OIN de RET: “Put fish in trap when
leaving port. Glad top-hamper
safe.”
Henry looked at the sheet of paper lazily for a moment. Then he almost sprang out of his chair. “Look, Jimmy!” he cried. “See how the letters of those two calls combine.” He pointed to the signals his companion had written down at the commencement of each line. “If you begin with O, then jump up to R, and keep on moving from bottom line to top, you get the word ‘Orient.’ I believe we’ve caught something important.”
Belford pulled the paper toward himself and studied the riddle. “Jiminy crickets!” he cried. “You’re right, Henry. What do you suppose it all means? I thought from the first that there was something queer about those calls.”
“Well,” replied Henry, “it is perfectly evident that OIN must be mighty close at hand, the way her signal comes cracking in. That’s just the way a signal would sound from the Orient. And RET is either very far away, or else has a weak little set. Inasmuch as we are going into port and the message seems to be to a customer, I’d guess that the customer has a weak little outfit—probably a home-made affair run by dry cells. But what all this stuff about fish and sharks means, I can’t guess.”
“Do you suppose we ought to bother the captain with it?”
“It won’t do any harm. If this message was from the Orient, it has some hidden meaning, and of course the captain ought to know about it.”
“Suppose you take it to him, Henry.”
Henry grabbed up the sheet of paper and went to the captain. “Bless my stars!” ejaculated the captain, when he had read the two messages. “This is as good as a Sunday newspaper puzzle. And it’s about as easy to guess. Fish would mean opium, of course; and if sharks are the things that held back the opium, I reckon either we or the custom men are the sharks. Maybe they meant Sparks, eh?” And the captain laughed merrily at Henry.