Part 9 (2/2)
He recognized the captain and the doctor. As his eyes closed again he added, in an almost inaudible whisper: ”I was getting too close on somebody's trail.”
The captain looked at the s.h.i.+p's doctor significantly and dismissed the two oilers with instructions to return to their duties.
”Found him locked in a small compartment down near the auxiliary engine room,” the commander said briefly. ”Hotter than blazes, and no air whatever where he was. He made his whereabouts known by tapping a message on a steam-pipe.”
”H'm,” said the doctor, whose youthful appearance might not give a stranger a proper measure of his long and varied experience. ”Nearly suffocated, too. He couldn't have lasted there much longer. His heart action is pretty weak even yet. Better have him removed to his bed, and kept there for the rest of the day, at least.”
At that moment Jerry came hurrying down the deck. He was visibly excited, but, unlike Slim, he did not forget that not only must a soldier never permit his feelings to run away with him, but that he must be equally mindful of respect for superiors.
And so, even as two men carried Lieutenant Mackinson away, he remained standing at salute, waiting for the captain to recognize him with a return of the salute.
”And now what?” asked the captain.
Jerry stepped forward, with difficulty repressing his excitement.
”I stepped out of the wireless room for only a few moments,” he said.
”When I returned I found this lying upon the table.”
He opened his left hand. In it lay a piece of light chain, both ends broken.
”Beside it,” he continued, ”was this note.”
From his pocket he extracted a piece of paper, the edges of which were roughly torn. He handed it to the captain, who read aloud:
”Let this be a warning that no further interference will be of avail.”
The captain looked from the note to the chain. There was no further word on the paper, and no signature.
”I believe, sir,” said Jerry, ”that this is the rest of the chain which was attached to the iron cross torn from the man caught in the battery room.”
The senior officer of the vessel took from his pocket the cross, with its two bits of chain still dangling from it. He placed the ends to the chain which Jerry had found in the wireless room.
”You are right,” he said simply. And there could be no doubt about it.
The captain's face clearly showed the worry on his mind. The s.h.i.+p's physician, who had been told all about the affair, immediately after Joe's discovery of, and battle with, the mysterious stranger, appeared equally anxious.
”A man is discovered at night in the battery room of the wireless department of this s.h.i.+p, clearly upon an unfriendly mission,” said the captain, half to himself and half for the benefit of the others, summing up the evidence thus far known to them. ”He gives battle to the man who discovers him, and finally succeeds in knocking that man out and escaping. But he leaves behind him a portable wireless instrument, and a German iron cross, with two bits of the chain attached.
”A few hours later that same night he returns to the battery room and succeeds in recovering the portable instrument.
”To-day Lieutenant Mackinson, while pursuing an investigation of the affair, is shoved into a closet and only escapes death from suffocation by making himself heard as he telegraphs for help over a steam-pipe.
”It must have been while we were rescuing the lieutenant that the same man again enters the wireless room and leaves there this chain, which had been attached to the iron cross, and also this note of warning.
”The impudent effrontery and the cunning treachery of this man const.i.tute him a menace to every other person aboard this s.h.i.+p. We are not safe while he is free.
”This German spy must and shall be found.”
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