Price smote his thigh.
“By Jemima!” he cried. “I’ve got you. That blessed tracing is a map!”
“A map, yes. That’s what I think,” French answered eagerly, and then as suddenly he saw the possible significance of Nelson’s exhortation, he went on dramatically: “A map of England!”
Cheyne swore softly.
“My word, if we aren’t a set of blithering idiots!” he exclaimed. “Of course! ‘England’ is the title. That’s as clear as day! The other words are added as a blind. Let’s have the thing out, Inspector, and see if we can’t make something of it now.”
As French produced his enlarged photographs not one of the three men doubted that they were at last well on the way towards wresting the secret from the document which had so long baffled them.
XIX
The Message of the Tracing
Inspector French spread the photograph on his desk, and Cheyne and Price having drawn up chairs, all three gazed at it as if expecting that in the light of their great idea its message would have become obvious.
But in this they were disappointed. The suggestion did not seem in any way to help either French or Cheyne, and Price, who of course had not seen the document before, was satisfactorily mystified. Granted that the thing was a map, granted even that it was a map of England, its meaning remained just as provokingly hidden as ever.
Presently Price gave vent to an exclamation. “Hang it all!” he cried irritably, and then: “I suppose those numbers couldn’t be soundings? Could they give depths at the circles?”
“That’s an idea,” Cheyne cried, but French shook his head.
“I think there’s more in it than that,” he observed. “If you examine those numbers you’ll find that they’re consecutive, they run from one to thirty-six. Soundings wouldn’t lend themselves to such an arrangement. You may be right, Mr. Price, and we must keep your idea in view, but I don’t see it working out for the moment.”
Silence reigned for a few moments, then Price sat back from the table and spoke again.
“Look here, Inspector,” he said, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and beginning to fill it with his strong, black mixture, “you said something just now I didn’t quite follow. Let’s get your notion clear. You talked of this thing beginning with the sea—at Schulz, and ending with the sea—at L’Escaut, and Schulz’s message being a map. Just what was in your mind?”
“Only the obvious suggestion that if you leave a message which provokes an expedition, you must also convey in your message the destination of that expedition, and a map seems the simplest way of doing it. But on second thoughts I question my first conclusion. There must be an explanation of the secret as well as a direction of how to profit by it, and it would seem to me doubtful that such an explanation could be covered by a map.”
“Sounds all right, that,” Price admitted. “Have you any idea what the secret might be? Sounds like treasure or salvage or something of that kind.”
“I scarcely think salvage,” French answered. “The L’Escaut is not a salvage boat, and a boat not specially fitted for the purpose would be of little use. But I thought of treasure all right. This Schulz might have robbed his ships—there would always be money aboard, and even during the war many women traveled with jewelry. The man might easily have made a cache of valuables somewhere round the coast.”
“Easily,” Cheyne intervened, “or he might have learned of some valuable deposit in some out of the way cove round the coast, like those chaps in that clinking tale of Maurice Drake’s, WO2.”
“As at Terneuzen?” said French. “I read that book—one of the best I ever came across. It’s a possibility, of course.”
The talk here became somewhat rambling, Price not having read WO2 and wanting to know what it was about, but French soon reverted to his photograph. He reminded his hearers that they were all interested in its elucidation. Miss Merrill’s safety, his own professional credit, Cheyne’s peace of mind, and Price’s fortune, all were at stake.
“We have,” he went on, “evolved the idea that perhaps this tracing may be a map of England. On further thought that suggestion does not seem promising, but as we have no other let us work on it. Assume it is a map of England, and let us see if it leads us anywhere.” There were murmurs of assent from his hearers, and he continued: “Now it seems to me the first thing to do is to try if we can fit these circles and lines into the map of England. Is there anything corresponding to them in English geography?”
No one being able to answer this query, French went on:
“I think we must distinguish between the letter circles on the one hand and those of the numbers and lines on the other. The position of the former was not altered in the faked copy; that of the latter was. From this may we not assume that the message lies in the numbers and lines only? Possibly the letters were added as a blind, as we have already assumed the words ‘expects every man to do his duty’ were added as a blind to ‘England.’ Suppose at all events that we eliminate the letter circles and concentrate on the others for our first effort?”
“That sounds all right.”
“Good. Then let us go a step further. Have you noticed the distribution of the numbers, letters and lines? The numbers are bunched, roughly speaking, towards the center, the letters round the edge, and the irregular lines between the two. Does this central mass give us anything?”
“I get you,” Price replied. He had risen and begun to pace the room, but now he returned to the table and stood looking down at the photograph. “You know, as a matter of fact,” he went on
