SERIES 2: THE HUMBOLDT INCIDENT PART III OF III ---------------- This section immediately follows Series 2, Part II of the Secret Chapters. ---------------- Later I was walking on deck to find Duponte when Francis signaled me. He looked haggard and anxious. "I hear you've examined that cryptograph again, Clark. Do you know what it means? Do you?" "Excuse me, Francis," I said. He blocked my way. "Don't be stuffy. It's been plaguing me not to know. I simply want to know what it means! Tell me." "Mr. Francis, I insist you move out of my way." He blocked my path again. Each time I took a step he stood in my way. A crowd of passengers began to gather. I decided to use this to my advantage to promote my new plan. Meanwhile, Duponte was sitting with an indifferent air in a chair on deck. "What's happening here?" the steward asked. "This man knows what that cryptograph says and refuses to tell me!" Francis cried, pointing at me. "He is right," I said loudly. "I do know." "What?" Francis gasped. I now had everyone's chained attention. There was no noise aboard the Humboldt other than the wind and sea. "The man who wrote this, indeed, is among us right now," I said. "Who is it? Who?" Francis asked excitedly, grabbing my arm. "Tell me who!" "You," I replied quietly. "Me?" Francis laughed. "Why, you are as much an odd fish as your friend." "I will explain. Let us go back several weeks. After Mr. Francis made an improper salute to Mrs. Bailey, he saw fit to blame me for spreading gossip about it. It appeared I was the only person who could have told the rest of the ship. That is, except for Francis himself." "What do you mean?" Francis asked. "Mrs. Bailey, who enjoys flirting and does not look for any reason to stop, had no reason to inform others of what you'd done. I had no reason or desire. But you did." "Careful what you say there!" declared Francis. "You are the one that should be more careful, Francis," I replied. "You were seen in a heated discussion a day later with Mr. Bailey. Would you tell us what you were speaking of?" "Why, he was reprimanding me for addressing his wife," Francis replied boastfully. "Can you blame him? I suppose I should ignore the pretty women of the ship, as you do, Mr. Clark." "I do not think so, Francis. You see, you were the one doing the talking to Bailey. I believe you were threatening him that if he did not satisfy you, you would sully his wife's good name to his society back in America." "Absurd!" Francis cried. "Is it? Bailey would not play the game, and you decided to make your threat clearer. You wanted to extort Bailey. But since he had already ignored you, you wished Bailey to believe that another man aboard the ship was doing the blackmailing." "I shall not hear another word of this! Unless you have proof for your allegations, I suggest you stay silent!" Francis cried. "Proof. Very well. Steward, will you kindly go to Mr. A_____'s stateroom and bring in the writing materials you find on his front stand." Francis protested the idea. "Mr. A_____? I don't even know the bloke." But the steward was intrigued enough to enter the saloon and walk to A_____'s stateroom. He and another crewmember returned holding enough objects to fill a stationary warehouse, which they placed on the deck. There were blank books, account book, ink, portfolios, and a silver pencil case. "I also found this," said the steward. He placed down another object, which looked like a strange, thick notebook, which I was pleased to see. "There may be more, but Mr. A_____ was in his bed, and I did not want to further disturb him." "This is all we need," I said, smiling. "Mr. A_____, as we all know, has been seasick almost since the first day of passage. Mr. Francis knew this too, and determined that A_____ would make a perfect dupe if he could write a note to Mr. Bailey on A_____'s stationary. Francis waited until nightfall and easily entered A_____'s stateroom. As A_____ slept and tossed on his bed, Francis took Mr. A_____'s a blank notebook of paper. Mr. A_____ is a merchant." "What does this demonstrate, Clark?" the steward protested. "That object you've brought out, which appears to be a large notebook. I am familiar with this device in my own work an attorney, and saw it in A_____'s stateroom last evening. It is called a Manifold Letter Writer. It allows you to instantaneously make a copy of what you are writing. See how it works? It is desirable for the traveler, because it does not require a pen or ink. Instead, the device uses a special stylus, which, when applied to the top paper, presses down on the 'carbonated' paper below it and makes a copy." Francis squinted dumbly at the Letter Writer. "I can only imagine our friend Mr. Francis, as a man of leisure and not business, did not know how this worked. Indeed, rather than using the stylus, he reached for a standard pen. In doing so, the top page was written on as he expected, but it was also partially copied on the page below. Observe." I picked up a standard pen and found an inkwell. I wrote the first sentence from Poe's tale "The Purloined Letter" on the page and then removed it. I held up the carbonated page that had been below it. It looked like a meaningless scrawl of symbols, like the one Francis had found at his door. "You see? Mr. Francis misused the Letter Writer. Here is what I believe. Francis quietly takes the Letter Writer from Mr. A_____'s room and brings it back to his stateroom. There, he composes his note of extortion and removes it from the Letter Writer. However, he did not know he had made a partial copy on the carbonated paper, which fell to the floor in his room. Francis then delivers his note to the Baileys' stateroom, slips the Letter Writer back in A_____'s chambers, and returns to his own stateroom. In the morning, when the sun is up again and his room is filled with light, he now notices the carbonated paper near his door, and assumes it has been slipped under there during the night." "Do you expect anyone to believe this balderdash?" Francis laughed. "Steward, if you please, will you hand me the cipher Francis found at his door? Thank you. Now, after Mr. Bailey received the letter, it seems he tore it to pieces, perhaps throwing it overboard. Except, on a windy or stormy day, it is difficult to throw paper. This scrap was found on deck." I presented the small square of paper Mrs. Barrington had given to me. The fragment read "I will expose her true nature unless you." I placed this over the carbonated paper found in Francis's room. What appeared to be a string of symbols on the carbonated paper aligned precisely with the writing on this scrap. It was not any cipher, it was merely a poor copy. "It's the very same writing!" the steward cried. "You see, Mr. Francis. You were the one who wrote this 'cipher,' though you didn't know it, in your scheme to extort Mr. Bailey. I expect you to apologize directly to my friend, Duponte for your false accusations." The passengers whispered and talked amongst themselves while glaring at Francis. "A confidence man!" "A fraud!" I excitedly approached Duponte, who was watching the scene. Oddly, he seemed to find no enjoyment in it. "I suppose you heard?" I asked. "Indeed." "It was something you had said that permitted me to understand, Monsieur Duponte. You said that letters could not write themselves. It made me think of the one time letters do write themselves, with these manifold letter writers, and I looked into each stateroom until I noticed one. Well, are you not very satisfied by this? We have vanquished that man's foolish claims!" "Yes, but to what end?" Duponte asked musingly. "What end? Monsieur Duponte! The truth is out!" I said with exasperation. "Yes, I see," Duponte said quietly. "But you must ask, at all turns, Monsieur Clark, whether the truth is worth the cost." "Cost? I do not understand what you mean." A few moments later, I felt a sense of sudden danger and turned to see Francis swinging a shuffleboard cue toward me. The first try missed, but the surprise of it made me lose my balance, leaving me vulnerable to another assault. Francis swung again, this time at my legs. The steward grabbed the cue before it could injure me. The steward pulled the stick out of Francis's hand and restrained him until he stopped struggling. "You're coming with me, Mr. Francis! For extortion and now assault, sir, the captain has just ordered you confined until we reach America!" I turned to see Duponte's reaction to this last turn of events, but he had returned his attention to a book as though he had already forgotten all that had happened in the incident on the Humboldt.