Rand to send a secret message to Evans informing him that the original suspect had been exonerated, and had in fact assisted them in finding the real spy who was now imprisoned under a strong guard, and awaiting execution. When Evans received this message his mind was troubled. He conferred again with Barton and told him he was not satisfied.“I’ll bet my last dollar that scoundrel is the guilty one,” he said. “He’s just pulling their legs.”He reviewed the evidence in detail.“I believe you’re right,” said Barton. “But it’s hard to convince them at this distance. I didn’t tell you,” he continued after a pause, “what I learned about the Sheridan affair.”“What was it?”“You recall that when theSheridanasked for bearings, Fourth Cliff was reported out of commission and Gloucester gave a bearing that was found afterwards to have been sixteen degrees in error? I sent one of the best Intelligence officers in the Bureau to investigate. He found that a certain chief radio electrician named Goss, from the Bureau of Engineering, had been to Fourth Cliff early that morning to inspect the station, and had come to Gloucester at noon. He was alone in the radio-compass shack there for a few minutes just after lunch, and again about dusk just after the Sheridan went aground. The most careful examination of the apparatus revealed nothing definite, but the set-screw which holds the circular scale in place looked as if it had recently been tightened.”“My God!” cried Evans, “what a jackass I was not to get on to that. It fits into the rest like the last piece in a picture puzzle. Look here! The activities of those two men, Goss and Long, must have been carefully planned beforehand. One of the most puzzling things of all was the way those three bearings, although two of them were wildly inaccurate, checked up with each other well enough to convince a careful navigator in a fog. If the gear had been thrown out of true by haphazard amounts they never would have given bearings so consistent with each other, except by the merest chance. Those devils must have decided where they wanted to locate the ship in order to put her aground; then they must have worked out the errors scientifically in the light of the ship’s actual position; and they did a damn smart job of it.”“Possibly Long sent a message from the ship in some secret code, telling Goss where they were, so that he could calculate the desired error,” said Barton.“That’s the most probable bet,” said Evans. “Anyway, it shows clearly that there was careful planning from some headquarters of deviltry, which, unless I’m much mistaken, means Rich.”“Goss is being watched, but thus far we haven’t pinned anything on him,” said Barton. “No suspicion of Rich has been mentioned hitherto.”“Seems to me,” said Evans, “it’s up to you to go to Washington as quick as you can get there, and have him strung up.”Barton looked perplexed.“It would be rather hard to arrange,” he said, “and would attract attention that might prove embarrassing. Then, too, it might be very hard to pin anything on Rich with the evidence we have at present. He’s so clever, and so well entrenched, he can probably work all kinds of alibis. I think perhaps the best policy is just to keep the lid on tight out here, and not let any strategic messages go out to Washington at all.”“But he may have other men like Long planted here in the fleet with all kinds of secret methods of sending messages in code,” said Evans. “It’s too dangerous to let a man like that stay where he can function as the brains of the whole intrigue. We don’t know how he may contrive to cripple us. If he gets on to the secret of Wellman’s code book we’ve lost a weapon worth many ships. As to evidence, I’ll bet I can get some information straight from headquarters through Kendrick and Heringham.”Barton shook his head.“I wouldn’t,” he said. “Sending names of persons, even disguised in as good a code as yours, involves a terrible risk.”“It’s a terrible risk if we don’t,” said Evans earnestly. “We are staking the whole war on our naval strategy, and what will all our strategy avail with a thing like this at the heart of our communication system in Washington? Every bit of evidence we can get may be needed to dislodge him. The risk of leakage in communicating with Heringham is nothing to the risk of leaving Rich where he is.”Barton thought awhile.“You are right,” he said at last. “Send your message to Heringham and, when we hear from him, I’ll see whether it’s best to go to Washington, or what to do.”Once more Evans tested a transmitter. For twenty-four hours he waited, on pins and needles, and during those twenty-four hours both Kendrick and Heringham lost some sleep, too; also some one in Constantinople who knew how to make Bela talk did so. The return message which Evans deciphered from the radio traffic at Gibraltar caused him to go to Barton and urge on him more insistently than ever the importance of his going at once to Washington. Thereupon Barton made a call on Captain Fraser, and in consequence of this call some unusual orders were drawn up and signed.The same day as the conference with Barton which resulted in the message to Heringham, Evans happened to pass Ensign Coffee on the deck of the flagshipDelaware. Coffee glared savagely at him, realizing that, though he did not know why or how, some power above himself had caused the punishment he had sought to inflict on this insubordinate warrant officer to be so mitigated as to amount to little or nothing. At least, here he was walking the deck as freely as ever, but four days after his attempt to jump ship, when he should by rights still be confined to his room, if not in irons.“That reminds me,” said Evans to himself, “that there’s one more bit of house-cleaning needed on this ship. I’d better attend to that now before I forget it.”He knew that his agents in the Bureau of Engineering were now able to handle his messages to Mortimer; so he went to the radio room and once again “tested a transmitter.” With his hand on the key he made the cryptic dots and dashes which the powerful transmitter translated into silent ether waves speeding across the sea, while the operator on watch sat listlessly by, waiting for him to finish.“The gear’s working well,” said Evans; then rising, handed the head-phones back to the operator, and returned to his room, where he got out some warm clothing and made ready for a long journey on which he must travel light.The next morning in Washington Rand transmitted to Secretary Mortimer the following message:Get Ensign J. L. Coffee transferred as far away from flagship as possible. Can recommend him wherever red-tape is needed. E.Later in the day Evans was talking things over with Elkins in the radio room, when a yeoman from the coding room handed Elkins a dispatch. He opened it and read:Detach Ensign Coffee to proceed immediately to Washington, report Bureau Navigation.Elkins handed the dispatch to Evans, saying, “I wonder what in hell they want him in Washington for.”“That’s an interesting matter for speculation,” said Evans, and went about his work.When Coffee received his orders, he was in the act of boasting to some of the other ensigns of the way he had carried out the instructions of no less an official than Commander Rich to squelch insubordination in the warrant officers under him, should he see any. He was telling how he was getting that man Evans to toe the mark, and how he was going to give him some more medicine before he got through. His jaw fell when he read the dispatch. The other ensigns tittered.“Save your medicine for some one else, Coffee,” said one.“Be sure you don’t swallow any of it yourself, by mistake,” said another.Coffee, however, though profoundly chagrined, soon convinced himself that there must be an important mission awaiting him in Washington.
At Intelligence Headquarters in Punta Delgada there was an expert psychologist, versed in all the latest and most scientific methods of probing a man’s veracity. With a sensitive galvanometer connected to the hands of the subject, he could detect the slightest emotional disturbance when no other evidence would reveal it. The morning after Long was taken ashore with the understanding that his skill as an electrician was to be utilized at Headquarters, Barton explained to him that the task they wanted him for was one requiring presence of mind and other faculties for which they wished to give him a psychological test. Barton was well aware that as likely as not Long knew he was caught, and was not to be fooled; but what if he did? They had him, and he would have to submit to their test in any case. And in any case their tests would reveal what they wanted. Since uncertainty as to whether he was a prisoner or not was apt to increase Long’s emotional instability, it seemed best to keep up the bluff of abona-fidetest of his fitness.
Long was placed in a comfortable chair with his hands in contact with electrodes connected with the galvanometer whose mirror threw a spot of light on a screen which the psychologist could watch, but which Long could not. The psychologist then asked him questions or analyzed his association processes with test words, observing the motion of the spot of light on the screen. Some questions were calculated to test his knowledge of electricity; others were apparently frivolous and pointless. Whenever a question or word aroused an emotional response, the spot would make a quick excursion across the screen. After a series of idle-seeming questions, the psychologist made a remark which was not calculated to ruffle the composure of any one, except that it contained the name Wellman. Long continued to present an imperturbable exterior, but the spot of light made the largest excursion that had yet appeared. Some more unimportant patter followed which permitted the spot of light to come to rest again. Another insignificant remark was made containing a casual reference to the name of Rich. The spot of light moved quickly on the screen and registered an even larger excursion than had followed the name of Wellman. At this juncture Evans quietly entered the room through a door behind Long’s back. At a signal from the psychologist, he addressed a casual remark to Barton. At the sound of his voice the spot of light shot off the scale on the screen. When it had steadied again somewhat, Barton said to Evans, “By the way, you said you had some repairs to make on that small transmitter; have you got it working all right this morning?” Again the spot of light went off the scale; a pulse-recording device showed Long’s heart beating rapidly, and now beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. His agitated state was completely ignored, and the test went on, more innocuous talk being used to steady the spot of light. Barton then dropped a harmless remark to Evans about Commander Rich, and once again the spot jumped in a way that could never have been due to instrumental error or chance. Long was then formally made prisoner.
Scarcely had this job been completed when Barton and Evans were fairly stunned by the news that a dispatch had been received at Communication Headquarters ordering Captain Fraser detached from duty as chief of staff and to proceed immediately to Washington on whatever cruiser could best be spared from the fleet. What on earth could this mean? With the momentous preparations for action in progress, Fraser was never needed in the fleet as much as now. The obvious inference was that some crucial question had arisen in Washington, and he was wanted for a conference. Yet Evans could not escape the feeling that something was wrong; he could not help associating this new development with the activities of Long and Rich. As head of the Radio Division of the important Bureau of Engineering, Rich had the means at his hand of wielding vast power for evil. Very likely he had created a situation for recalling Fraser, knowing his to be the controlling mind in the fleet; and quite possibly he would contrive to have a swarm of enemy submarines lurking in the path of the cruiser that was to take him home; or perhaps a mine-field would be laid across her path as she approached home waters; perhaps some intrigue was on foot to get Fraser discredited and put on the shelf when he reached Washington. As a matter of fact, Rich was at the moment considering all these possibilities of turning to account the removal of Fraser from the fleet.
Evans and Barton at once held a conference on the subject. Barton was at first inclined to assume that there was a good reason for Fraser’s recall and to advise leaving matters alone until further developments should arise. He did not feel that there was adequate reason to suppose that Evans’s secret method of communication had broken down. If it had not, Mortimer would already be investigating Rich, and any unnecessary use of the method would add to the danger of its discovery. If the method had broken down, any message Evans might send would go to Rich instead of to Mortimer and would thus serve only to help the wrong man by giving him information and putting him on his guard. Finally, however, Evans succeeded in convincing Barton that a show-down might avert disaster, and should be attempted at once. He therefore went to Communication Headquarters and began once more to “test a transmitter.”
Late that afternoon—the same day that Mortimer had received the message about Fraser and acted on it—Rand received this message:
Go to M. in person, put nothing on paper, ask him verbally to repeat back to me all messages received from me in this way in the last two days. If you cannot do so, let me know. Avoid head of division; danger. E.
Go to M. in person, put nothing on paper, ask him verbally to repeat back to me all messages received from me in this way in the last two days. If you cannot do so, let me know. Avoid head of division; danger. E.
Tompkins had just left the office for his rooms, whence he had gone on his long and uncomfortable motor ride. Whatever caution and watchfulness Rand possessed was now thoroughly aroused. He felt as if all the sentries, yeomen, and orderlies in the Bureau were watching him. Taking pains not to digress in any particular from his usual routine, he put on his hat and coat and started home. But when he had reached a corridor where he was unobserved, he took a roundabout way to the Secretary’s office, where he found Mortimer just getting ready to go home.
Mortimer frowned as Rand repeated his message to him.
“What’s troubling Jim now?” he said to himself. “Is he still having notions about Rich?”
Then he said aloud to Rand, “Was there nothing more?”
“No, sir.”
“Well,” said Mortimer, “the only message I’ve received from him for some time was as follows: ‘Recall Fraser to Washington at once. Urgent.’ You can repeat that back to him and tell him that is all.”
“When did that come?” said Rand.
“This morning,” said Mortimer. “Commander Rich sent it to me by special messenger when Tompkins was called away.”
“Tompkins called away? Where?”
“Commander Rich said he had been wired for because his wife was very sick; he had barely time to catch his train; so the Commander delivered the message for him.”
“His wife sick!” echoed Rand. “He’s not married.”
“Then perhaps it was his mother, I forget which,” said Mortimer.
“But he’s been working in the Bureau all day. I saw him walk out of the office not half an hour ago.”
When Commander Rich planned his trick, he knew nothing of Rand’s part in the system. His only intimations were the message of warning from Long and the report of the spies he had posted in consequence of that warning, to the effect that Tompkins had been seen trying to find the Secretary. He had taken a gambler’s chance, and not an unreasonable one, that Mortimer would hear nothing of an obscure employee in the Bureau between the time of his alleged departure and the time when his kidnapers should get him away from the city. But his gambler’s luck had failed him.
Mortimer was thunderstruck. The message Rand had brought him took on a new meaning. A council of war was held to guard against interception or leakage in the exchange of messages with Evans which must now proceed as rapidly as possible till the mystery should be cleared up. Rand was told to repeat back to Evans the message about Fraser at once.
In half an hour Evans in the radio station at Punta Delgada received it, with difficulty containing his feelings lest the operators about him should be started speculating about what did not concern them. Without waiting to tell Barton what had happened, he sent back the following:
Message as repeated was never sent from here. True message was this: “We have evidence suggesting that the man I warned you against last spring is involved in treason. Watch him closely.” To-day more evidence has appeared in confirmation. Fraser sorely needed in fleet; is already on board cruiser bound for States.
Message as repeated was never sent from here. True message was this: “We have evidence suggesting that the man I warned you against last spring is involved in treason. Watch him closely.” To-day more evidence has appeared in confirmation. Fraser sorely needed in fleet; is already on board cruiser bound for States.
Nervously Mortimer and Rand waited, discussing the ominous possibilities of this crisis, till the message from Punta Delgada arrived. Then Mortimer broke all records for speed in doing two things: one was to tell the Chief of Naval Intelligence what had happened; the other was to cable Punta Delgada canceling the orders recalling Fraser and directing him to return at once to the fleet.
Captain Fraser, turning over his duties to the assistant chief of staff, had boarded a fast scout cruiser and left the harbor of Punta Delgada for the open sea late in the evening. The night was dark, and by midnight the island of Saint Michael’s had disappeared astern, when Fraser was roused from his sleep by a messenger with word that an important radio message for him had just been received. To his surprise he found that he had been directed to return at once to Punta Delgada.
“Well, what next, I wonder?” he said to himself. “Something damn funny seems to be going on.”
He sent back a radio ordering the arrangements to be made for opening the gates in the nets to allow the cruiser to return to harbor, and then, going up on the bridge, told the officer of the deck to change course one hundred and eighty degrees and return to port. Before dawn the cruiser was back at her moorings in the harbor.
Barton and Evans had both agreed that they had best continue to keep to themselves the secret of Evans’s confidential relations with Mortimer, and especially his secret method of communicating with Washington. Barton therefore called on Fraser and merely explained that he had been advised through secret channels from Washington that Fraser’s recall had resulted in some way from the intrigue of a group of spies, and that their plot had been discovered in time to cancel the orders immediately after they were issued.
Meanwhile in Washington, Mortimer, as soon as he received the message from Punta Delgada revealing the trick and casting suspicion on Rich, went to Admiral Rallston, Chief of Naval Intelligence, and discussed the problem with him. This officer cautioned him against taking anything for granted.
“Clearly a dangerous spy is at work,” he said, “but let us not be too hasty in placing the guilt. It behooves us to be cautious about concluding that a man in Commander Rich’s position is guilty of treason. The spy, whoever he is, will use every means he can think of to make the blame appear unmistakably to fall on some one else. It is easy to tap wires, you know.”
“That’s so,” said Mortimer. “What is the best move?”
“I advise you to go to Commander Rich to-morrow morning and, without intimating that anything is amiss, refer to your telephone conversation. If he does not deny having had such a conversation, ask him to explain the discrepancy about Tompkins. You can judge from his conversation whether he’s in a hole or whether some one else has framed the thing up.”
Mortimer passed an uneasy night. The next morning he went to the office of Commander Rich. While he had been in bed the message which caused Fraser to turn back to Punta Delgada had been sent and received, and his ship, turning back, had already reached the harbor. It was by no miracle that these facts had found their way to certain persons in Washington who had to do with radio apparatus; nor was it surprising that the man who controlled all radio apparatus at its source got wind of them before Mortimer made his call.
Before Mortimer was up and about, Commander Rich sent for a certain henchman named Goss, and in the privacy of his room spoke to him thus: “When the supreme test of duty comes, the faithful will not fail. Our ruse has been betrayed. Yesterday morning I told the Secretary that Tompkins had been called away by family sickness. The chances were a thousand to one he would never hear that Tompkins was in the Bureau after I said he had gone. By some mischance his suspicions have been aroused; last night he canceled orders issued in the morning. Soon he will come to question me. It is of supreme importance for the cause we serve that I should stay at my post. I shall deny the telephone conversation and tell him some one has played a trick and impersonated me. But that will not suffice. To make my position secure, I must find some one who can mimic my voice well enough to have deceived the Secretary. Your power of mimicry deceived Tompkins. You will be called on to show what you can do, avowedly for another purpose, and you must play your part. I do you the honor to call on you for this sacrifice.”
An agonized look spread over the face of Goss.
“Master, is there no other way?” he said.
“None,” replied Rich. “I must stay, and you must go; the cause demands it. By good fortune you may yet escape the extreme penalty. We must also have evidence of tampering with the wires. Go quickly to the Bureau before any one is about, and, in a well-concealed place, cut the wires from the switch-board to Tompkins’s desk, then splice them together again and put tape around the splices.
“When you are questioned, protest your innocence till the case is proved against you. Own no master nearer than Constantinople. Tompkins will not return; but, remember, you know nothing of that.”
When Mortimer called on Commander Rich at his office that morning, Rich received him with disarming cordiality and equanimity. Indeed, he did not look like a guilty man.
“Do you recall our telephone conversation yesterday morning?” said Mortimer.
“No,” said Rich with a puzzled look. “I had forgotten we had one. What was it about?”
“About Tompkins.”
“Tompkins?” said Rich. “Who is he?”
“An expert radio aide in your division. You said he had a message for me.”
“I know the man you mean now; we have several aides, and I see so little of them individually I am apt to forget their names. But I recall nothing about any message. What was it?”
“You said he had a message he wished to deliver to me in person, but was in a great hurry to catch a train because of serious illness in his family. For that reason you undertook to deliver the message by special messenger.”
“Mr. Secretary, I am certain that I had no such conversation with you; this is the first I have heard of it. Some one else must have impersonated me.”
“That is strange,” said Mortimer, “for it was I that called this Bureau. I had received the message, and, being surprised at its contents, I called up the Radio Division, and asked for Tompkins. I was answered by your voice saying, ‘Commander Rich speaking,’ and following with the statement I just told you. I have since learned that the message as delivered to me was quite different from that which was originally sent.”
“Most extraordinary,” said Rich, frowning. “There must be some one up to mischief.”
He thought a moment, then resumed:
“Some one understanding the wires could have cut them and connected them with a portable phone.”
“But how was it that I heard your voice?”
“A good mimic could easily have deceived you over the telephone. Was the message very important?”
“Very.”
“This looks like a serious plot,” said Rich. “Some enemy agent must have access to the wires in our Bureau; most probably he has been planted in the Bureau itself. I will track this thing down at once.”
“Hadn’t you better get in touch with the Bureau of Naval Intelligence about it?” said Mortimer.
“Yes; I’ll get them to send over a man who is good on wiring and that sort of thing,” said Rich. “With a clue like this we should be able to find the culprit shortly. We can question some of the officers and a few of the more trust-worthy draftsmen and yeomen as to who was in the vicinity of those wires yesterday morning. I haven’t a doubt we shall find our man.”
Mortimer returned to Admiral Rallston in the Bureau of Naval Intelligence and told him of the interview. Rich had seemed so thoroughly in earnest he could not help but believe in his ignorance of the whole affair, especially since in his own opening question to Rich he had not even hinted that anything was wrong; he had merely asked if he recalled the conversation. If Rich had been the villain, why should he have changed his tactics overnight before receiving any intimation that the message had been changed? Why should he not have stood by his story of the day before? It all looked as if the spy were some one else. Admiral Rallston concurred in this view. They would give Rich what help he wanted in finding the spy, and await results.
That very afternoon Rich called at the room of Secretary Mortimer. He already had two very important clues. A place had been found where the wires to Tompkins’s desk had recently been cut and then spliced together again. This explained the method whereby some one impersonating Rich had been substituted for Tompkins on the line. Besides this a certain chief electrician named Goss had been seen with a portable telephone going through some of the rooms in that vicinity yesterday morning. Goss was a man of unknown antecedents who looked like a southern European of some sort; he had been known to entertain the others by mimicry on one occasion. Rich proposed that, by way of a trap, they approach Goss and tell him they have some special detective work in which his help is desired; that they understand he is a fair mimic, and would like to see what he can do, since that faculty will be of assistance.
“I feel confident that he is our man,” said Rich. “If we show no signs of suspecting him, but offer him the prospect of receiving increased confidence, it will be just what he wants, and he will probably display his talent. We can then confront him with the cut wires and the evidence that some one was tampering with the line yesterday, and that none but he could have done it. It is not unlikely that he will then break down and confess.”
Mortimer agreed to this ruse, and went with Rich to his office, where they met Admiral Rallston, who recalled the name of Goss as being under suspicion of tampering with some radio gear. Goss was summoned, and Rich explained to him that the Secretary wished a good electrician for certain special duty requiring resource and presence of mind, and that he, Rich, had selected him as a good candidate for the task. Mortimer then questioned Goss as to his experience. Then Rich addressed him.
“The Secretary tells me that in this work there may be occasion for you to imitate the voice of another over the telephone. They tell me that one day you amused the men in the drafting room by mimicking some other members of the division. If you can do that, it will be very useful.”
“I was just doing it for fun,” said Goss. “I don’t know as I could really fool any one.”
“Let me hear you mimic Commander Rich,” said Mortimer.
Upon this Goss said a characteristic sentence in which he aped the voice and manner of his master with such skill that Mortimer laughed and Rich blushed in spite of himself. Goss glanced at Rich for an instant. In the glance Rich saw a look of pathetic appeal; and even in his hard and cruel heart there was a shadow of admiration and pity as he realized how his henchman had shown his talent at its best, though the revelation sealed his doom.
Rich cast a knowing glance at Mortimer who saw the convincing significance of the demonstration. The action then moved swiftly. Admiral Rallston took the lead and told Goss they wanted him to look over some wires with them. Then he led the way, followed by Mortimer, Rich, and Goss, to the severed wires, and, suddenly lifting the plank that hid them, turned sharply on Goss, saying, “We want to know who cut and spliced those wires.”
Goss, true to his master, appeared confused and disconcerted; then, with a visible effort to regain his composure, professed his ignorance of the matter. Mortimer and Rich looked on as Admiral Rallston grilled his victim. At last they wrung from him a confession that he served the Sultan, but when questioned as to his confederates he stoutly insisted that he was his own master; Headquarters in Constantinople had sent him and from none other had he taken orders.
With the fatalism of the Moslem he faced his execution. Rich was now more strongly entrenched than ever in the good graces of the Navy Department. His promptitude in finding the real spy had won him the warmest commendation.
The day after Goss had confessed to cutting the wires and impersonating Commander Rich, Mortimer instructed Rand to send a secret message to Evans informing him that the original suspect had been exonerated, and had in fact assisted them in finding the real spy who was now imprisoned under a strong guard, and awaiting execution. When Evans received this message his mind was troubled. He conferred again with Barton and told him he was not satisfied.
“I’ll bet my last dollar that scoundrel is the guilty one,” he said. “He’s just pulling their legs.”
He reviewed the evidence in detail.
“I believe you’re right,” said Barton. “But it’s hard to convince them at this distance. I didn’t tell you,” he continued after a pause, “what I learned about the Sheridan affair.”
“What was it?”
“You recall that when theSheridanasked for bearings, Fourth Cliff was reported out of commission and Gloucester gave a bearing that was found afterwards to have been sixteen degrees in error? I sent one of the best Intelligence officers in the Bureau to investigate. He found that a certain chief radio electrician named Goss, from the Bureau of Engineering, had been to Fourth Cliff early that morning to inspect the station, and had come to Gloucester at noon. He was alone in the radio-compass shack there for a few minutes just after lunch, and again about dusk just after the Sheridan went aground. The most careful examination of the apparatus revealed nothing definite, but the set-screw which holds the circular scale in place looked as if it had recently been tightened.”
“My God!” cried Evans, “what a jackass I was not to get on to that. It fits into the rest like the last piece in a picture puzzle. Look here! The activities of those two men, Goss and Long, must have been carefully planned beforehand. One of the most puzzling things of all was the way those three bearings, although two of them were wildly inaccurate, checked up with each other well enough to convince a careful navigator in a fog. If the gear had been thrown out of true by haphazard amounts they never would have given bearings so consistent with each other, except by the merest chance. Those devils must have decided where they wanted to locate the ship in order to put her aground; then they must have worked out the errors scientifically in the light of the ship’s actual position; and they did a damn smart job of it.”
“Possibly Long sent a message from the ship in some secret code, telling Goss where they were, so that he could calculate the desired error,” said Barton.
“That’s the most probable bet,” said Evans. “Anyway, it shows clearly that there was careful planning from some headquarters of deviltry, which, unless I’m much mistaken, means Rich.”
“Goss is being watched, but thus far we haven’t pinned anything on him,” said Barton. “No suspicion of Rich has been mentioned hitherto.”
“Seems to me,” said Evans, “it’s up to you to go to Washington as quick as you can get there, and have him strung up.”
Barton looked perplexed.
“It would be rather hard to arrange,” he said, “and would attract attention that might prove embarrassing. Then, too, it might be very hard to pin anything on Rich with the evidence we have at present. He’s so clever, and so well entrenched, he can probably work all kinds of alibis. I think perhaps the best policy is just to keep the lid on tight out here, and not let any strategic messages go out to Washington at all.”
“But he may have other men like Long planted here in the fleet with all kinds of secret methods of sending messages in code,” said Evans. “It’s too dangerous to let a man like that stay where he can function as the brains of the whole intrigue. We don’t know how he may contrive to cripple us. If he gets on to the secret of Wellman’s code book we’ve lost a weapon worth many ships. As to evidence, I’ll bet I can get some information straight from headquarters through Kendrick and Heringham.”
Barton shook his head.
“I wouldn’t,” he said. “Sending names of persons, even disguised in as good a code as yours, involves a terrible risk.”
“It’s a terrible risk if we don’t,” said Evans earnestly. “We are staking the whole war on our naval strategy, and what will all our strategy avail with a thing like this at the heart of our communication system in Washington? Every bit of evidence we can get may be needed to dislodge him. The risk of leakage in communicating with Heringham is nothing to the risk of leaving Rich where he is.”
Barton thought awhile.
“You are right,” he said at last. “Send your message to Heringham and, when we hear from him, I’ll see whether it’s best to go to Washington, or what to do.”
Once more Evans tested a transmitter. For twenty-four hours he waited, on pins and needles, and during those twenty-four hours both Kendrick and Heringham lost some sleep, too; also some one in Constantinople who knew how to make Bela talk did so. The return message which Evans deciphered from the radio traffic at Gibraltar caused him to go to Barton and urge on him more insistently than ever the importance of his going at once to Washington. Thereupon Barton made a call on Captain Fraser, and in consequence of this call some unusual orders were drawn up and signed.
The same day as the conference with Barton which resulted in the message to Heringham, Evans happened to pass Ensign Coffee on the deck of the flagshipDelaware. Coffee glared savagely at him, realizing that, though he did not know why or how, some power above himself had caused the punishment he had sought to inflict on this insubordinate warrant officer to be so mitigated as to amount to little or nothing. At least, here he was walking the deck as freely as ever, but four days after his attempt to jump ship, when he should by rights still be confined to his room, if not in irons.
“That reminds me,” said Evans to himself, “that there’s one more bit of house-cleaning needed on this ship. I’d better attend to that now before I forget it.”
He knew that his agents in the Bureau of Engineering were now able to handle his messages to Mortimer; so he went to the radio room and once again “tested a transmitter.” With his hand on the key he made the cryptic dots and dashes which the powerful transmitter translated into silent ether waves speeding across the sea, while the operator on watch sat listlessly by, waiting for him to finish.
“The gear’s working well,” said Evans; then rising, handed the head-phones back to the operator, and returned to his room, where he got out some warm clothing and made ready for a long journey on which he must travel light.
The next morning in Washington Rand transmitted to Secretary Mortimer the following message:
Get Ensign J. L. Coffee transferred as far away from flagship as possible. Can recommend him wherever red-tape is needed. E.
Get Ensign J. L. Coffee transferred as far away from flagship as possible. Can recommend him wherever red-tape is needed. E.
Later in the day Evans was talking things over with Elkins in the radio room, when a yeoman from the coding room handed Elkins a dispatch. He opened it and read:
Detach Ensign Coffee to proceed immediately to Washington, report Bureau Navigation.
Detach Ensign Coffee to proceed immediately to Washington, report Bureau Navigation.
Elkins handed the dispatch to Evans, saying, “I wonder what in hell they want him in Washington for.”
“That’s an interesting matter for speculation,” said Evans, and went about his work.
When Coffee received his orders, he was in the act of boasting to some of the other ensigns of the way he had carried out the instructions of no less an official than Commander Rich to squelch insubordination in the warrant officers under him, should he see any. He was telling how he was getting that man Evans to toe the mark, and how he was going to give him some more medicine before he got through. His jaw fell when he read the dispatch. The other ensigns tittered.
“Save your medicine for some one else, Coffee,” said one.
“Be sure you don’t swallow any of it yourself, by mistake,” said another.
Coffee, however, though profoundly chagrined, soon convinced himself that there must be an important mission awaiting him in Washington.