French crossed the room, and taking a small atlas from a shelf, opened it at the map of England and laid it down beside the photograph. With a rising excitement all three compared them. Then Cheyne burst out irritably:
“Confound the thing! It’s like it and it’s not like it. Let’s draw a line round those number circles and see if it makes anything like the shape.” He seized the photograph and took out a pencil.
But just as in the scientific and industrial worlds discoveries and inventions seldom come singly, so among these three men the begetting of ideas begot more ideas. Scarcely had Cheyne spoken when French made a little gesture of comprehension.
“I believe I have it at last,” he said quietly but with ill-concealed eagerness in his tones. “Those irregular lines in certain of the circles are broken bits of the coast line. See here, those two between 8 and U are surely the Wash, and that below H is Flamborough Head. Let’s see if we can locate correspondingly shaped outlines on the atlas, and fill in between those on the photograph with pencil.”
A few seconds’ examination only were needed. Opposite, but slightly above the projection which French suggested as Flamborough Head was an angled line between GU and 31 which all three simultaneously pronounced St. Bee’s Head. Short double lines on each side of 24 showed two parts of the estuary of the Severn, and projections along the bottom near X and 27 were evidently St. Alban’s Head and Selsey Bill.
That they were on the right track there could now no longer be any doubt, and they set themselves with renewed energy to the problem still remaining—the meaning of the circles and the numbers they contained.
“We can’t locate the blessed things this way,” French pointed out. “We’ll have to rule squares on the atlas to correspond. Then we can pencil in the coast line accurately, and see just where the circles lie.”
For a time measuring and the drawing of lines were the order of the day. And then at last the positions of the circles were located. They were all drawn round towns.
“Towns!” Price exclaimed. “Guess we’re getting on.”
“Towns!” Cheyne echoed in his turn. “Then you must have been right, Inspector, about those letters being merely a blind.”
“I think so,” French admitted. “Look at it in this way. If only the towns and coast were marked, the shape of England would show too clearly. But adding those letter circles disguises the thing—prevents the shape becoming apparent. Now, I may be wrong, but I am beginning to question very much if this map has anything to do with indicating a position—I mean directly. I am beginning to think it is merely a cipher. Let us test this at all events. Let us write down the names of the towns in the order of the numbers and see if that gives us anything.”
He took a sheet of paper, while Price found No. 1 on the photograph and Cheyne identified its position with that of a town on the atlas map.
“No. 1,” said Cheyne, “is Salisbury.”
French wrote down: “1, Salisbury.”
“No. 2,” went on Cheyne, “is Immingham.”
“2, Immingham,” wrote French, as he remarked, “Salisbury—Immingham: S—I. That goes all right so far.”
The next three towns were Liverpool, Uttoxeter, and Reading, and though none of the men could see where silur was leading, it was at least pronounceable.
But when the next three letters were added French gave a mighty shout of victory. No. 6 was Ipswich, No. 7 Andover, and No. 8 Nottingham. ian added to silur made Silurian.
“Silurian!” French cried, striking the table a mighty blow with his clenched fist. “Silurian! That begins to show a light!”
The others stared.
“Don’t you recognize the name?” went on French. “The Silurian was a big Anchor liner, and she was torpedoed on her way to the States with two and a half millions in gold bars aboard!”
The others held their breath and their eyes grew round.
“Any of it recovered?”
“None: it was in mid-Atlantic.”
“But,” stammered Cheyne at last, “I don’t follow—”
“I don’t follow myself,” French returned briskly, “but when the cipher which leads to a maritime expedition begins with a wreck with two and a half millions aboard, well then, I say it is suggestive. Come along, let’s read the rest of the thing. We’ll know more then.”
With breathless eagerness the other towns were looked up, and at last French’s list read as follows:
-
Salisbury
-
Immingham
-
Liverpool
-
Uttoxeter
-
Reading
-
Ipswich
-
Andover
-
Nottingham
-
Oxford
-
Northampton
-
Evesham
-
Doncaster
-
Exeter
-
Gloucester
-
Ripon
-
Ely
-
Eastbourne
-
Wigan
-
Exmouth
-
Swansea
-
Tonbridge
-
Nuneaton
-
Ilfracombe
-
Newport
-
Eaglescliff
-
Taunton
-
Eastleigh
-
Ebbw Vale
-
Northallerton
-
Folkestone
-
Appleby
-
Tamworth
-
Huntingdon
-
Oldham
-
Middlesborough
-
Southend
Taking the initials in order read: Silurianonedegreewestnineteenfathoms, or dividing it into its obvious words—“Silurian one degree west nineteen fathoms.”
The three men stared at one another.
“Nineteen fathoms!” Price gasped at last. “But if she’s in nineteen fathoms that gold will be salvable!”
French nodded.
“And I guess Dangle and Company have gone to salve it. They wouldn’t want a salvage boat for gold. They’d get it with a diver’s outfit.”
“But,” Cheyne went on in a puzzled tone, “I’ve not got this straight yet. If she’s in nineteen fathoms, why has she not been salved by the Admiralty? Look at the Laurentic. She was put down off the Swilly in Ireland, and they salved her gold. Five million pounds’ worth. Salved practically every penny, and in twenty fathoms too.”
Price was considering another problem.
“One degree west,” he murmured. “What under heaven does that mean? One degree west of what? Surely not the meridian of Greenwich. If so, what is the latitude: there’s no mention of it?”
French could not answer either of the questions, and he did not try. Instead he picked up his telephone receiver and made a call.
“Hallo! Is
