the paper again. It was written in execrable English, but its purport was clear. The writer could solve the mystery of Hyatt’s death, and for the matter of that of the Moss murder.
T.B. read it and shook his head.
“This sort of thing is fairly common,” he said; “there never was a bad murder yet, but what the Yard received solutions by the score.”
A little bell tinkled on the editor’s desk, and he took up the receiver of the telephone.
“Yes?” he said, and listened. Then, “Send him up.”
“Is it — ?”
“Monsieur Escoltier,” said the editor. A few seconds later the door was opened, and a man was ushered into the room. Short and thickset, with a two days’ growth of beard on his chin, his nationality was apparent long before he spoke in the argot of the lowly born Parisian. His face was haggard, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep, and the hand that strayed to his mouth shook tremulously.
“I have to tell you,” he began, “about M’sieur Moss and M’sieur Hyatt.” His voice was thick, and as he spoke he glanced from side to side as though fearful of observation. There was something in his actions that vividly reminded the detective of his interview with Hyatt. “You understand,” the man went on incoherently, “that I had long suspected N.H.C. — It was always so unintelligible. There was no such station and—”
“You must calm yourself, monsieur,” said T.B., speaking in French; “ — begin at the beginning, for as yet my friend and myself are entirely in the dark. What is N.H.C., and what does it mean?”
It was some time before the man could be brought to a condition of coherence. The editor pushed him gently to the settee that ran the length of the bay window of his office.
“Wait,” said the journalist, and unlocking a drawer, he produced a silver flask.
“Drink some of this,” he said.
The man raised the brandy to his lips with a hand that shook violently, and drank eagerly.
“C’est bien,” he muttered, and looked from one to the other.
“I tell you this story because I am afraid to go to the police — they are watching the police office—”
“In the first place, who are you?” demanded T.B.
“As to who and what I am,” said the stranger, nodding his head to emphasise his words, “it would be better that I should remain silent.”
“I do not see the necessity,” said the detective calmly. “So far as I can judge from what information I have, you are a French soldier — an engineer. You are a wireless telegraph operator, and your post of duty is on the Eiffel Tower.”
The man stared at the speaker, and his jaw dropped.
“M’sieur!” he gasped.
“Hyatt was also a wireless operator; probably in the employ of the Marconi Company in the west of England. Between you, you surprised the secret of a mysterious agency which employs wireless installations to communicate with its agents. What benefits you yourself may have derived from your discovery I cannot say. It is certain that Hyatt, operating through Moss, made a small fortune; it is equally certain that, detecting a leakage, the ‘Nine Men’ have sent a clever agent to discover the cause—”
But the man from the Eiffel Tower had fainted.
“I shall rely on you to keep the matter an absolute secret until we are ready,” said T.B., and the editor nodded. “The whole scheme came to me in a flash. The Eiffel Tower! Who lives on the Eiffel Tower? Wireless telegraph operators. Our friend is recovering.”
He looked down at the pallid man lying limply in an armchair.
“I am anxious to know what brings him to London. Fright, I suppose. It was the death of Moss that brought Hyatt, the killing of Hyatt that produced Monsieur Escoltier.”
The telegraphist recovered consciousness with a shiver and a groan. For a quarter of an hour he sat with his face hidden in his hands. Another pull at the editor’s flask aroused him to tell his story — a narrative which is valuable as being the first piece of definite evidence laid against the Nine Bears.
He began hesitatingly, but as the story of his complicity was unfolded he warmed to his task. With the true Gaul’s love for the dramatic, he declaimed with elaborate gesture and sonorous phrase the part he had played.
“My name is Jules Escoltier, I am a telegraphist in the corps of engineers. On the establishment of the wireless telegraphy station on the Eiffel Tower in connection with the Casa Blanca affair, I was appointed one of the operators. Strange as it may sound, one does not frequently intercept messages, but I was surprised a year ago to find myself taking code despatches from a station which called itself ‘ N.H.C.’ There is no such station known, so far as I am aware, and copies of the despatches which I forwarded to my superiors were always returned to me as ‘non-decodable.’
“One day I received a message in English, which I can read. It ran —
“‘All those who know N.H.C. call H. A.’
“Although I did not know who N.H.C. was, I had the curiosity to look up H. A. on the telegraph map, and found it was the Cornish Marconi Station. Taking advantage of the absence of my officer, I sent a wireless message, ‘I desire information, L.L.’ That is not the Paris ‘indicator,’ but I knew that I should get the reply. I had hardly sent the message when another message came. It was from Monsieur Hyatt. I got the message distinctly—’Can you meet me in London on the gth, Gallini’s Restaurant?’ To this I replied, ‘No, impossible.’ After this I had a long talk with the Cornishman, and then it was that he told me that his name was Hyatt. He told me that he was able to decode the N.H.C. messages, that he had a book, and that it was possible to make huge sums of money from the information contained in them. I thought that it was very indiscreet to speak so openly, and told him so.
“He asked me for my name, and I gave it, and thereafter I regularly received letters from him, and a correspondence began.
“Not being au fait in matters affecting the Bourse, I did not know of what value the information we secured from N.H.C. could be, but Hyatt said he had a friend who was interested in such matters, and that if I ‘took off’ all N.H.C. messages that I got, and repeated them to him, I should share in the proceeds. I was of great value to Hyatt, because I received messages that never reached him in this way. He was able to keep in touch with all the operations on which N.H.C. were engaged.
“By arrangement, we met in Paris — Hyatt, his friend of the London Bourse, Monsieur Moss, and myself, and Hyatt handed to me notes for 20,000 francs (£800) ; that was the first payment I received from him. He returned to England, and things continued in very much the same way as they had done, I receiving and forwarding N.H.C. messages. I never understood any of them, but Hyatt was clever, and he had discovered the code and worked it out.
“About a fortnight ago I received from him 3,000 francs in notes, a letter that spoke of a great coup contemplated by N.H.C. ‘If this materialises,’ he wrote, ‘I hope to send you half a million francs by the end of next week.’
“The next morning I received this message—”
He fumbled in his pocket and produced a strip of paper, on which was hastily scrawled —
“From N.H.C. to L.L. Meet me in London on the sixth, Charing Cross Station.”
“It was, as you see, in French, and as it came I scribbled it down. I would have ignored it, but that night I got a message from Hyatt saying that N.H.C. had discovered we shared their secret and had offered to pay us £5,000 each to preserve silence, and that as they would probably alter the code I should be a fool not to accept. So I got leave of absence and bought a suit of clothing, left Paris, and arrived in London the following night. A dark young man met me at the station, and invited me to