“I wasn’t trying to pick up anybody,” the young man faltered.
Crawshay’s fingers gripped him by the shoulder. His very determined-looking mouth had suddenly become a ring of steel.
“If you don’t give me a different answer in ten seconds, Robins, I’ll blow your brains all over the cabin!”
The young man broke.
“I was trying to pick up the Blucher,” he acknowledged.
“That’s exactly what I thought,” Crawshay muttered. “That’s the game, without a doubt. What are you? An Englishman?”
“I am not!” was the almost fierce reply. “Blast England!”
Crawshay looked into the black eyes, suddenly lit with an ugly fire, and nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “Robins, your name, eh? Any relation to the young Sinn Feiner who was shot in Dublin a few months ago?”
“Brother.”
“That may save your life later on,” Crawshay observed coolly. “Now you can do one of three things. You can come with me to the captain, be put in irons and shot as soon as we land — or before, if the Blucher finds us; or you can send the message which I shall give you; or you can end your days where you sit.”
“What message?” the young man demanded.
“You will send out a general call, as before, repeating the latitude and longitude with a difference of exactly three points, and you will repeat the altered course, only you will substitute the word ‘south’ for the word ‘north.’”
The young man’s eyes suddenly gleamed as he turned towards the instrument, but Crawshay smiled with grim understanding.
“Let me tell you that I understand the wireless,” he said impressively. “You will give the message exactly as I have told you or we finish things up on the spot. I think you had better. It’s a matter of compulsion, you know — in fact I’ll explain matters to Mr. Jocelyn Thew, if you like.”
The young man’s eyes were round with amazement.
“Jocelyn Thew!” he repeated.
“Precisely. You needn’t look so terrified. It isn’t you who have given away. Now what are you going to do?”
The young man swung round to his instrument. Crawshay released his hand, stepping a little back.
“You are going to send the message, then?”
“Yes!” was the sullen reply.
“Capital!” Crawshay exclaimed, cautiously subsiding into a chair. “Now you’ll go on every ten minutes until I tell you to stop.”
Robins bent over his task, and again the crackling waves broke away from their prison. Once his finger hesitated. He glanced surreptitiously at Crawshay. “Four degrees south,” Crawshay repeated softly.
The night wore on. Every ten minutes the message was sent. Then there followed a brief silence, spent generally by Robins with his head drooped upon his clasped arms; by Crawshay in unceasing vigil. Just as the first faint gleam of daylight stole into the little turret chamber, came the long-waited-for reply. The young man wrote down the few lines and passed them over. Crawshay, who had risen to his feet, glanced at them, nodded, and thrust the paper into his pocket.
“That seems quite satisfactory,” he said coldly. “Now ask the Blucher her exact course?”
Robins sat for a moment motionless. He felt Crawshay’s presence towering over him, felt again the spell of his softly-spoken command.
“Don’t waste any time, please. Do as I tell you.”
Robins obeyed. In less than a quarter of an hour he handed over another slip of paper. Crawshay thrust it into his pocket.
“That concludes our business,” he said. “Now let me see if I remember enough of this apparatus to put it out of action.”
He bent over the instrument, removed some plugs, turned some screws, and finally placed in his pocket a small concealed part of the mechanism. Then he turned towards Robins.
“You can leave here now,” he directed. “I shall lock the place up.”
Robins had in some measure recovered himself. He was a quiet, hollow-eyed young person, with thick black hair and a thin frame, about which the uniform of the ship hung loosely. “You are the man who boarded the steamer from a seaplane, aren’t you, and pretended afterwards to be such a ninny?”
“I am,” Crawshay acknowledged.
“How did you get on to this?”
Crawshay raised his eyebrows.
“Sorry,” he replied, “that is a matter concerning which I fear that you will have to restrain your curiosity.”
“How did you get in here?”
“By means of a duplicate key which I obtained from the purser. I hid in your bunk there and drew the curtains. Quite a comfortable mattress, yours. You’ll have to change your sleeping quarters, though.”
“What is going to happen to me?” the young man enquired.
“Probably nothing extreme. You were philosophical enough to accept the situation. If,” Crawshay went on more slowly, “you had falsified a single word of those messages, your end would have been somewhat abrupt and your destination according to your past life. As it is, you can go where you choose now and report to the captain later on in the morning, after I have had a talk with him.”
“My kit is all in here.”
Crawshay laid his hand upon the operator’s shoulder in peremptory fashion.
“Then you will have to do without it for the present,” he replied coolly. “Outside.”
The young man turned on his heel and disappeared without a word. Crawshay glanced once more at the dismantled instrument, then followed Robins on to the deck, carefully locking the door behind him. A grey, stormy morning was just breaking, with piles of angry clouds creeping up, and showers of spray breaking over the ship on the weather side. He chose a sheltered spot and stood for a few moments breathing in the strong salt air. Notwithstanding his success, he was unaccountably depressed. As far as he could see across the grey waste of waters, there was no sign of any passing ship, but the eastern horizon was blurred by a low-hanging bank of sinister-looking clouds. Suddenly a voice rang out, hailing him. It was the captain descending from the bridge.
“Come and have a cup of coffee with me in my room, Mr. Crawshay,” he invited.
Crawshay felt himself suddenly back again in the world of real happenings. His depression passed as though by magic. After all, he had won the first trick, and the next move was already forming up in his mind.
.
CHAPTER X
The captain sank into his easy-chair a little wearily. It had been a long and rather trying vigil. His steward filled two cups with coffee and at a sign from his master withdrew.
“Any news?”
“I have been compelled,” Crawshay announced, stirring his coffee, “to dismantle your wireless.”
“The devil you have!”
“Also, to speak words of wisdom to young Robins. I detected him signalling our location to the Blucher.”
The captain set down his coffee cup.
“Mr. Crawshay,” he said, “this is a very serious accusation.”
“It isn’t an accusation at all — it’s a fact,” Crawshay replied. “Luckily, he hadn’t picked her up when I got there. He signalled our exact location and our course a dozen times or more, without response. Then I took a hand in the game.”
“Exactly what happened?” the captain enquired.
“Well, I borrowed a key from Mr. Dix, and whilst the young man was down at his supper I concealed myself in his bunk. I listened to him for a short time, and then I intervened.”
“Did he make any trouble?”
“He had no chance,” Crawshay explained, a little grimly. “I was first off the mark. On this piece of paper,” he added, smoothing it out, “you will find Robins’ calculations as to our whereabouts, which I took as being correct. These, you understand, were not picked up. Lower down you will see the message which he sent under my superintendence later on—”