CHAPTER XXIV
IN THE HOUR OF HIS TRIUMPH
"Have you any means of tracing the person who brought this message? inquired Entwistle.
"Hardly," replied the Postal Censor's assistant. "One receives so many cables and telegrams for dispatch in the course of the day. I'll find out the name of the clerk on duty at the time, although I'm afraid the information will be disappointing." By means of a voice-tube, the official made various inquiries.
"O'Donovon, is it?... Is he on duty now?... Just reported, eh? Good. Ask him to step up to my room, please."
Presently a brisk tap on the door was followed by the appearance of a slight, rather pale-faced young man of pronounced Hibernian features.
"This," said the Censor's assistant, "is 'Mr. O'Donovon. Mr. O'Donovon, this gentleman, Mr. Entwistle, wishes to ask you some information respecting a certain cablegram. Will you answer as fully as you can on the matter?"
"I want you, Mr. O'Donovon," began Entwistle, "to give me a description of the person who handed in the message."
It was Entwistle's way. Instead of asking if the clerk perchance remembered the individual, he assumed that he already did so.
"Sure," replied Mr O'Donovon, after reading the duplicate message. "It was a boy of twelve or about. Black hair and eyes and a Jewish nose. He had a mole on his chin. I remember he gave me two pound notes and I gave him half a crown change."
"I suppose by no possibility could you show me the notes? inquired Entwistle.
"No, sir," replied Mr. O'Donovon. "That I can't. We put all notes into a drawer. I call to mind that they were rather dirty, although it's dirtier ones I've seen in Dublin."
"I thought not," remarked Entwistle. "Perhaps it's as well, for in all probability you gave the lad half a crown for sending the cablegram. If you've time you might examine the notes in that drawer. Ten to one, you'll find two were printed in Germany. Now, will you please send me a priority telegram—on H.M.S.—to Leith, Auldhaig, and Wick; the latter to be transmitted by wireless to Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet, Scapa Flow."
Having done all that he could possibly do to scotch von Preussen's activities on the Continental cables, Entwistle prepared to follow up the clues that would, he hoped, lead to the running to earth of the cunning and resourceful spy.
His next step was to trace the boy with the Jewish features and the mole on his chin. It was rather a tall undertaking, for, in spite of the fact that there was a hideous massacre of Jews in York in the remote days when Richard Coeur de Lion reigned, there seemed to be a distinct predilection on the part of people of Hebraic origin to live in the city that holds the position of capital of the Shire of Broad Acres. Besides, many people have moles on their faces, and O'Donovon might have been slightly wide of the mark in describing the mole as being on the lad's chin. It might have been his cheek—either his left or his right.
It was in Petergate, one of those narrow, old-world thoroughfares leading to the Cathedral precincts that Entwistle came face to face with the immediate object of his investigations. Sauntering towards him was a young Jewish lad with a mole on the point of his chin.
Entwistle gave him no opening.
"I say, my lad," he exclaimed, holding out a bright half-crown to the astonished youth, "I gave you the wrong change when you handed in that telegram from Grabnut & Plywrench. Here you are."
The boy took the proffered coin eagerly. As Entwistle expected, he devoted more attention to the coin than he did to the donor.
"He won't recognise me again," mused the Secret Service man as he hurried away, leaving the boy testing the bright half-crown in case he had been "had."
Swallowed up in the crowd, for Petergate was thronged, Entwistle dived into a tobacconist's shop and made a small purchase, the while keeping a sharp look-out upon the passers-by.
Presently the lad, whistling blithely, hurried along. At a discreet distance Entwistle followed, noting with satisfaction that the boy lingered outside a cinema palace.
"He would have spent that half-dollar had the place been open," he theorised. "As it is, he'll go home to his dinner and he won't say a word about the wrong change."
Keeping within sight of his chase, Entwistle followed until the boy turned down a narrow street close to Bootham Bar—one of the still-existent gateways of mediaeval York. On the other hand the roadway was bounded by the masonry of the city wall.
Entwistle followed no further. He promptly ascended the steps of Bootham Bar and gained the paved walk that runs along the top of the walls. From his coign of vantage he watched, and saw the lad enter a house—stopping, however, to glance up and down the cobbled street.
"Good enough for the present," soliloquised Entwistle. "I feel fairly satisfied with my morning's work. Until to-night there's nothing doing, so I will have a little relaxation from duty. Philip, my festive, you can be reckless: you can have a whole coupon's worth of roast beef at the best restaurant in York."
Having done ample justice to the inner man, Entwistle decided to put in an hour or two at the railway station. Railway stations had a peculiar fascination for him. Incidentally he had obtained a good many clues while waiting on a platform, although he was bound to admit that the almost general use of motor cars had robbed the railway of a questionable record of affording quick transit to fugitive criminals.
As he entered the booking hall he ran against a familiar figure wearing an unfamiliar garb—a thick-set, clean-shaven man of about forty-seven or eight, in height about five feet ten. He was in R.A.F. officer's uniform. Just beneath his cap his iron-grey closely-cropped hair contrasted forcibly with his brown, almost reddish complexion.
"B a r c r o f t !" exclaimed Entwistle. "What on earth are you doing here? And in uniform, too. By Jove! I'm pleased to see you."
"I'm here for fifteen and a half minutes more," replied Peter Barcroft, consulting his wristlet watch. "That is, if the North Eastern Company run their train punctually. That's question one answered. I'm in uniform because I wanted to be, and didn't mean to be out of the fun. What are you doing, might I ask?"
"Same old thing—'the trivial round, the common task' sort of business, you know," answered the Secret Service man.
"But you've not explained: how comes it that you are in khaki?"
"I suppose," replied Barcroft, "it's a case of 'following in father's footsteps' reversed. I'm a mere 'second loot'; my son Billy is now a major, so if I meet him in public I must salute him. This war's been responsible for a lot of funny incidents and conditions, hasn't it?"
"It has," agreed Entwistle. "We've been mixed up in a few together, haven't we? But to get back to the point. I'm curious to know how you managed to get a commission. You told me you were blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. How did you pass the doctor?"
"I passed, or was passed by, three," replied Barcroft proudly. "Bluffed them absolutely. Merely a triumph of mind over matter. I learnt the letters on the sight-testing card off by heart. Perfectly simple, eh, what? I'm in the Marine Section, R.A.F., and incidentally I'm the senior officer in the depot in point of age. I'm on my way to Auldhaig to take some boats round to Sableridge—that's on the South Coast."
"Not X-lighters, by any chance?"
Barcroft stared.
"Yes," he admitted. "What do you know about them?"
Entwistle laughed.
"Bet you twopence you won't find them at Auldhaig," he said. "More than that, you'll stand a chance of being arrested. There's been a fellow on the same sort of game, and that's why I'm here—to nab him on sight. By the by, how are Ponto and Nan?"
"Going strong," replied Barcroft. "At the present moment they are assisting my crowd of merry wreckers to digest railway buffet sandwiches and bully beef. We'll go and find them."
The two old chums walked down the platform. Just beyond the covered part was a large truck piled high with a miscellaneous assortment of kit-bags, blankets, sea-boots, oilskins, charts, and a pair of hand semaphore flags. Mounting guard over the luggage were Barcroft's two shaggy sheep-dogs.
"They remember me," remarked Entwistle, as the animals began to wag their stumpy tails.
"Of course," replied the R.A.F. officer. "But you wouldn't dare to lay a finger on that pile of kit."
"I won't experiment," replied Entwistle. "Your dogs' teeth are just a trifle too formidable. When do you think you'll get back to Sableridge? I'm going down south in a fortnight or so, and I may run across you."
"Look me up, then," replied Barcroft. "With decent luck I ought to get my five-knot convoy round in a fortnight, mines and contradictory Air Ministry orders permitting. And if I knock up against Captain Fennelburt I'll give him your chin-chin."
"You won't," said Entwistle confidently—"at least, not under that name. But I hope to deny you that pleasure by having him under lock and key before many hours."
The signal for the train's departure interrupted the conversation. Barcroft, having seen his crew into the train and the baggage in the van, entered a compartment followed by his two dogs—to bear the responsibility of navigating two of His Majesty's vessels, together with thousands of pounds worth of stores and a score of valuable lives, over six or seven hundred miles of mined waters; for which a grateful government paid him the magnificent sum of half a guinea a day.
"And how is Mrs. Barcroft?" inquired Entwistle. "I ought, of course, to have inquired before."
Peter Barcroft was lighting a cigarette.
"Mrs. Barcroft is A1, thanks," he replied. "At present she is engaged in keeping the home fires burning—with coal at fifty-five and six a ton, but I have not the faintest doubt that she will carry on to my utmost satisfaction. Well, cheerio, Entwistle! Glad to have met you again."
The train moved off, leaving Entwistle to "carry on" in his particular line even as Barcroft Senior was "doing his bit" in a different sphere.
Leaving the station, the Secret Service man made his way to the premises of Messrs. Grabnut & Plywrench. As he expected, a brief interview with the manager elicited the information that no cablegram had been sent by the firm to Holland. In fact, the Continental transactions of Messrs. Grabnut & Plywrench had ceased early in 1915. They had as much business in connection with Government contracts as they could possibly tackle.
At sunset Entwistle returned to his post of observation on the city walls. Soon York, or as much of it as he could see from his lofty perch, was in darkness. He could hear the crowds in the main thoroughfares, the whirr of machinery in the workshops, the rumble of heavily laden trains, and the "chough-chough" of motor barges on the canal conveying raw material for the manufacturing centres of Yorkshire and the coast. It was a hive of industry working under cover of darkness.
Cold work it was keeping the poverty-stricken tenement under observation. Occasionally people would pass along the narrow path on the walls. Entwistle would then lean on the lichen-grown parapet and feign a deep interest in the darkness until their footsteps died away; otherwise he hardly stirred during his prolonged vigil.
"Great Peter" would have been tolling the hour of nine had it not been that the world was at war, when Entwistle heard a street door open. Straining his eyesight, he discerned a bent figure emerging stealthily from the house he was keeping under observation.
"H'm!" he soliloquised. "A man with a military bearing ought never to trust to the disguise of decrepitude. Von Preussen, you've overreached yourself, I fancy."
Keeping under the shelter of the breast-high parapet, Entwistle moved cautiously to the steps by the side of Bootham Bar. Gaining the roadway, he pressed against the side of the Gothic archway. For the present the thoroughfare was deserted. He could hear von Preussen's boots shuffling on the cobbles. Nearer, nearer...
With a sudden spring Entwistle hurled himself upon the spy. The Secret Service agent had not mistaken his man. Almost before von Preussen knew what had happened he found himself lying face downwards on the pavement and his elbows being drawn together behind his back.
"The game's up, Karl von Preussen," exclaimed Entwistle.
"Yes," admitted the spy breathlessly. "You've scored this time. I'd like to know how you traced me."
"You will in due course," replied Entwistle grimly, as he jerked his captive to his feet.
The next instant a cloud of pungent, burning powder struck Entwistle full in the face. The sudden, agonising pain as the grains filled his eyes took the Secret Service agent completely off his guard. Gasping for breath, and holding both hands to his face, he staggered blindly against the wall. Even in his physical torment he could hear von Preussen running swiftly.
In the moment of his triumph a craven trick had robbed Entwistle of his prey.