Pamela went back to Moss Cottage with new courage. The secret, which had
almost overwhelmed her when she had tried to bear it alone, assumed a
different aspect now she shared it with her friends. Captain Harper had
taken the full responsibility of the affair, and as one of His Majesty's
officers she knew he could be trusted. She placed herself entirely in
his hands, and followed his directions implicitly. To keep watch without
arousing her uncle's suspicions was to be her present rôle. Under cover
of going to tea with the Watsons, she met Captain Harper at Walden, and
learnt from him the Morse code. Once she had mastered that, she was able
to write down some of the wireless messages. To her they were absolutely
unintelligible, for they were in cipher, but she made a faithful record
of what she heard through the receiver, and sent it by David or Anthony
to the young officer.
For the moment Captain Harper acknowledged himself baffled.
"We have the keys to a number of ciphers, but there's one here we don't
understand. It's solely for this reason we're allowing this wireless
apparatus at Moss Cottage to remain where it is. Pamela must use all
her ingenuity to discover the key to the cipher. She's the only person
who has the opportunity of doing so. If we were to arrest Mr. Hockheimer
at once we might or might not find treasonable papers upon him. It is
doubtful if we should learn his secret."
To David and Anthony the affair was of the supremest interest. They
envied Pamela her unique chance of serving her country. They were glad
enough to be employed as carriers, and would take the notes from her
when they met her in the morning, and, according to arrangement, convey
them to Captain Harper. Sometimes they took them direct to the Camp,
after they returned from school, and sometimes they handed them to an
orderly who would be strolling about near the station. As for Pamela,
she lived from day to day in a ferment of expectation, waiting and
watching for her opportunity. And one evening she found it. Mr.
Hockheimer had come, as was his custom, to Moss Cottage, and had set his
niece to listen for messages while he took his ease in the house. For an
hour or more Pamela had sat with the receiver to her ears, but had heard
nothing. At last came the familiar humming. She jotted down the letters,
put the paper safely in her pocket, and ran up the garden to warn her
uncle. That night he had been drinking more heavily than usual. He
lurched in his walk as he approached the stable, and it was with
difficulty that he climbed the ladder. Pamela followed him nervously.
His hands shook as he fitted on the receiver, but he nevertheless took
down the message. Then he paused, and seemed to be calculating
something out on the paper. She crept a little nearer. He was too
muddled to realize her approach. She peeped over his shoulder unnoticed.
In his half-drunken condition he was working out the cipher and writing
it down. She copied it word by word.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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