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The Box with Broken Seals (Strange Case of Mr. Jocelyn Thew), a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 9 |
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_ CHAPTER IX Robins, the wireless operator, bent closer over his instrument, and the blue fires flashed from the masthead of the steamer, cutting their way through the darkness into the black spaces beyond. The little room was lit by a dull oil light, the door was fast-closed and locked. Away into the night sped one continual message. "Steamship _City of Boston_, lat.... long.... lying four points to northward of usual course. Reply." A time came when the young man ceased from his labours and sat up with a yawn. He stretched out his hand and lit a cigarette, walked to the little round window which commanded the deck, gazed out of it steadily, and turned back once more to his chair before the instrument. Then something happened. A greater shock than any that lay in the blue lightning which he had been generating was awaiting him. His right hand was suddenly gripped and held on to the table. He found himself gazing straight down the black bore of a small but uncommonly ugly-looking revolver. A voice which seemed remarkable for its convincing qualities, addressed him. "If you speak a word, Robins, move, or show signs of any attempt to struggle, I shall shoot you. I have the right and the power." Robins, a young man of nerve, whose name stood high on an official list of those who might be relied upon for any desperate enterprise, sat like a numbed thing. Dim visions of the face of this man, only a few feet away from his own, assailed him under some very different guise. It was Crawshay the man, stripped for action, whose lean, strong fingers were gripping the butt of that revolver, and whose eyes were holding him like gimlets. "Now, if you are wise, answer me a few questions," Crawshay began. "I'd have brought the captain with me, but I thought we might do better business alone. You've been advertising the ship's whereabouts. Why?" "I've only been giving the usual calls," the young man muttered. "Don't lie to me," was the grim reply. "Your wireless was supposed to be silent from yesterday midday except for the purpose of receiving calls. I ask you again, why and to whom were you advertising our whereabouts and course?" Robins looked at the revolver, looked at Crawshay, and was dimly conscious of a damp feeling about his forehead. Nevertheless, his lips were screwed together, and he remained silent. "Come," Crawshay went on, "we'll have a common-sense talk. I am an agent of the British Secret Service. I have unlimited powers upon this ship, power to put a bullet through your head if I choose, and not a soul to question it. The game's up so far as you are concerned. You have received messages on this steamer of which you have kept no record, but which you have delivered secretly to a certain passenger. Of that I may or may not speak later on. At present I am more interested in your operations of to-night. You are signalling the information of our whereabouts for some definite reason. What is it? Were you trying to pick up the _Blucher?_" "I wasn't trying to pick up anybody," the young man faltered. Crawshay's fingers gripped him by the shoulder. His very determined-looking mouth had suddenly become a ring of steel. "If you don't give me a different answer in ten seconds, Robins, I'll blow your brains all over the cabin!" The young man broke. "I was trying to pick up the _Blucher_," he acknowledged. "That's exactly what I thought," Crawshay muttered. "That's the game, without a doubt. What are you? An Englishman?" "I am not!" was the almost fierce reply. "Blast England!" Crawshay looked into the black eyes, suddenly lit with an ugly fire, and nodded. "I understand," he said. "Robins, your name, eh? Any relation to the young Sinn Feiner who was shot in Dublin a few months ago?" "Brother." "That may save your life later on," Crawshay observed coolly. "Now you can do one of three things. You can come with me to the captain, be put in irons and shot as soon as we land--or before, if the _Blucher_ finds us; or you can send the message which I shall give you; or you can end your days where you sit." "What message?" the young man demanded. "You will send out a general call, as before, repeating the latitude and longitude with a difference of exactly three points, and you will repeat the altered course, only you will substitute the word 'south' for the word 'north.'" The young man's eyes suddenly gleamed as he turned towards the instrument, but Crawshay smiled with grim understanding. "Let me tell you that I understand the wireless," he said impressively. "You will give the message exactly as I have told you or we finish things up on the spot. I think you had better. It's a matter of compulsion, you know--in fact I'll explain matters to Mr. Jocelyn Thew, if you like." The young man's eyes were round with amazement. "Jocelyn Thew!" he repeated. "Precisely. You needn't look so terrified. It isn't you who have given away. Now what are you going to do?" The young man swung round to his instrument. Crawshay released his hand, stepping a little back. "You are going to send the message, then?" "Yes!" was the sullen reply. "Capital!" Crawshay exclaimed, cautiously subsiding into a chair. "Now you'll go on every ten minutes until I tell you to stop." Robins bent over his task, and again the crackling waves broke away from their prison. Once his finger hesitated. He glanced surreptitiously at Crawshay. "Four degrees south," Crawshay repeated softly. The night wore on. Every ten minutes the message was sent. Then there followed a brief silence, spent generally by Robins with his head drooped upon his clasped arms; by Crawshay in unceasing vigil. Just as the first faint gleam of daylight stole into the little turret chamber, came the long-waited-for reply. The young man wrote down the few lines and passed them over. Crawshay, who had risen to his feet, glanced at them, nodded, and thrust the paper into his pocket. "That seems quite satisfactory," he said coldly. "Now ask the _Blucher_ her exact course?" Robins sat for a moment motionless. He felt Crawshay's presence towering over him, felt again the spell of his softly-spoken command. "Don't waste any time, please. Do as I tell you." Robins obeyed. In less than a quarter of an hour he handed over another slip of paper. Crawshay thrust it into his pocket. "That concludes our business," he said. "Now let me see if I remember enough of this apparatus to put it out of action." He bent over the instrument, removed some plugs, turned some screws, and finally placed in his pocket a small concealed part of the mechanism. Then he turned towards Robins. "You can leave here now," he directed. "I shall lock the place up." Robins had in some measure recovered himself. He was a quiet, hollow-eyed young person, with thick black hair and a thin frame, about which the uniform of the ship hung loosely. "You are the man who boarded the steamer from a seaplane, aren't you, and pretended afterwards to be such a ninny?" "I am," Crawshay acknowledged. "How did you get on to this?" Crawshay raised his eyebrows. "Sorry," he replied, "that is a matter concerning which I fear that you will have to restrain your curiosity." "How did you get in here?" "By means of a duplicate key which I obtained from the purser. I hid in your bunk there and drew the curtains. Quite a comfortable mattress, yours. You'll have to change your sleeping quarters, though." "What is going to happen to me?" the young man enquired. "Probably nothing extreme. You were philosophical enough to accept the situation. If," Crawshay went on more slowly, "you had falsified a single word of those messages, your end would have been somewhat abrupt and your destination according to your past life. As it is, you can go where you choose now and report to the captain later on in the morning, after I have had a talk with him." "My kit is all in here." Crawshay laid his hand upon the operator's shoulder in peremptory fashion. "Then you will have to do without it for the present," he replied coolly. "Outside." The young man turned on his heel and disappeared without a word. Crawshay glanced once more at the dismantled instrument, then followed Robins on to the deck, carefully locking the door behind him. A grey, stormy morning was just breaking, with piles of angry clouds creeping up, and showers of spray breaking over the ship on the weather side. He chose a sheltered spot and stood for a few moments breathing in the strong salt air. Notwithstanding his success, he was unaccountably depressed. As far as he could see across the grey waste of waters, there was no sign of any passing ship, but the eastern horizon was blurred by a low-hanging bank of sinister-looking clouds. Suddenly a voice rang out, hailing him. It was the captain descending from the bridge. "Come and have a cup of coffee with me in my room, Mr. Crawshay," he invited. Crawshay felt himself suddenly back again in the world of real happenings. His depression passed as though by magic. After all, he had won the first trick, and the next move was already forming up in his mind. _ |
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