CHAPTER XVII
A LITTLE CHESS PROBLEM
AS soon as the two men were separated in this way, I realized that Burroughs had made a mistake in tactics. We ought to have stayed together. As it was, I did not know which of the two he meant to tackle.
It turned out that he was in the same uncertainty about me; but he saw that the man who had crossed the room was going to switch on the electric light, and to prevent this he sprang on him and shouted to me to seize the other fellow.
I might as well have tried to seize a stroke of lightning. Before my companion had half finished his sentence, the man was out of the room and over the balcony railing, and it would have been sheer folly to attempt any pursuit.
Meanwhile, Burroughs, who was as strong as a bullock, had collared his man, holding his hands behind him in a grip of iron.
I closed the jalousies and fastened them, and then shut the window and fastened that, and then switched up the light.
I recognized the prisoner immediately. It was Henriques—the brute who had been going to strike Inez that night in the Rua Catania.
“Run your hands over him and draw his teeth,” said my friend.
He had both a revolver and a knife, and I took these from him and then turned out his pockets. Among the miscellaneous contents I found, to my intense surprise, an envelope addressed to Vasco, the name being given in full.
I was careful not to show my keen interest at this, and something like a flash of intuition warned me that I must learn the contents of the letter without Henriques knowing that I had read it. As the envelope was fastened, this was a little difficult. “These things may be wanted by the police and may or may not be important,” I said to Burroughs. Then I fetched a sheet of paper from my desk, wrapped up the envelope and the small things and sealed the packet, placing the revolver and knife by them. I did it very deliberately so that Henriques should see, and then I said to him: “I don’t mean to give you a chance to deny that these thing were found on you.”
“Shall I send for the police?” asked Burroughs, who was considerably perplexed by what I had done.
“That depends upon this scoundrel. You needn’t hold him. He can’t do any harm. But don’t let him get near these toys of his,” and I pointed to his weapons. I had my plan by that time. I meant to trick him, and it was part of my plan that he should believe that the packet was not out of his sight the whole time.
“Now, if you make a clean breast of things, I shall let you go,” I said, turning to the man. “What’s your name?”
“Garcia Rosada.” He lied so promptly that I saw he had been carefully making up his tale.
I was on the point of telling him I knew his name, when it occurred to me that it would be better to affect to believe him. “Who sent you here?”
“No one.”
“Why did you come then?”
He hung his head for a moment as if in shame and then muttered: “I’ve never been a thief before, and if you’ll let me go, Excellency, I vow to the Holy Virgin I’ll never be one again. Have mercy on me. I’ve a wife and five children and this will—will kill them.” He was an artful scoundrel, and the break in his voice was quite cleverly done.
I put a few more questions, and he improved on the tale, saying that his companion was name Ferraz, and having heard that I was a very rich man, had tempted him to try and rob me.
Burroughs’ face, when he saw that I appeared to believe the yarn, was quite an amusing study. He was divided between doubt whether I was really gulled, and curiosity as to my object, if I was not.
“I’ll write that down while it’s fresh in my memory. If I find your story true, I won’t punish you, Rosada,” I said and turned away to my writing table. I made a pretence of writing, repeating the words aloud and turning now and then to put a question about some detail.
But what I really did was to make up a dummy packet the exact counterfeit of that on the table.
As soon as it was ready I crossed again to Henriques. “There’s one thing you haven’t explained,” I said, picking up the revolver. “Why did you bring this and the knife with you?”
He had his tale ready, good enough for such a fool as he deemed me. “They are not mine at all, Excellency. They belong to Ferraz—the man who got me into this.”
I put a question or two; and then as if in doubt I turned to replace the revolver and stood for a moment in such a position that he could not see me exchange the packets.
“You don’t believe that, do you?” exclaimed Burroughs, with a scoff.
“I don’t know quite what to believe yet,” I replied. “I’ll think it over;” and I returned to my desk, and while keeping up the farce of writing and asking occasional questions, I opened the packet and took out the letter to Vasco.
It was very insecurely fastened, fortunately, so that I could open it without showing any signs that it had been tampered with. As I read it, I found it was from Dagara, and could scarcely restrain a laugh of chagrin at the elaborate means I had taken to discover a mare’s nest.
It ran as follows:—
“LISBON CHESS CLUB.
438, RUA DA GLORIA.
“DEAR LIEUTENANT DE LINTO,—
“I was sorry you could not be at the Club last night. We had a most interesting series of problems set by M. Polski, the Polish champion. There were ten of them and the fifth and sixth will interest you—both forced mates in seven moves. I hope that all our playing members will find or make an opportunity of studying them very thoroughly. I shall have them printed, of course, and am writing in this strain to all the members who were not present.
“I am so anxious to see the general average of play improved before we meet the Sanatarem Club.
“Yours sincerely,
“MANOEL DAGARA.”
Feeling very much like a man who has most ridiculously hoaxed himself, I refolded the letter, put it back carefully into the envelope, and was about to fasten it when a thought struck me.
Vasco a chess player! The most unlikely man in all Christendom to have that profoundly staid disease. And why should this Henriques be chosen to carry such a letter and have it on him in the dead of night when he had come on such a grim mission as had brought him here?
Then a reason suggested itself. He must have had instructions to deliver it in person to Vasco; and as the latter had been on the Stella from the previous night, the note could not be delivered. The man in such a case, being afraid to leave it about, might well prefer to have it on him.
This meant that it was of much more importance than its contents suggested; and my thoughts flew to the cipher.
I was glad now that I had taken all the trouble and I took some more. I made an exact copy of the letter, laying a sheet of very thin paper over it and using the utmost pains to space every word and letter exactly as it was written.
Then I fastened it up and made up another packet and returned to Burroughs.
“I am still undecided what to do,” I said to him. “If this man’s tale is true, I shan’t punish him. But he must stop here for the present, of course. Have him locked in a room and let a couple of men be with him.”
Then I made another exchange of the packets and said to Henriques. “You can’t have your weapons, but you can keep this.” And I gave it him.
Burroughs took him out of the room and was back again in a minute or two, his face one staring note of interrogation.
“What the devil does it all mean?” he cried.
“He’s an honest fellow that, Jack. He’s been led into trouble by evil companions and——”
“Oh, rats!” he broke in. “What were you writing there? You had me guessing all the time?”
“I was only writing this;” and I showed him the copy of the letter.
He read it and scratched his head. “What is it? A prize puzzle?”
“It’s a copy of the letter I took from our friend’s pocket.”
“But you wrapped it up in the parcel.”
“You wouldn’t have me rob a gentleman of his belongings?”
“But the blessed thing was on the table all the time.”
“Do you mean this?” and I produced the dummy.
“It’s on me,” he said with a laugh. He was very American at times in his idioms.
“I’m either a big stupid ass and have taken a lot of trouble for nothing, or I’ve made a useful discovery. I shall soon know which,” I said explaining how I had changed the packets.
Then I fetched the cipher key which I had hidden in another room and returned to find him puffing at his pipe and puzzling over the copy of the letter.
I told him then about the discovery of the cipher, and laid the key over the lines getting more nonsense words from the first two or three. Then I read the letter again and a thought struck me.
Dagara spoke of ten problems. There were ten lines in the letter.
“The fifth and sixth will interest you,” ran the phrase.
I laid the punctured slip over these in turn. The fifth gave me this result. I will put the indicated letters in capitals.
“I hoPe that All our Playing mEmbeRS will find oR make.”
“P A P E R S R,” was shown up.
I laid the same row of holes over the next line, with no results that were intelligible. The second row was no more fruitful, but the third gave this result.
“an EArly opportunity of stuDying them thoroughlY.”
Put together the two lines of indicated letters read—
“PAPERS READY”—easy enough for Macaulay’s schoolboy to understand. “Papers Ready.”
“I’m not a stupid ass after all,” I exclaimed, triumphantly. “Now we want our considering caps. This means that some important information which the writer of this letter has obtained is waiting to be delivered, and what we have to do is to get hold of them.”
“It’s not in my line,” said Burroughs.
“I’m going to sleep over it. We’re not likely to have any more callers, so I shall go to bed;” and to bed I went, leaving him on watch, as he declared he should sit up till daylight.
In the morning I decided what to do. It was clear that the papers were too important to be trusted by Dagara to any one but a duly selected messenger. The care with which the message was sent to Vasco that they were ready, suggested that he was not that messenger. Why then should he be told about them? Probably he had to send the messenger for them.
I thought it over carefully, revolving all I knew, and by the process of exclusion decided it was Miralda. It must be some one whom Vasco could see at any time, the moment the message reached him. Even with Inez, of whom I thought first, this was not practicable. It might be some fellow-officer; but no one of them would be so invariably within immediate touch as Miralda.
Moreover, it was just the thing for which she could be used to the best advantage. Dagara was married I knew, and thus she would only have to pay an informal visit to the wife for him to meet her and hand over any papers. Then I recalled that Inez had been one of the first to see that forged letter of mine which Dagara had given up, and the conclusion was easy that when Miralda obtained anything, she handed it on to Inez for the latter to give to Barosa.
The inference was strong enough for me to risk acting upon it. I could not, of course, be certain that Miralda went to Dagara’s house for any communications, while that I should go there was out of the question. I decided therefore to try my hand at a cipher message in Miralda’s name telling Dagara to bring the papers to a spot where I could meet him, and then take him to the only safe place for such an interview as ours would be—on the Stella.
I must contrive to get him there secretly. I remembered a very little-used landing-stage on the east of the city round the point, where I could have my launch ready, and I soon saw a way of getting Dagara to that spot.
The message I sent in cipher was as follows:
“Usual place unsafe. M. waiting now in the Praca da Figueira for papers.”
I wrapped this up in a long letter answering his about the chess problems, addressed it to Dagara at Volheno’s and sent Bryant to leave it at the office.
I had meanwhile bundled Burroughs off to bring the launch to the landing-stage, and I timed the delivery of the letter to reach Dagara just about his dinner interval.
If the scheme failed, I resolved as an alternative to find out where he lived and risk a visit to his house to frighten the papers out of him.
I had a carriage in readiness as I intended to drive him in it to the landing-stage; and I was not a little excited as I started for the Praca da Figueira—a quiet little square close to my flat.
I left the carriage out of sight and as I turned the corner leisurely I felt a little thrill of satisfaction to see that he was there before me.
I had worked out my chess problem successfully and saw my way to mate in less than his seven moves.
He was walking slowly with his back toward me, and I quickened up my pace so that I was close to him when he heard my footsteps, turned and saw me.