The Lost Naval Papers Part 6

We were sitting after breakfast in Cary's study, enjoying the first sweet pipe of the day, when the telephone bell rang. Cary took off the earpiece and I listened to a one-sided conversation somewhat as follows:--

"What! Is that you, Mr. Dawson? Yes, Copplestone is here. The _Antigone_? What about her? She is a sister ship of the _Antinous_, and was in with damage to her forefoot, which had been ripped up when she ran down that big German submarine north of the Orkneys--Yes, I know; she was due to go out some time to-day. What do you say? Wires cut? Whose wires have been cut? The _Antigone's?_ Oh, the devil! Yes, we will both come down to your office this afternoon. Whenever you like."

Cary hung up the receiver and glared at me. "It has happened again,"

he groaned. "The _Antigone_ this time. She has been in dry dock for the past fortnight and was floated out yesterday. Her full complement joined her last night. Dawson says that he was called up at eight-o'clock by the news that her gun-wires have been cut exactly like those of the _Antinous_ and in the same incomprehensible way. He seems, curiously enough, to be quite cheerful about it."

"He has had a few hours sleep. And, besides, he sees that this second case, so exactly like the first, makes the solution of his problem very much more easy. I am glad that he is cheerful, for I feel exuberantly happy myself. I was kept awake half the night by a persistent notion which seemed the more idiotic the more I thought all round it. But now--now, there may be something in it."

"What is your idea? Tell me quick."

"No, thank you, Dr. Watson. We amateur masters of intuition don't work our thrilling effects in that way. We keep our notions to ourselves until they turn out to be right, and then we declare that we saw through the problem from the first. When we have been wrong, we say nothing. So you observe, Cary, that whatever happens our reputations do not suffer."

CHAPTER VI

GUESSWORK

Cary tried to shake my resolution, but I was obdurately silent. While he canva.s.sed the whole position, bringing to bear his really profound knowledge of naval equipment and routine--and incidentally helping me greatly to realise the improbability of my own guesswork solution--I was able to maintain an air of lofty superiority. I must have aggravated him intensely, unpardonably, for I was his guest. He ought to have kicked me out. Yet he bore with me like the sweet-blooded kindly angel that he is, and when at the end it appeared that I was right after all, Cary was the first to pour congratulations and honest admiration upon me. If he reads this book he will know that I am repentant--though I must confess that I should behave in just the same abominable way if the incident were to occur again. There is no great value in repentance such as this.

We reached Dawson's office in the early afternoon, and found his chief a.s.sistant there, but no Dawson. "The old man," remarked that officer, a typical, stolid, faithful detective sergeant, "is out on the rampage. He ought by rights to sit here directing the staff and leave the outside investigations to me. He is a high-up man, almost a deputy a.s.sistant commissioner, and has no call to be always disguising himself and playing his tricks on everybody. I suppose you know that white-haired old gent down here ain't a bit like Bill Dawson, who's not a day over forty?"

"I have given up wondering where the real Dawson ends and where the disguises begin. The man I met up north wasn't the least bit like the one down here."

"A deal younger, I expect," said the chief a.s.sistant, grinning. "He shifts about between thirty and sixty. The old man is no end of a cure, and tries to take us in the same as he does you. There's an inspector at the Yard who was at school with him down Hampshire way, and ought to know what he is really like, but even he has given Dawson up. He says that the old man does not know his own self in the looking-gla.s.s; and as for Mrs. Dawson, I expect she has to take any one who comes along claiming to be her husband, for she can't, possibly tell t'other from which."

"One might make a good story out of that," I observed to Cary.

"I don't understand," said he. "Mr. Dawson told me once that I knew the real Dawson, but that few other people did."

"If he told you that," calmly observed the a.s.sistant, "you may bet your last shirt he was humbugging you. He couldn't tell the truth, not if he tried ever so."

"What is he at now?" I asked.

"I don't know, sir. And if he told me, I shouldn't believe him. I don't take no account of a word that man says. But he's the most successful detective we've got in the whole Force. He's sure to be head of the C.I.D. one day, and then he will have to stay in his office and give us others a chance."

"I don't believe he will," I observed, laughing. "There will be a sham Dawson in the office and the genuine article will be out on the rampage. He is a man who couldn't sit still, not even if you tied him in his chair and sealed the knots."

We spent a pleasant hour pulling Dawson to pieces and leaving to him not a rag of virtue, except intense professional zeal. We exchanged experiences of him, those of the chief a.s.sistant being particularly rich and highly flavoured. It appeared that Dawson when off duty loved to occupy the platform at meetings of his religious connection and to hold forth to the elect. The privilege of "sitting under him" had been enjoyed more than once by the a.s.sistant, who retailed to us extracts from Dawson's favourite sermon on "Truth." His views upon Truth were unbending as armour plate. "Under no circ.u.mstances, not to save oneself from imminent death, not to shield a wife or a child from the penalties for a lapse from virtue, not even to preserve one's country from the attacks of an enemy, was it permissible to a Peculiar Baptist to diverge by the breadth of a hair from the straight path of Truth.

h.e.l.l yawned on either hand; only along the knife edge of Truth could salvation be reached."

"He made me shiver," said the chief a.s.sistant, "and he drove me to thinking of one or two little deceptions of my own. When Dawson preaches, his eyes blaze, his voice breaks, and he will fall on his knees and pray for the souls of those who heed not his words. You can't look at him then and not believe that he means every word he says. Yet it's all humbug."

"No, it is not," said I. "Dawson in the pulpit, or on the tub--or whatever platform he uses--is absolutely genuine. He is the finest example that I have ever met of the dual personality. He is in dead earnest when he preaches on Truth, and he is in just as dead earnest when, stripped of every moral scruple, he pursues a spy or a criminal.

In pursuit he is ruthless as a Prussian, but towards the captured victim he can be strangely tender. I should not be surprised to learn that he hates capital punishment and is a strong advocate of gentle methods in prison discipline."

The chief a.s.sistant stared, opened a drawer, and pulled forth a slim grey pamphlet. It was marked "For Office Use Only," and was ent.i.tled, "Some Notes on Prison Reform," by Chief Inspector William Dawson.

I had begun to read the pamphlet, when a step sounded outside; the a.s.sistant s.n.a.t.c.hed it from my hand, flashed it back into its place, and jumped to attention as Dawson entered. He surveyed us with those searching, unwinking eyes of his--for we had the air of conspirators--and said brusquely: "Clear out, Wilson. You talk too much. And don't admit any one except Petty Officer Trehayne."

"The _Antigone_!" cried Cary, who thought only of ships. "The _Antigone_! Is she much damaged?"

"No. Whoever tried to cut her wires was disturbed, or in too great a hurry to do his work well. The main gun-cable was nipped, but not cut through. She will be delayed till to-morrow, not longer. I am not worrying about the _Antigone_, but about the new battleship _Malplaquet_, which was commissioned last month, is nearly filled up with stores, and is expected to leave the river on Sat.u.r.day. We can't have her delayed by any hanky tricks, not even if we have to put the whole detective force on board of her. Still, I'm not so anxious as I was. This _Antigone_ business has cleared things up a lot, and one can sift out the impossible from the possible. To begin with, the _Antinous_ was in for repairs to her geared turbines, and the _Antigone_ for damage to her forefoot. Engineers were on one job, and platers and riveters on the other. Different trades. So not a workman who was in the _Antinous_ was also in the _Antigone_. We can rule out all the workmen. We can also rule out my lieutenant R.N.R. with the German name who has gone to sea in the _Antinous_. The care and maintenance party in the _Antigone_ was not the same as the one in the _Antinous_, not a man the same."

"You are sure of that?" cried I, for it seemed that my daring theory had gone to wreck. "You are quite sure."

"Quite. I have all the names and have examined all the men. They were all off the ship by eleven o'clock last night. I hadn't one of my own men among them, but, to make sure, I sent Petty Officer Trehayne on board at eight o'clock to keep a sharp look-out and to see all the harbour party off the vessel. He reported a little after eleven that they were all gone and the ship taken over by her own crew. The damage was discovered at four bells in the morning watch."

"Six o'clock a.m.," interpreted Cary.

"It looks now as if there might be a traitor among her own crew, which is her officers' job, not mine. I wash my hands of the _Antigone_, but it is very much up to me to see that nothing hurtful happens to the _Malplaquet_. The Admiral has orders to support me with all the force under his command; the General of the District has the same orders.

But it isn't force we want so much as brains--Dawson's brains. I have been beaten twice, but not the third time. I've told the Yard that if the _Malplaquet_ is touched I shall resign, and if they send any one to help me I shall resign. Between to-day, Thursday, and Sat.u.r.day I am going to catch the wily josser who has a fancy for cutting gun cables or Dawson will say good-bye to the Force. That's a fair stake."

The man swelled with determination and pride. He had no thought of failure, and drew inspiration and joy from the heaviness of the bet which he had made with Fortune. He took the born gambler's delight in a big risk.

"Then you think that the _Antinous_ and the _Antigone_ were both damaged by the same man, and that he may have designs upon the _Malplaquet_?" said I.

"I don't propose to tell you what I think," replied Dawson stiffly.

"Still," I persisted, pa.s.sing over the snub, "you have a theory?"

"No, thanks," said Dawson contemptuously. "I have no use for theories.

When they are wrong they mislead you, and when they are right they are no help. I believe in facts--facts brought out by constant vigilance.

Unsleeping watchfulness and universal suspicion, those are the principles I work on. The theory business makes pretty story books, but the Force does not waste good time over them."

"What are you going to do?"

"This is Thursday afternoon. I am going to join the _Malplaquet_ presently, and I'm not going to sleep till she is safely down the river. I'm going to be my own watchman this time."

"How? In what capacity?"

Dawson gave a shrug of impatience, for his nerves were on edge. For a moment he hesitated, and then, recollecting the high post to which I had tacitly been appointed in his household, he replied:

"I am going as one of the Marine sentries."

"It's no use, Dawson," protested I emphatically. "You are a wonder at disguise, and will look, I do not doubt, the very spit of a Marine.

But you can't pa.s.s among the men for half an hour without discovery.

They are a cla.s.s apart, they talk their own language, cherish their own secret traditions, live in a world to which no stranger ever penetrates. You could pa.s.s as a naval officer more easily than you could as a Pongo. It is sheer madness, Dawson."

He gave a short laugh. "Much you know about it. I have served in the Red Corps myself. I was a recruit at Deal, pa.s.sed two years at Plymouth, and served afloat for three years. I was then drafted into the Naval Police. Afterwards I was recommended for detective work in the dockyards, and at the end of my Marine service joined the Yard. My good man, I was a sergeant before I left the Corps."

"I give up, Dawson," said I. "Nothing about you will ever surprise me again. Not even if you claim to have been a Cabinet Minister."

A queer smile stole over his face. "No, I have not been a minister, but I have attended a meeting of the Cabinet."

Cary interposed at this point. "Yours is a fine idea, Mr. Dawson. As a Marine sentry you can get yourself posted by the Major wherever you please, and the Guard will not talk even though they may wonder that any man should want to do twenty-four hours of duty per day. The Marines are the closest, faith-fullest, and best disciplined force in the wide world. Bluejackets will gossip; Marines never. You will be able to watch more closely than even Trehayne, who, I suppose, will also be on board."