plummer’s two plain-clothes men and i reached the neighbourhood of the bank with a quarter of an hour to spare, or rather more. we dismissed the cab at some little distance from the spot, and approached singly, so that it was not difficult for us to slip in separately among the dozen or fifteen clerks as they arrived. we passed directly into the manager’s room, the door of which opened into the space left for the public before the counter. from this room the whole of the outer office was visible through the glass of the partition. the manager, mr. blockley, a quick, intelligent man of thirty-six or so, gave us chairs and pointed out how best we could watch the counter without ourselves being observed.
“if a letter is sent,” he said, “it will be brought here to me, of course, and i will bring the messenger in. if a cheque is presented from mayes, i have told the cashier to slide that big ledger off his desk accidentally with his elbow. that will be your signal, and then you can do whatever you think proper. i don’t think i can do any more than that.”
we took our positions and waited. i felt pretty sure that if mayes sent at all it would be early, for obvious reasons. and i was right, for the very first customer was our man.
he stepped in briskly scarcely a minute after the manager had ceased speaking, and i remembered having seen him waiting at the street corner as i came along. he was a well-dressed, smart enough looking man, in frock coat and tall hat. he took a letter-case from his pocket, picked out a cheque from the rest of the papers in it, and passed it under the wire grille of the counter.
the cashier took it, turned it over, and shifted mechanically to post the amount in the book on his desk. as he did so his elbow touched the heavy ledger which the manager had pointed out to us, and it fell with a crash. the cashier calmly put his pen behind his ear, and stooped to pick up the book, but even as he did it the two scotland yard men were out before the counter, and had sidled up to the stranger, one on each side.
“may we see that cheque, if you please?” asked one, and the cashier turned its face toward him. “ah, just so; a hundred pounds — mayes. we must just trouble you to come with us, if you please. there is some explanation wanted about that cheque.”
i had followed the two men from the manager’s room, and now i saw that while one had laid his hand on the stranger’s shoulder the other had taken him by the opposite arm. “why,” said the former, looking into his face, “it’s broady sims!”
“all right,” the man growled resignedly. “it’s a cop. i’ll go quiet.”
but as he spoke i saw the free hand steal out behind him and pitch away a crumpled fragment of paper. one of the policemen saw it too, followed it with his eyes, and saw me snatch it up.
“that’s right, sir,” he said, “take care of that; and we’ll have a cab, in case anything else drops accidentally. it’s just a turning over, broady, that’s what it is.”
i spread out the piece of paper, and was astonished to find inscribed on it just such another series of figures, in groups of eight, as was found in the cypher message in the case of the lever key.
here was a great find — a secret message as clear to me as to mayes himself, and as likely as not the scrap of paper that would hang him! i took one of the plain-clothes men aside while the other kept his hold of broady sims.
“this is very important,” i said. “it is a cypher message which mr. hewitt can read — or i, myself, in fact, with a little time. must you take it with you? if so, i’ll make a copy now.”
“well, sir, we’re responsible, you see,” the man said, “so i think we must take it; so perhaps you’d better make a copy, as you suggest.”
“very well,” i said, “that is done in a few seconds. you can take your man off, and i will go direct to mr. hewitt and inspector plummer with the copy.” and with that i made the copy, which read thus:—
23, 19, 15, 1, 9, 14, 9, 2; 20, 8, 1,
20, 14, 14, 20, 8; 14, 5, 12, 4, 9, 7,
5, 14; 3, 8, 18, 23, 0, 14, 1, 8; 22,
9, 6, 1, 18, 3, 5, 1; 19, 14, 15, 21,
9, 0, 20, 12; 18, 12, 21, 1, 6, 23, 20,
12; 9, 18, 15, 5, 18, 13, 12, 20.
it struck me to ask the manager if the cheque just presented were one of those procured from mr. trenaman the night before, and i found that it was. then i left the policemen with their prisoner and made for the nearest cab-rank. this cypher message, no doubt conveying mayes’s instructions to the man just captured, was probably of the utmost importance, and hewitt must see it at once; and as the cab ambled along towards barbican i busied myself in deciphering the figures according to the plan of the knight’s move in chess, as hewitt had explained to me. i could only see two noughts among the numbers, so plainly it was a longer message than the one then deciphered — one of sixty-two letters, in fact. i turned the figures into the letters corresponding in the alphabet, a for 1, b for 2, and so on, as hewitt had done, and i arranged these letters in the squares of a roughly drawn chessboard, so that they stood thus:—
w s o a i n i b
t h a t n n t h
n e l d i g e n
c h r w o n a h
v i f a r c e a
s n o u i o t l
r l u a f w t l
i r o e r m l t
the letters thus set out, to read off the message was a simple task enough, in view of the key hewitt had given me. i began, as in the case of the lever key message, at the right-hand top corner, and taking the knight’s move from b to e in the last square but one of the third line, thence to a at the end of the fifth line, and so to t in the seventh line, and from that to r (fifth square in bottom line), u in seventh line and so on, in the order shown by the lever key message, a copy of which i kept as a curiosity in my pocket-book. so i read the message through, and i set it down thus:—
be at ruin channel marsh to-night twelve; wait in hall for instruc. word final.
the general meaning of this seemed clear enough. the man whom the policeman had recognised as broady sims was to be at some spot — a ruined building, it would seem — in a place called channel marsh, at midnight, there to wait in the hall for instructions; no doubt for instructions where to take the hundred pounds he was to have got from the bank. “word final” was not so clear, though i judged — and i think rightly — that it meant that the word “final” was to be used as a password by which the two messengers should know each other.
i was almost at my destination, and was cogitating the message and its meaning, when the cab checked at some traffic in barbican, just by the “compasses” public-house, and mr. victor peytral hailed me and climbed on the step of the cab.
“i was just going to see if mr. hewitt was at the place,” he said, “and if so to ask him for news. but i am rather in a hurry, and perhaps you can tell me?”
“we are on the track, i think,” i answered, “and i have just come across this, which i am taking to hewitt,” and with that i showed him my translation of the cypher, and gave him its history in half a dozen sentences.
“that’s good,” peytral answered. “i don’t know channel marsh, do you? but probably mr. hewitt does. i won’t keep you any longer — i see you’re hurrying. but i hope to see you again before long.”
he dropped off the step and disappeared, and the cab went on round the corner by the “compasses.”
i found hewitt and plummer in the office where, on pretence of bookbindery, i had first seen mayes face to face the day before. they were near the completion of their examination of this office and all its contents, and soon would begin as systematically on the premises behind. i gave hewitt my copy of the cypher message, and my translation, with an exact account of how it had come into my possession.
martin hewitt studied the message for a minute or two, and then relapsed into grave thought. so he sat for some little time, while plummer left the room by the window and descended the ladder to speak with his men on guard below.
presently hewitt looked up and said: “brett, this message is most important — probably as important as you suppose it to be. but at the same time i believe you have made a great mistake about it.”
“but i haven’t misread it, have i? is there any other way ——”
“no, you haven’t misread it; you’ve read every word as it was intended to be read. but it is a very different thing from what you suppose it to be.”
“what is it, then?”
martin hewitt put the paper on the table and looked keenly in my face. “it is a trap,” he said. “it is a trap to catch me— unless i flatter myself unduly.”
i could not understand. “a trap?” i repeated. “but how?”
“why should mayes need to send his confederate instructions by written note? we know the nature of his hold over his subordinates, and we know that it means personal communication. also, the cheque was in mayes’s own hands last night. more, mayes knows very well that i have read that cypher — has known it for some time; otherwise how could we have discovered the bonds in the case of the lever key? also, mayes knows that we have his cheque-book and know his bank. didn’t i assure you we were watched last night? i believe he knows all we have done. in such circumstances he might risk his jackal’s liberty by sending him on the desperate chance of cashing a cheque, but, knowing the risk, he would never have let him come with information on him. and least of all would he have let him come carrying a vital secret written in that very cypher which he knows i read many weeks ago. and then see how that message, instead of being concealed, was positively brought to your notice! that man broady sims is a cunning rascal, and the police know him of old as a skilful swindler and bill-forger. a man like that doesn’t get rid of a compromising scrap of paper by trundling it out under your nose just at the moment he is arrested, when the attention of everybody is directed to him; no, he would wait his opportunity, and then he would probably slip it into his mouth and swallow it. as it is, he would seem to have succeeded in dropping this paper full in your sight, with an elaborate pretence of secrecy. now this is what has been done, brett. that man has been sent to cash a cheque, with very little hope of success, or none, because the first move that mayes would anticipate on our part would be the watching for him and his cheques at the bank in upper holloway. if by any chance the cheques had been cashed, well and good, no harm would have been done, and then mayes could have gone on to arrange for drawing the rest of his balance — could probably have quite safely come himself to draw it. but if on the other hand, as he fully anticipated, sims was arrested, what then? nothing was lost but a penny cheque-form, and even sims — though mayes would care nothing about that — could only be searched and then released, for the cheque was perfectly genuine, and there was no charge against him. but since he would certainly be searched, that cypher note was given him, with instructions to make a conspicuous show of attempting to get rid of it. now that note was written in a cypher which mayes knew was as plain as print — to whom? to me. i am on his trail, and this note is deliberately flung in my way, open as the day, but with every appearance of secrecy. i am his dangerous enemy, and he knows it — as he told you, in fact, yesterday. if he can clear me away, he can take breath and make himself safe. the purpose of this note is to induce me to go, alone, to this place on channel marsh to-night at twelve, in the hope of learning where to find mayes. there i am to be got rid of — murdered in some way, for which preparation will be made. mayes judges my character pretty well. he knows that, in such circumstances as he represents, sims being kept away from his appointment, i should certainly go and take his place, and use his password, to learn what i could. and, brett, that is precisely what i shall do!”
“what? you will go?” i exclaimed. “but you mustn’t — the danger! we’d better both go together.”
hewitt smiled. “why not forty of us?” he said. “no. here is a chance of bagging our man, for, however i am to be arranged for — whether by shot, steel, or the tourniquet, i make no doubt it is mayes himself who is to do it. you shall come, however, you and plummer at least. but we will not go in a bunch — you shall follow me and watch, ready to help when needful. this channel marsh is an empty, dark space between two channels of the lea. it is among the hackney marshes, lying between stratford and homerton, and i fancy there is a deserted house there, though i can’t remember ever having seen it. do you know it?”
“no; not in the least.”
“well, i must reconnoitre to-day, and that with a lot of care. i think i told you i was convinced of being watched, and that is a thing you can’t prevent in a place like london, if it is skilfully done. now, brett, you have done very well this morning. if you want to be on the scene of action to-night at twelve, you must get leave from your editor, mustn’t you? how’s your wrist?”
it was still extremely stiff, and i told hewitt that i doubted my ability to hold a pen for two or three days.
“very well, then; get off and convey your excuses as soon as you please. i shall have a talk with plummer, and then i shall take a few hours to myself, by myself, in somebody else’s clothes. be in your rooms all the evening, for you may expect a message.”
