The Secret Wireless Part 14

The entire cowl board turned down, revealing a compact but powerful wireless outfit. The aerial wire evidently was strung up within the collapsing mast.

From within the cowl the spy drew forth a curious metal disc, not unlike a spider-web, and like nothing Henry had ever seen. He did not know what it was. He hardly breathed as he stood watching. Then the spy took a dollar from his pocket, examined the milled edge until he found a scratch, fitted the curious disc over the dollar, and turning the coin in his hand, slowly began to make letters on a slip of paper on the inverted dash. When he had finished writing, he fastened the disc back in the cowl, dropped the dollar in his overcoat pocket, and began to send the message he had deciphered from the dollar.

Henry leaned forward. He had no need of his own receiving instrument to catch the letters. And he could not have used it if he had needed it. But it was not important that he should catch the message. The powerful sparks that were leaping across the spy's spark-gap told him that a battery of considerable force was being used, and he knew that Lew would catch that message away back on Staten Island. Lew had caught the preceding message from Long Island, and it had been sent from a distance fully as great as this. With distinctness the letters came to Henry's ears and he realized that the man before him was an expert operator. But the letters he heard made no sense. They would have to be deciphered before the message could be understood.

However, it was not the message that Henry was thinking of. It was the dollar in the man's overcoat. "How could he get it? How could he get it?" he asked himself over and over. A hundred wild ideas flashed through his head, but he could think of no way to secure the coin without betraying himself.

Even as he was considering the matter, the spy finished sending his message and snapped off his light. Tiny as the illumination had been, the man was apparently completely blinded by the sudden darkness. As he stepped from his seat, his overcoat again caught on the swinging door. With an impatient oath he tore the coat from him and flung it on the running-board. Then he felt for his tools and walked over to the tree to lower the far end of his aerial.

Henry's chance had come. With a bound he was beside the car.

Crouching, he seized the huddled coat, ran his hands tremblingly over it, located the pocket, found the dollar, dropped the coat where he had gotten it, and slipped back to his cover.

He was not a second too soon. In his eagerness to get the coin he had been clumsy, and had fumbled excitedly for several seconds before he found it. Meantime, the spy, with practised skill, had taken down both wires and fastening, and was well on his way back to the car. But Henry gained his cover and was safe.

A sudden fear smote him lest he betray himself. His heart beat so loudly he was sure the spy would hear it. His breath came so excitedly he was certain he could be heard yards away. For some time he crouched motionless, hugging the ground, trying to hold his breath. But as second followed second and the spy made no outcry, Henry gained confidence. Suddenly a feeling of exultation came to him, so strong that he could hardly refrain from shouting. For the first time he thought of the real significance of what he had accomplished. He had unraveled the mystery of the wireless. He had the dollar. The secrets the wireless patrol had worked so hard to uncover were within his grasp. As the full meaning of it all came to him, he felt that he must cry out, that he must give voice to his feelings. He no longer dared trust himself to remain where he was, lest he betray himself.

Clutching the dollar as he had never clung to anything in his life, he picked up his cane and slowly began to worm his way backward, on his belly, from the thicket. With the utmost caution, an inch at a time, he moved, lest he snap a stick or strike a stone with his foot. As soon as he was clear of the brush, he faced about, and crawled into the darkness.

The spy, meantime, was proceeding rapidly in rea.s.sembling his car.

Henry heard the windshield go up and the top being fastened. He heard the baggage lid snap into place. Then he heard the spy swearing in a low voice. Henry stopped, still as a hunted rabbit.

"_Donnerwetter!_" he heard the man say. "I've lost that dollar."

There was a pause. Then came the words, "I'm not going to hunt for it anyway. Somebody would see my light sure. And if anybody does find it, he'll never guess what it is."

Exultantly Henry rose to his feet, and crouching low, ran with soft, swift tread to his motorcycle. He had the dollar. The owner believed it was lost. Never was such luck. Trembling all over, he fastened his cane to the frame of his wheel, trundled his car to the road and ran with it in the direction he had come. He pushed it until his breath was coming in gasps. Then he turned into the woods and hid. He would take no chance of being seen by the spy or by any accomplice who might have followed him. Presently Henry heard the motor-car pull out into the road and go speeding back toward Manhattan. A quarter of an hour later Henry returned to the highway, switched on his light, and was soon bowling along on his way to his fellows and his chief, feeling that he had in his keeping the future safety of a nation.

CHAPTER XIV

THE RIDDLE SOLVED

In the house above the hawk's nest, four boys and a man sat far into the night, examining a marked dollar and trying to unravel the secret of the scratches. From hand to hand the dollar pa.s.sed and was examined now this way, now that; but the little group could see no meaning in the apparently aimless marks on the silver coin. Had some of them not seen this dollar marked and its message deciphered and sent vibrating through the air, they would have refused to believe that the coin before them carried a message at all. It looked like any dollar that has accidentally become marked.

"To-morrow," said Captain Hardy, "we will turn the dollar over to the secret service, and doubtless their experts will solve the problem quick enough. But I certainly wish we could unravel this thing ourselves. Wouldn't it be an achievement for the wireless patrol!"

"It's going to be," declared Roy positively. "We're going to solve it.

We've just got to. We'll show those secret service men that boys are some good after all."

But the word was easier than the deed. Puzzle their brains as they might, search the dollar as they would, they still found no key to the language it spoke.

"Tell me again what the message was," demanded Henry for the twentieth time, and Lew once more pa.s.sed to Henry the slip of paper on which he had written the message, both in cipher and deciphered, the message he had picked from the air. It read as follows: TRPSLOWAOSEDONBADATSt.i.tY.

T R P S L O W A O S E D O N R A D A T S T I T Y

Long Henry studied the piece of paper, softly reading the message to himself. "Two transports sailed to-day. How did that automobile driver get that message from this dollar?" he asked himself, and again he picked up the coin and turned it in his hand. "If only we had that disc," he sighed, "or a duplicate."

At the word "duplicate," Roy p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "Maybe we can make one," he said.

"Likely!" scoffed Lew.

"You never know till you try," rejoined Roy. Then he turned to Willie and demanded, "What was the disc like that you saw?"

"If I knew, I'd make one," said Willie.

"Well," said Roy in a tone of disgust, "you know whether it was a foot across or not, and whether it was round or square."

"It was round, of course," said Willie, "and the same size as the dollar. I told you that before."

"We can make a disc the size of a dollar, anyway, even if it doesn't get us anywhere," said Roy, putting the coin on a sheet of paper and outlining it with a pencil. Then with scissors he cut the disc out.

"You saw that disc, or one like it, Henry," continued Roy. "What did it look like to you?"

"Just like a spider-web, as Willie says," replied Henry.

"All right, we'll make a spider-web," said Roy.

He seized his pencil, made a dot in the centre of the disc, and from the dot drew straight lines that radiated in different directions.

Then he drew a number of concentric circles about his dot.

"I don't see how that helps any," he said, examining his drawing. "Yet that's the kind of thing they used to mark that dollar."

From hand to hand the paper pa.s.sed, and each boy compared it with the dollar. But none was any the wiser when he had finished. Their leader, meantime, sat with his head in his hands, studiously turning the matter over and over in his mind. For a long time he could make nothing of it.

After a while he looked up. "Let me see that paper," he said.

Roy handed him the little disc. Captain Hardy laid the disc beside the dollar on the table, and painstakingly examined again the marks on the coin. After a time he took a sheet of paper and across it in a row wrote down the letters of the alphabet. Then he picked up the message and made check marks below the letters in his alphabet as he found those letters in the message. When he had gone through the message, his paper looked like this:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ / // / / /// /// / / / / / /// / / // /

He picked it up and studied it. "Four T's," he said, "three S's, three A's, and three O's. That ought to give us a clue."

Again he turned to the dollar and began to study it, turning it slowly round, counting the scratches this way and that, making geometric figures of them. Four heads peered over his shoulder as he worked silently with his pencil.

"I can make nothing of it," he said after a time.

Again he sat in deep thought, his fellows meanwhile once more examining dollar and disc and the figures their leader had made on the paper.

"Four T's," repeated Captain Hardy after an interval. "Surely that ought to give us a clue."

Once more he studied the penciled disc. Then he turned to the dollar and again examined its markings. He suddenly exclaimed, "Here are four scratches in a straight row." His eyes began to shine. Slowly he turned the coin. "And here are three in another row, like this," and he indicated the positions of the scratches on the paper disc. "You notice that each row runs from the centre of the coin toward the edge.

Let's see if there are any more rows."

Very slowly he turned the dollar. "And there are three in a row," he said, indicating the scratches with his pencil, "and here are three more. You notice that the rows all radiate from the centre, like spokes in a wheel. I believe we are getting somewhere, boys."

"'Like spokes in a wheel,'" repeated Roy to himself. "Rows of letters like spokes in a wheel. Four scratches in one row or spoke--these must be the four T's. Three scratches in these other rows must be O's and A's and S's. I've got it! I've got it!" he suddenly shouted. "There must be as many spokes as there are letters in the alphabet."

"I believe you are right, Roy," said Captain Hardy, looking up with a gleam in his eyes. "That's exactly what I am beginning to think.