Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery. Freeman Crofts Wills

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СКАЧАТЬ and spoke eagerly. Cheyne frowned involuntarily as he recognised the symptoms.

      ‘It’s a position indicator. It would, I think, be useful at all times, but during fog it would be simply invaluable: that is, for coasting work, you know. It would be no good for protection against collision with another ship. But for clearing a headland or making a harbour in a fog it would be worth its weight in gold. The principle is, I believe, old, but I have been lucky enough to hit on improvements in detail which get over the defects of previous instruments. Speaking broadly, a fixed pointer, which may if desired carry a pen, rests on a moving chart. The chart is connected to a compass and to rollers operated by devices for recording the various components of motion one is driven off the propeller, others are set, automatically mostly, for such things as wind, run of tide, wave motion and so on. The pointer always indicates the position of the ship, and as the ship moves, the chart moves to correspond. Steering then resolves itself into keeping the pointer on the correct line on the chart, and this can be done by night without guide lamps, or in a fog, as well as in daytime. The apparatus would also assist navigation through unbuoyed channels over covered mud flats, or in time of war through charted mine fields. I don’t want to be a nuisance to you, Mr Cheyne, but I do wish you would at least let me show you the device. You could then decide whether you would allow me to fix it to your yacht for experimental purposes.’

      ‘I should like to see it,’ Cheyne admitted. ‘If you can do all you claim, I certainly think you have a good thing. Where is it to be seen?’

      ‘On my launch, or rather, the launch I have borrowed.’ The young man’s eagerness now almost approached excitement. His eyes sparkled and he fidgeted in his chair. ‘She is lying off Johnson’s boat slip at Dartmouth. I left the dinghy there.’

      ‘And you want me to go now?’

      ‘If you really will be so kind. I should propose a short run down the estuary and along the coast towards Exmouth, say for two or three hours. Could you spare so much time?’

      ‘Why, yes, I should enjoy it. I shall be back, say, between six and seven.’

      ‘I’ll have you back at Johnson’s slip at six o’clock. I have a taxi waiting now, and I’ll arrange with Johnson to call another for you as soon as he sees us coming up the estuary.’

      ‘I’ll go,’ said Cheyne. ‘Just a moment until I tell my people and get a coat.’

      The day was ideal for the run. Spring was in the air. The brilliant April sun poured down from an almost cloudless sky, against which the sea horizon showed a hard, sharp line of intensest blue. Within the estuary it was calm, but multitudinous white flecks in the distance showed a stiff breeze was blowing out at sea. Cheyne’s spirits rose. It was a glorious sport, this of battling with the foaming, tumbling waves in the open. How he loved their blue-black depth with its suggestion of utter and absolute cleanness, the creamy purity of their seething crests, their steady, irresistible onward movement, the restless dancing and swirling of the wavelets on their flanks! To him it was life to feel the buoyant spring of the craft beneath him, to hear the crash of the bows into the troughs and the smack of the spindrift striking aft. He was glad this Lamson had called. Even if the matter of the invention was a washout, as he more than half expected, he felt he was going to enjoy his afternoon.

      Three or four minutes brought them to Johnson’s boat slip on the outskirts of Dartmouth. There Lamson drew the proprietor aside.

      ‘See here,’ he directed, ‘we’re going out for a run. I want you to keep a lookout for us coming back. We shall be in about six. As soon as you see us send for a taxi and have it here when we get ashore. Now Mr Cheyne, if you’re ready.’

      They climbed down into a small dinghy and Lamson, taking the oars, pulled out towards a fair-sized motor launch which lay at anchor some couple of hundred yards from the shore. She was not a graceful boat, but looked strongly built, showing a high bluff bow, a square stern and lines suggestive of speed.

      ‘A sea boat,’ said Cheyne approvingly. ‘You surely don’t run her by yourself?’

      ‘No, a motoring friend has been giving me a hand. I am skipper and he engineer. We hug the coast, you know, and don’t go out if it is blowing.’

      As he spoke he pulled round the stern of the launch upon which Cheyne observed the words ‘Enid, Devonport.’ At the same time a tall, well-built figure appeared and waved his hand. Lamson brought up to the tiny steps aud a moment later they were on deck.

      ‘Mr Cheyne has come out to see the great invention, Tom. I almost hope that he is interested. My friend, Tom Lewesham, Mr Cheyne.’

      The two men shook hands.

      ‘Lamson thinks he is going to make his fortune with this thing, Mr Cheyne,’ the big man remarked, smiling. ‘We must see that there is no mistake about our percentages.’

      ‘If you want a percentage you must work for it, my son,’ Lamson declared. ‘Mr Cheyne must be back by six, so get your old rattle-trap going and we’ll run down to the sea. If you don’t mind, Mr Cheyne, we’ll get under way before I show you the machine, as it takes both of us to get started.’

      ‘Right-o,’ said Cheyne. ‘I’ll bear a hand if there’s anything I can do.’

      ‘Well, that’s good of you. It would be a help if you would take the tiller while I’m making all snug. There’s a bit of a tumble on outside.’

      The boat was certainly a flier. The charmingly situated old town dropped rapidly astern while Lamson ‘made snug.’ Then he came aft, shouted down through the engine-room skylight for his friend, and when the latter appeared told him to take the tiller.

      ‘Now, Mr Cheyne,’ he went on, ‘now comes the great moment! I have not fixed the apparatus up here in front of the tiller, partly to keep it secret and partly to save the trouble of making it weatherproof. It’s down in the cabin. But you understand it should be up here. Will you come down?’

      He led the way down a companion to a diminutive saloon. ‘It’s in the sleeping part, still forward,’ he pointed, and the two men squeezed through a door in the bulkhead into a tiny cabin, lit by electric light and with a table in the centre and two berths on either side. On the table was a frame on the top of which was stretched a chart, and a light rod ran out from one side to a pointer fixed over the middle of the chart.

      ‘You can see that it’s very roughly made,’ Lamson went on, ‘but if you look closely I think you’ll find that it works all right.’

      Cheyne bent forward and examined the machine, and as he did so mystification grew in his mind. The chart was not of the estuary of the Dart, nor, stranger still, was it connected to rollers. It was simply tacked on what he now saw was merely the lid of a box. How it was moved he couldn’t see.

      ‘I don’t follow this,’ he said. ‘How do you get your chart to move if it’s nailed down?’

      There was no answer, but as he swung round with a sudden misgiving there was a sharp click. Lamson had disappeared and the door was shut!

      Cheyne seized the handle and turned it violently, only to find that the bolt of the lock had been shot, but before he could attempt further researches the light went off, leaving him in almost pitch darkness. At the same moment a significant lurch showed that they were passing from the shelter of the estuary into the open sea.

      He twisted and tugged at the handle. ‘Here you, Lamson!’ he shouted angrily. ‘What do СКАЧАТЬ