CHAPTER V
BAFFLED
When at last I arrived at Cary's flat it was very late, and I wasexceedingly tired and out of temper. A squadron of Zeppelins had beenreported from the sea, the air-defence control at Newcastle had sentout the preliminary warning "F.M.W.," and the speed of my train hadbeen reduced to about fifteen miles an hour. I had expected to get into dinner, but it was eleven o'clock before I reached my destination.I had not even the satisfaction of seeing a raid, for the Zepps, madecautious by recent heavy losses, had turned back before crossing theline of the coast. Cary and his wife fell upon my neck, for we wereold friends, condoled with me, fed me, and prescribed a tall glass ofmulled port flavoured with cloves. My stern views upon the need forProhibition in time of war became lamentably weakened.
By midnight I had recovered my philosophic outlook upon life, and Carybegan to enlighten me upon the details of the grave problem which hadbrought me eagerly curious to his city.
"I expect that Dawson will drop in some time to-night," he said. "Allhours are the same to him. I told him that you were on the way, and hewants to give you the latest news himself. He is dead set upon you,Copplestone. I can't imagine why."
"Am I then so very unattractive?" I inquired drily. "It seems to methat Dawson is a man of sound judgment."
"I confess that I do not understand why he lavishes so much attentionupon you."
"Your remarks, Cary," I observed, "are deficient in tact. You might,at least, pretend to believe that my personal charm has won for meDawson's affection. As a matter of fact, he cares not a straw for my_beaux yeux_; his motives are crudely selfish. He thinks that it is inmy power to contribute to the greater glory of Dawson, and hecultivates me just as he would one of his show chrysanthemums. He hasdone me the honour to appoint me his biographer extraordinary."
"I am sure you are wrong," cried Cary. "He was most frightfully angryabout that story of ours in _Cornhill_. He demanded from me your nameand address, and swore that if I ever again disclosed to you officialsecrets he would proceed against me under the Defence of the RealmAct. He was a perfect terror, I can assure you."
"And yet he always carries that story about with him in hisbreast-pocket; he has summoned me here to see him at his work; and youhave been commanded to tell me everything which you know! My dearCary, do not be an ass. You are too simple a soul for this rathergrubby world. In your eyes every politician is an ardent,disinterested patriot, and every soldier or sailor a knightly hero ofromance. Human beings, Cary, are made in streaks, like bacon; we haveour fat streaks and our lean ones; we can be big and bold, and alsovery small and mean. Your great man and your national hero can becomevery poor worms when, so to speak, they are off duty. But I didn'tcome here, at great inconvenience, to talk this sort of stuff atmidnight. Go ahead; give me the details of this sabotage case which isbaffling Dawson and the naval authorities; let me hear about thecutting of those electric wires."
"It is, as I told you, in my note, a queer business. The _Antinous_, afast light cruiser, came in about a fortnight ago to have some defectsmade good in her high-speed geared-turbines. There was not much wrong,but her engineer commander recommended a renewal of some of the spurwheels. The officers and crew went on short leave in rotation, a careand maintenance party was put in charge, and the builders placed aworking gang on board which was occupied in shifts, by night and byday, in making good the defects. When a ship is under repair in ariver basin, it is practically impossible to keep up the beautifulorder and discipline of a ship at sea. Men of all kinds are constantlycoming and going, life on board is stripped of the most ordinarycomforts and conveniences, there is inevitably some falling off instrict supervision. Lack of space, lack of facilities for moving aboutthe ship, lack of any regular routine. You will understand. Just asthe expansion in the New Army and the New Navy has made it possiblefor unknown enemy agents to take service in the Army and the Navy, sothe dilution of labour in the shipyards has made it possible forworkmen--whose sympathies are with the enemy--to get employment aboutthe warships. The danger is fully recognised, and that is whereDawson's widespread system of counter-espionage comes in. There is nota trade union, among all the eighteen or twenty engaged in shipyardwork--riveters, fitters, platers, joiners, and all the rest ofthem--in which he has not police officers enrolled as skilledtradesmen, members of the unions, working as ordinary hands or asforemen, sometimes even in office as "shop stewards" representing theinterest of the unions and acting as their spokesmen in disputes withthe employers. Dawson claims that there has never yet been a secretStrike Committee, since the war began, upon which at least one of hisown men was not serving. He is a wonderful man. I don't like him; heis too unscrupulous and merciless for my simple tastes; but his valueto the country is beyond payment."
"But where in the world does he raise these men? One can't turn apoliceman into a skilled worker at a moment's notice. How is it done?"
"He begins at the other end. All his skilled workmen are the best hecan pick out of their various trades. They have served their full timeas apprentices and journeymen. They are recommended to him by theiremployers after careful testing and sounding. Most of them, I believe,come from the Government dockyards and ordnance factories. They aregiven a course of police training at Scotland Yard, and then droppeddown wherever they may be wanted. Dawson, and inspectors like him,have these men everywhere--in shipyards, in shell shops, in gunfactories, in aeroplane sheds, everywhere. They take a leading part inthe councils of the unions wherever they go, for they add to theirskill as workmen a pronounced, even blatant parade of loyalty to theinterests of trade unions and a tasty flavour of socialist principles.Dawson is perfectly cynically outspoken to me over the business which,I confess, appals me. In his female agents--of which he has many--hefavours what he calls a 'judicious frailty'; in his male agents hefavours a subtle skill in the verbal technique of anarchism. And thisman Dawson is by religion a Peculiar Baptist, in private life afaithful husband and a loving father, and in politics a strict Liberalof the Manchester School! As a man he is good, honest, and rathernarrow; as a professional detective he is base and mean, utterlywithout scruple, and a Jesuit of Jesuits. With him the end justifiesthe means, whatever the means may be."
"And yet you admit that his value to the country is beyond payment.Dawson--our remarkable Dawson of the double life in the twocompartments, professional and private, which never are allowed tooverlap--Dawson is an instrument of war. We do not like using gas orliquid fire, but we are compelled to use them. We do not likeespionage, but we must employ it. As one who loves this fair land ofEngland beyond everything in the world, and as one who would doanything, risk anything, and suffer anything to shield her from thefilthy Germans, I rejoice that she has in her service such supremelyefficient guardians as this most wickedly unscrupulous Dawson. Thereis, at any rate, not a trace of our English muddle about him."
"Ours is a righteous cause," cried poor Cary desperately. "We arefighting for right against wrong, for defence against aggression, forcivilisation against utter barbarism. We are by instinct cleanfighters. If in the stress of conflict we stoop to foul methods, canwe ever wash away the filth of them from our souls? We shall standbefore the world nakedly confessed as the nation of hypocrites we havealways been declared to be."
"Cary," I said, "you make me tired. We cannot be too thankful that wepossess Dawsons to counterplot against the Germans, and thatpersonally we are in no way responsible for the morality of theirmethods. Come off the roof and get back to this most interestingaffair of the _Antinous_. I presume one of Dawson's men was working,unknown to his fellows, with the care and maintenance party, andanother, equally unknown, with the engineers who were busy upon thegearing of the turbines. Many of the regular ship's officers and menwould also have been on board. Had our remarkable friend his agentsamong them too? Everything is possible with Dawson; I should not besurprised to hear that he had police officers in the Fleet flagship."
"You are almost right. One of his men, a temporary pet
ty officer ofR.N.V.R., was certainly on board, and he tells me that down in theengine room was another--a civilian fitter. They were both first-classmen. The electric wires, as you know, are carried about the ship underthe deck beams, where they are accessible for examination and repairs.They are coiled in cables from which wires are led to the switch room,and thence to all parts of the ship. There are thousands of wires, andno one who did not know intimately their purpose and disposition couldventure to tamper with them, for great numbers are always in use. Ifany one cut the lighting wires, for instance, the defects would beobvious at once; so with the heating or telephone wires. Nothing wastouched except the lines to the guns, of which there are eightdisposed upon the deck. From the guns connections run to the switchroom, the conning tower, the gunnery control platform aloft, and tothe gunnery officer's bridge. It was the main cable between the switchroom and the conning tower which was cut, and it was one cable laidalongside a dozen others. Now who could know that this was the guncable, and the only one in which damage might escape detection whilethe ship was in harbour? At sea there is constant gun drill, duringwhich the electrical controls and the firing-tubes are always tested,but in harbour the guns are lying idle most of the time. It wasevidently the intention of the enemy, who cut these wires, that the_Antinous_ should go to sea before the defect was discovered, and thather fire control should be out of action till the wiring system couldbe repaired. That very serious disaster was prevented by thepreliminary testing during the night before sailing, but the enemy hasbeen successful in delaying the departure of an invaluable lightcruiser for two days. In these days, when the war of observation ismore important even than the war of fighting, the services of lightcruisers cannot be dispensed with for an hour without graveinconvenience and risk. Yet here was one delayed for forty-eight hoursafter her ordinary repairs had been completed. The naval authoritiesare in a frightful stew. For what has happened to the _Antinous_ mayhappen to other cruisers, even to battleships. If there is sabotageamong the workmen in the shipyards, it must be discovered and stampedout without a moment's delay. This time it is the cutting of a wirecable; at another time it may be some wilful injury far more serious.A warship is a mass of delicate machinery to which a highly skilledenemy agent might do almost infinite damage. Dawson has been run offhis feet during the past two days; I don't know what he hasdiscovered; but if he does not get to the bottom of the business indouble-quick time we shall have the whole Board of Admiralty, ScotlandYard, and possibly the War Cabinet down upon us. Think, too, of thedisgrace to this shipbuilding city of which we are all so proud."
"We shall know something soon," I said, "for, if I mistake not, herecomes Dawson." The electric bell at the front door had buzzed, andCary, slipping from the room, presently returned with a man who to me,at the first glance, was a complete stranger. I sprang up, moved roundto a position whence I could see clearly the visitor's ears, andgasped. It was Dawson beyond a doubt, but it was not the Dawson whom Ihad known in the north. So what I had vaguely surmised wastrue--Cary's Dawson and Copplestone's Dawson were utterly unlike.Dawson winked at me, glanced towards Cary, and shook his head; fromwhich I gathered that he did not desire his appearance to be thesubject of comment. I therefore greeted him without remark, and, as hesat down under the electric lights, examined him in detail. ThisDawson was ten years older than the man whom I had known and fencedwith. The hair of this one was lank and grey, while that of mine wasbrown and curly; the face of this one was white and thin, while theface of mine was rather full and ruddy. The teeth were different--Ifound out afterwards that Dawson, who had few teeth of his own,possessed several artificial sets of varied patterns--the shape of themouth was different, the nose was different. I could never haverecognised the man before me had I not possessed that clue to identityfurnished by his unchanging ears.
"So, Dawson," said I slowly, "we meet again. Permit me to say that Icongratulate you. It is very well done."
He grinned and glanced at the unconscious Cary. "You are learning.Bill Dawson takes a bit of knowing."
"Have you any news, Mr. Dawson?" asked Cary eagerly.
"Not much. The wires of the _Antinous_ have all been renewed--theAdmiralty won't allow cables to be patched except at sea--but Ihaven't found out who played hanky-panky with them. It could not havebeen any one in the engine-room party, as none of them went near theplace where the wires were cut. Besides, they were engineers, notelectricians, and could have known nothing of the arrangements anddisposition of the ship's wires. My man who worked with them ispositive that they are a sound, good lot without a sea-lawyer or apacifist among them; a gang of plain, honest tykes. So we are thrownback on the maintenance party, included in which were all sorts ofratings. Some of them are skilled in the electrical fittings--my ownman with them is, for one--but we get the best accounts of all ofthem. They are long service men, cast for sea owing to various medicalreasons, but perfectly efficient for harbour work. Among the officersof the ship is a R.N.R. lieutenant with a German name. I jumped tohim, but the captain laughed. The man's father and grandfather were inthe English merchant service, and though his people originally camefrom Saxony, he is no more German than we are ourselves. Besides, myexperience is that an Englishman with an inherited German name is thevery last man to have any truck with the enemy. He is too much ashamedof his forbears for one thing; and for another he is too dead set onliving down his beastly name. So we will rule out the LieutenantR.N.R. My own man, who is a petty officer R.N.V.R., and has worked ona lot of ships which have come in for repairs, says that the temperamong the workmen in the yards is good now. It was ugly when dilutionof labour first came in, but the wages are so high that all thattrouble has settled down. I have had what you call sabotage in theshell and gun shops, but never yet in the King's ships. We have hadevery possible cutter of the wires on the mat before the Captain andme. We have looked into all their records, had their homes visited andtheir people questioned, inquired of their habits--Mr. Copplestone,here, knows what comes of drink--and found out how they spend theirwages. Yet we have discovered nothing. It is the worst puzzle thatI've struck. When and how the gun cable was cut I can't tell you, butwhoever did it is much too clever to be about. He must have beenexactly informed of the lie and use of the cables, had with him theproper tools, and used them in some fraction of a minute when hewasn't under the eye of my own man whose business it was to watcheverybody and suspect everybody. I thought that I had schemed out apretty thorough system; up to now it has worked fine. Whenever we havehad the slightest reason to suspect any man, we have had him kept offthe ship and watched. We have run down a lot of footling spies, toostupid to give us a minute's anxiety, but this man who cut the_Antinous_'s wires is of a different calibre altogether. He is AI, andwhen I catch him, as I certainly shall, I will take off my hat tohim."
"You say that the _Antinous_ is all right now?" I observed.
"Yes. I saw her towed out of the repair basin an hour ago, and shemust be away down the river by this time. It is not of her that I'mthinking, but of the other ships which are constantly in and out forrepairs. There are always a dozen here of various craft, usually smallstuff. While the man who cut those wires is unknown I shall be in aperfect fever, and so will the Admiral-Superintendent. We'll get thebeauty sooner or later, but if it is later, there may be had mischiefdone. If he can cut wires in one ship, he may do much worse things insome other. The responsibility rests on me, and it is rathercrushing."
Dawson spoke with less than his usual cheery confidence. I fancy thatthe thinness and whiteness of his face were not wholly due todisguise. He had not been to bed since he had been called up in themiddle watch of the night before last, and the man was worn out.
"If you take my poor advice, Dawson," I said, "you will cut off nowand get some sleep. Even your brain cannot work continuously withoutrest. The country needs you at your best, and needs you very badlyindeed."
His dull, weary eyes lighted as if under the stimulus of champagne,and he turned upon me a look which was almost
affectionate. I reallybegan to believe that Dawson likes me, that he sees in me a kindredspirit as patriotically unscrupulous as himself.
He jumped up and gripped my hand. "You are right. I will put in a fewhours' sleep and then to work once more. This time I am up against aman who is nearly as smart as I am myself, and I can't afford to carryany handicap."
I led him to the door and put him out, and then turned to Cary with alaugh. "And I, too, will follow Dawson's example. It is past one, andmy head is buzzing with queer ideas. Perhaps, after all, the Germanshave more imagination than we usually credit them with. I wonder--"But I did not tell to Cary what I wondered.
* * * * *
We were sitting after breakfast in Cary's study, enjoying the firstsweet pipe of the day, when the telephone bell rang. Cary took off theearpiece and I listened to a one-sided conversation somewhat asfollows:--
"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 whenshe ran down that big German submarine north of the Orkneys--Yes, Iknow; she was due to go out some time to-day. What do you say? Wirescut? Whose wires have been cut? The _Antigone's?_ Oh, the devil! Yes,we will both come down to your office this afternoon. Whenever youlike."
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 forthe past fortnight and was floated out yesterday. Her full complementjoined her last night. Dawson says that he was called up ateight-o'clock by the news that her gun-wires have been cut exactlylike those of the _Antinous_ and in the same incomprehensible way. Heseems, curiously enough, to be quite cheerful about it."
"He has had a few hours sleep. And, besides, he sees that this secondcase, so exactly like the first, makes the solution of his problemvery much more easy. I am glad that he is cheerful, for I feelexuberantly happy myself. I was kept awake half the night by apersistent notion which seemed the more idiotic the more I thought allround 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 workour thrilling effects in that way. We keep our notions to ourselvesuntil they turn out to be right, and then we declare that we sawthrough the problem from the first. When we have been wrong, we saynothing. So you observe, Cary, that whatever happens our reputationsdo not suffer."