“I’ve got it!” he cried with an oath. “Dangle! I remember that chap now! He was in the next bed on the other side of Schulz. That’s right! I couldn’t call him to mind when you mentioned him before. Of course! He heard the whole tale, and that’s what started him on this do.”
“I know,” Cheyne returned. “He admitted that all right. But he told us about the hard copper. You haven’t mentioned that.”
Price shook his head.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he declared. “What do you mean by hard copper?”
“Dangle mentioned it. He was listening to the conversation. He told us all that about Schulz’s story of the fortune, and about his wife and all that, just as you have, but he said Schulz went on to explain what the fortune was: that he had hit on a way of treating copper that made it as hard as steel. The cipher contained the formula.”
Again Price shook his head.
“All spoof,” he observed. “Not a word of truth in it. Schulz never mentioned copper or said anything more than I’ve told you.”
French spoke for the first time.
“We found this Dangle a man of imagination, all through, and it is easy to see why he invented that particular yarn. By that time he had undoubtedly read the cipher, and he wanted something to mislead Mr. Cheyne as to its contents. The story of the hard copper would start a bias in Mr. Cheyne’s mind which would tend to keep him off the real scent.” He paused, but his companions not speaking, continued: “Now we have that bias cleared away, at least one interesting fact emerges. The whole business starts with the sea—the U-boat commander, Schulz, and it looks as if it was going to end up with the sea, the tramp, the L’Escaut.”
As French said these words an idea flashed into his mind, and he went on deliberately, but with growing excitement: