“And when we connect the idea of a U-boat commander giving a message which ends with a sea expedition, with the fact, which I have just discovered, that the essence of his cipher is the position of the markings on it, we seem to be getting somewhere.”
Price smote his thigh.
“By Jemima!” he cried. “I’ve got you. That blessed tracing is a map!”
“A map, yes. That’s what I think,” French answered eagerly, and then as suddenly he saw the possible significance of Nelson’s exhortation, he went on dramatically: “A map of England!”
Cheyne swore softly.
“My word, if we aren’t a set of blithering idiots!” he exclaimed. “Of course! ‘England’ is the title. That’s as clear as day! The other words are added as a blind. Let’s have the thing out, Inspector, and see if we can’t make something of it now.”
As French produced his enlarged photographs not one of the three men doubted that they were at last well on the way towards wresting the secret from the document which had so long baffled them.
Chapter XIX.
The Message of the Tracing
Inspector French spread the photograph on his desk, and Cheyne and Price having drawn up chairs, all three gazed at it as if expecting that in the light of their great idea its message would have become obvious.
But in this they were disappointed. The suggestion did not seem in any way to help either French or Cheyne, and Price, who of course had not seen the document before, was satisfactorily mystified. Granted that the thing was a map, granted even that it was a map of England, its meaning remained just as provokingly hidden as ever.