For the School Colours Part 34

"The game's up at last!" he hinnied. "I saw it was you kids, and I couldn't resist giving you a scare. I don't know that I meant to let you find me out, though. If I hadn't tumbled I'd have got off. What have I been masquerading like this for?" He suddenly looked grave. "That's a little business of my own. I wanted to find out something, and I thought I'd raise a rumour that might keep the woods clear of ordinary trespa.s.sers. How did I do it? Easy enough, some theatrical togs I had by me, and springs on my heels."

"We've seen you before in this rig-out," volunteered Anthony.

"When?"

"When you pounced on Mr. Hockheimer and stopped him burning a letter."

"We were there watching," echoed David.

"Oh, have you got the paper still? It was mine!" cried Pamela breathlessly.

It was Captain Harper's turn to be astonished.

"Yours! What had it to do with you?" he asked sharply.

Pamela and Avelyn explained between them. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it as he listened.

"This is quite another development," he commented. "Part of the paper was burnt. I couldn't understand the drift of it."

"Have you got it still?" besought Pamela.

"No, I gave it to my superior officer. But if it is of such importance as you say I could get it examined on your behalf. I'll speak to my Colonel about it. It's worth investigating."

"Pam!" said Avelyn impulsively, bending her head and whispering in her friend's ear, "do you know, I believe it would be the best thing in the world to tell Captain Harper what you've told me this afternoon. He'd know better even than Mother what you ought to do."

"You tell him--I daren't," faltered Pamela.

If Captain Harper had been astonished before, he was doubly amazed now.

"Great Scott! It's the very thing I've been on the scent of for this six months!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "We guessed there was a wireless somewhere over here, but never could locate it. And to think I owe it to you kids!

Pamela, you're a true loyal little Englishwoman! I think you'll find you'll pretty soon be rid of that precious uncle of yours."

"What must I do about it?" asked Pamela, who was half crying.

Captain Harper did not at once reply. He seemed cogitating. Then his face cleared.

"Nothing at present," he replied. "I pledge you all on your word of honour to mention this business to n.o.body. We'll leave the wireless where it is, and get the messages if possible--that's our game! Pamela, could you manage to learn the Morse code if I taught you?"

"I'd try."

"I'll undertake you'd soon learn it. Then what you've got to do is to listen at the receiver and report to us. I can tell you, you may be working an uncommonly important little bit of business. Don't cry, child! The fellow is only your uncle by marriage. He's no blood relation of yours. Think of your father! You're doing your duty by your country as every true-born Britisher ought."

CHAPTER XXI

Pamela's Night Walk

Pamela went back to Moss Cottage with new courage. The secret, which had almost overwhelmed her when she had tried to bear it alone, a.s.sumed a different aspect now she shared it with her friends. Captain Harper had taken the full responsibility of the affair, and as one of His Majesty's officers she knew he could be trusted. She placed herself entirely in his hands, and followed his directions implicitly. To keep watch without arousing her uncle's suspicions was to be her present role. Under cover of going to tea with the Watsons, she met Captain Harper at Walden, and learnt from him the Morse code. Once she had mastered that, she was able to write down some of the wireless messages. To her they were absolutely unintelligible, for they were in cipher, but she made a faithful record of what she heard through the receiver, and sent it by David or Anthony to the young officer.

For the moment Captain Harper acknowledged himself baffled.

"We have the keys to a number of ciphers, but there's one here we don't understand. It's solely for this reason we're allowing this wireless apparatus at Moss Cottage to remain where it is. Pamela must use all her ingenuity to discover the key to the cipher. She's the only person who has the opportunity of doing so. If we were to arrest Mr. Hockheimer at once we might or might not find treasonable papers upon him. It is doubtful if we should learn his secret."

To David and Anthony the affair was of the supremest interest. They envied Pamela her unique chance of serving her country. They were glad enough to be employed as carriers, and would take the notes from her when they met her in the morning, and, according to arrangement, convey them to Captain Harper. Sometimes they took them direct to the Camp, after they returned from school, and sometimes they handed them to an orderly who would be strolling about near the station. As for Pamela, she lived from day to day in a ferment of expectation, waiting and watching for her opportunity. And one evening she found it. Mr.

Hockheimer had come, as was his custom, to Moss Cottage, and had set his niece to listen for messages while he took his ease in the house. For an hour or more Pamela had sat with the receiver to her ears, but had heard nothing. At last came the familiar humming. She jotted down the letters, put the paper safely in her pocket, and ran up the garden to warn her uncle. That night he had been drinking more heavily than usual. He lurched in his walk as he approached the stable, and it was with difficulty that he climbed the ladder. Pamela followed him nervously.

His hands shook as he fitted on the receiver, but he nevertheless took down the message. Then he paused, and seemed to be calculating something out on the paper. She crept a little nearer. He was too muddled to realize her approach. She peeped over his shoulder unnoticed.

In his half-drunken condition he was working out the cipher and writing it down. She copied it word by word. It was in German.

"U-boot auf Aermelmeere heute Abend. Zeigen Licht auf Berry Head."

Pamela backed away cautiously towards the ladder. Just as she reached it her uncle turned round and called to her.

"Give me a hand, Pam! Don't feel--very well to-night," he stammered thickly. "Got to go out, too. Must go home and get the car. Little store of petrol they don't know about! And I shan't tell them either!" (He hinnied at his own joke.) "Give me your hand."

He leaned heavily on his niece, and she helped him down the ladder. She watched him as he stumbled along the narrow path in the darkness. He called to her, but she did not follow him to the cottage. Instead, she went to the palings and scrambled over into the high road. She surmised that she had surprised a most important secret, one which she felt must be communicated at once to head-quarters. It was absolutely necessary that Captain Harper should know of this. By warning him in time she might prevent some great disaster. She must get to the Camp as quickly as possible. It was late, long past eleven o'clock (Mr. Hockheimer had had no compunction in keeping his niece out of bed to mind his business), and the night was moonless. Pamela shuddered as she thought of the long, lonely walk before her. Could she find the Camp in the dark? A sudden inspiration struck her. She would hurry to the Watsons instead and ask one of the boys to go on a bicycle. She ran almost all the way along the familiar road to Walden. She found the house shut up and the family gone to bed, but she made a rat-tat with the knocker that soon roused them.

"What is it?" cried David out of the window.

"It's I--Pamela! I've brought news!" she gasped.

The Watsons were downstairs directly. They listened breathlessly to the story she had to tell. David and Anthony hurried to the outhouse for their bicycles, and set off at once for the Camp to find Captain Harper.

Who could say how much might depend on their speed?

Pamela watched them go with a feeling of intense relief. Her part of the business was finished; she had now set the machinery in motion that would accomplish the rest. The reaction after the intense strain was so great that she burst into tears.

"I must go home!" she sobbed. "Mother will think I am lost!"

"Daphne and I will go with you. I can't let you walk back alone at this time of night," said Mrs. Watson kindly. "If you'll take my advice, dear, you'll tell your mother everything now. She ought to know."

Pamela's friends escorted her to the door of Moss Cottage and left her there. What explanation she gave to her mother they never knew. They feared there was great unpleasantness in store for the Reynolds, for Mr.

Hockheimer was sure to be arrested, and the fact that it must be through his niece's instrumentality only seemed to make matters worse. David and Anthony returned with the news that they had roused Captain Harper at the Camp, and that after reading the message he had ridden off immediately upon his motor bicycle. They went to bed wondering what would be happening while they slept.

The boys looked out for Pamela next morning on the road to the station, but she was not there. The train for once went without her. They spent an agitated day at school and hurried back from Netherton that afternoon at topmost speed. They found Captain Harper in the garden at Walden. He looked very grave.

"Do you know what that message was you brought me?" he asked.

"Translated into English it meant, 'U-boat in Channel to-night. Show light on Berry Head.' I hear a certain important vessel had an extremely narrow escape last night. The wireless apparatus at Moss Cottage has been taken down already. The police went up there this morning."

"And Mr. Hockheimer?"

Captain Harper knocked the end off his cigarette before he answered.

"Mr. Hockheimer has gone to settle his great account. He and his car were found in the river at Chadwick this morning. The road turns at a very sharp angle there on to the bridge, and it is thought that in the darkness he missed his way and went over the bank. There is not a shadow of doubt that he was going to give signals to the enemy. We had long suspected him as a spy, and part of my business down here had been to watch him. In the circ.u.mstances this has been the most merciful thing that could have happened. For the sake of the Reynolds we are hushing the matter up. There is no need for it to be bruited about the neighbourhood. Your family are the only people who have any knowledge of the affair. I can trust you to keep it from going further."

"On our honour!" the boys a.s.sured him.

The "sad fatality at Chadwick Bridge" made a sensation in the local newspapers. An inquest was held on Mr. Hockheimer, and a verdict of "Death from misadventure" returned. Though many people in the neighbourhood may have had their suspicions as to the nature of his errand on that dark night, no evidence of an incriminating nature was brought before the coroner. He was buried at Lyngates in the Reynolds's family vault, where his wife had been carried two years before. He had left no will, and the question of who was to inherit the Lyngates property might be a matter for Chancery to settle. By the advice of the old solicitor who had managed the estate for many years, Mrs. Reynolds and Pamela took temporary possession of the Hall until a claim could be set up on their behalf. At the time of Squire Reynolds's death it had been the current gossip of the village that some later will than the one proved must be in existence. If such a will had been made, however, it had never been found. The only possible clue seemed to be the letter that David and Anthony had found inside the Latin dictionary, which had fallen into the hands of Mr. Hockheimer, and had been so strangely rescued from destruction by Captain Harper when masquerading as Spring-heeled Jack. The latter reported that at the time he had examined the half-burnt sheet, antic.i.p.ating that it might contain treasonable correspondence, but had been unable to make sense of it. In accordance with instructions he had handed it over to his Colonel, and he supposed it would now be filed in the Secret Service Department. Red tape might prevent repossession of the original, but he was using his influence to obtain a copy. After considerable delay a reply came from the War Office to the effect that the paper in question appeared to have been partially burnt, but that the remaining fragment ran as follows:--