The Big Book of Espionage

by The Big Book of Espionage (retail) (epub)

  “And would have done so, Clotilde, had you not saved him,” declared her father.

  “It was not I,” she said quickly. “It was Mr. Ewart, who snatched us from them. They were following, and we both should have shared the fate of the Latours had he not taken us up and driven us away. The thanks of the State are due to Mr. Ewart.” And at that moment the little lad entered shyly, and, walking towards her, took her hand.

  “The State—what do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

  “The truth is this,” she said, smiling. “Little Paul, here, lived in England incognito as Paul Latour, but he is really His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Paul of Bosnia, heir to the throne. Because there was a conspiracy in the capital to kill him, he was sent to England in secret in the care of his tutor and his wife, who took the name of Latour, while he passed as their son. The revolutionists had sworn to kill the King’s son, and by some means discovered his whereabouts in England; whereupon four of them were chosen to go there and assassinate him. By good fortune I learnt the truth, and as maid-of-honour to the Queen resolved to say nothing, but to go alone to England in secret and rescue the Crown Prince. The four conspirators had already left our capital; therefore I went in hot pursuit, travelling across Europe, and reaching London on the day before we met. I managed to overtake them, and, watching their movements, I travelled by the same train down to Huntingdon. On arrival there I hurried from the station, got into a taxi, and drove with all speed out to Buckworth. I had been there before, and knew the place well. I crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room by the French window, and found little Paul alone. The Latours were out, he said; so I induced him to leave the place with me without the knowledge of the servants. I desired to see the Latours, and also to watch the movements of the assassins; therefore we hid in the wood close to the house at a spot where I had once met Latour secretly with a message from Her Majesty, who somehow mistrusted Latour’s wife. In half an hour three of the men arrived, and were met by Latour, who had returned almost at the same moment. They entered, carrying some hand-baggage with them, and I was compelled to remain in hiding, awaiting an opportunity to speak with him. At half-past seven, however, to my great surprise I saw them slip out one by one, and disappear into the wood close to where little Paul and I were hiding in the undergrowth. Then, suspecting something was wrong by the stealthiness of their movements, I crept across the grounds and re-entered the drawing-room from the lawn, where, to my horror, I found Latour and his wife lying dead. I saw that a tragedy had been enacted, and, regaining the wood, hastened on with little Paul in the opposite direction, until I came to the Great North Road, and there met you driving your car. They had heard from Latour that the child had wandered out somewhere, and were, I knew, scouring the country for him. Only by your aid the Crown Prince was saved, and we came here into hiding, the King sending my father to meet me and to live here as his son’s protector.”

  “But why did they kill the Latours?”

  “It was part of the conspiracy. Latour, who had recently been back in Bosnia, had, they discovered, given information to the Chief of Police regarding a plot against the Queen, and they, the revolutionists, had condemned both him and his wife to death.”

  “And the packet which they demanded of me?”

  “It contains certain papers concerning the royal family of Bosnia, secrets which the revolutionists desire to obtain and publish,” she explained. “The King, distrustful of those about him, gave the packet into the hands of his faithful subject Latour, in England, and he, in preference to putting it into a safe, which might attract the spies of the conspirators, kept it in a small cavity behind the wainscoting in the drawing-room at Buckworth—a spot which he showed me, so that if any untoward event occurred I should at least know where the documents were secreted. When I realized the terrible fate of the unfortunate Latour and noticed the disordered state of the room and study beyond, I suspected that a search had been made for them, and going to the spot I pressed the spring, and, finding them still safe, secured them. The revolutionists undoubtedly saw us leaving the inn at Stilton together, and believed that I had secured the documents as well as the boy, and that I had probably, in my flight, handed them to you for safe keeping.”

  “And the assassins? What has become of them?”

  “They returned to Bosnia when they had recovered from the wounds you inflicted, but were at once arrested on information supplied by me, and have all four been condemned to solitary confinement for life—a punishment which is worse than death.”

  Since that evening I have been a frequent visitor at the Stefanovitchs’, who still live in Florence under the name of Darfour, and more than once has the little Crown Prince thanked me. The pretty, dark-eyed Clotilde and her father are quite popular in society, but no one dreams that little Paul, who is so carefully guarded by the old General and his trusty soldier-servant, is heir to a European throne, or that his life was saved in curious circumstances by “the Count’s chauffeur.”

  CALLOWAY’S CODE

  O. HENRY

  THERE HAS NEVER BEEN a more beloved short story writer in America than William Sydney Porter (1862–1910), more commonly known as O. Henry. He never wrote a novel, but his miniature masterpieces encapsulated whole lives of ordinary people—his favorite subjects.

  After being convicted of embezzling money from the bank in which he worked, he spent time in prison, reputedly taking the name of a kindly guard for his pseudonym.

  O. Henry wrote more than six hundred short stories that once were as critically acclaimed as they were popular. Often undervalued today because of their sentimentality, many nonetheless remain iconic and familiar, notably such classics as “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Furnished Room,” “The Ransom of Red Chief,” and “A Retrieved Reformation” (better known for its several stage and film versions as Alias Jimmy Valentine). More than two hundred motion pictures and television programs were based on O. Henry’s work, including the eponymous O. Henry Playhouse.

  The O. Henry Prize Stories, a prestigious annual anthology of the year’s best short stories, has been published since 1919. His book The Gentle Grafter (1908) was regarded so highly that Ellery Queen selected it for Queen’s Quorum, the list of the one hundred and six greatest mystery short story collections of all time.

  In “Calloway’s Code,” a newspaper staff takes on the responsibility of deciphering a coded message sent by a reporter on the front of the Russo–Japanese War. This is a remarkable departure for O. Henry, most of his works being set close to home in familiar settings and featuring everyday people living ordinary lives.

  “Calloway’s Code” was originally published in the September 1906 issue of Munsey’s Magazine; it was first collected in Whirligigs by O. Henry (New York, Doubleday, Page, 1910).

  CALLOWAY’S CODE

  O. Henry

  THE NEW YORK ENTERPRISE sent H. B. Calloway as special correspondent to the Russo–Japanese–Portsmouth war.

  For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama and Tokio, shaking dice with the other correspondents for drinks of ’rickshaws—oh, no, that’s something to ride in; anyhow, he wasn’t earning the salary that his paper was paying him. But that was not Calloway’s fault. The little brown men who held the strings of Fate between their fingers were not ready for the readers of the Enterprise to season their breakfast bacon and eggs with the battles of the descendants of the gods.

  But soon the column of correspondents that were to go out with the First Army tightened their field-glass belts and went down to the Yalu with Kuroki. Calloway was one of these.

  Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River. That has been told in detail by the correspondents who gazed at the shrapnel smoke rings from a distance of three miles. But, for justice’s sake, let it be understood that the Japanese commander prohibited a nearer view.

  Calloway’s feat was accomplished before the battle. What he did was to furnish
the Enterprise with the biggest beat of the war. That paper published exclusively and in detail the news of the attack on the lines of the Russian General on the same day that it was made. No other paper printed a word about it for two days afterward, except a London paper, whose account was absolutely incorrect and untrue.

  Calloway did this in face of the fact that General Kuroki was making his moves and living his plans with the profoundest secrecy, as far as the world outside his camps was concerned. The correspondents were forbidden to send out any news whatever of his plans; and every message that was allowed on the wires was censored—with rigid severity.

  The correspondent for the London paper handed in a cablegram describing Kuroki’s plans; but as it was wrong from beginning to end the censor grinned and let it go through.

  So, there they were—Kuroki on one side of the Yalu with forty-two thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and one hundred and twenty-four guns. On the other side, Zassulitch waited for him with only twenty-three thousand men, and with a long stretch of river to guard. And Calloway had got hold of some important inside information that he knew would bring the Enterprise staff around a cablegram as thick as flies around a Park Row lemonade stand. If he could only get that message past the censor—the new censor who had arrived and taken his post that day!

  Calloway did the obviously proper thing. He lit his pipe and sat down on a gun carriage to think it over. And there we must leave him; for the rest of the story belongs to Vesey, a sixteen-dollar-a-week reporter on the Enterprise.

  Calloway’s cablegram was handed to the managing editor at four o’clock in the afternoon. He read it three times; and then drew a pocket mirror from a pigeon-hole in his desk, and looked at his reflection carefully. Then he went over to the desk of Boyd, his assistant (he usually called Boyd when he wanted him), and laid the cablegram before him.

  “It’s from Calloway,” he said. “See what you make of it.”

  The message was dated at Wi-ju, and these were the words of it:

  Foregone preconcerted rash witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted parlous beggars ye angel incontrovertible.

  Boyd read it twice.

  “It’s either a cipher or a sunstroke,” said he.

  “Ever hear of anything like a code in the office—a secret code?” asked the m.e., who had held his desk for only two years. Managing editors come and go.

  “None except the vernacular that the lady specials write in,” said Boyd. “Couldn’t be an acrostic, could it?”

  “I thought of that,” said the m.e., “but the beginning letters contain only four vowels. It must be a code of some sort.”

  “Try ’em in groups,” suggested Boyd. “Let’s see—‘Rash witching goes’—not with me it doesn’t. ‘Muffled rumour mine’—must have an underground wire. ‘Dark silent unfortunate richmond’—no reason why he should knock that town so hard. ‘Existing great hotly’—no it doesn’t pan out. I’ll call Scott.”

  The city editor came in a hurry, and tried his luck. A city editor must know something about everything; so Scott knew a little about cipher-writing.

  “It may be what is called an inverted alphabet cipher,” said he. “I’ll try that. ‘R’ seems to be the oftenest used initial letter, with the exception of ‘m.’ Assuming ‘r’ to mean ’e,’ the most frequently used vowel, we transpose the letters—so.”

  Scott worked rapidly with his pencil for two minutes; and then showed the first word according to his reading—the word “Scejtzez.”

  “Great!” cried Boyd. “It’s a charade. My first is a Russian general. Go on, Scott.”

  “No, that won’t work,” said the city editor. “It’s undoubtedly a code. It’s impossible to read it without the key. Has the office ever used a cipher code?”

  “Just what I was asking,” said the m.e. “Hustle everybody up that ought to know. We must get at it some way. Calloway has evidently got hold of something big, and the censor has put the screws on, or he wouldn’t have cabled in a lot of chop suey like this.”

  Throughout the office of the Enterprise a dragnet was sent, hauling in such members of the staff as would be likely to know of a code, past or present, by reason of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or length of servitude. They got together in a group in the city room, with the m.e. in the centre. No one had heard of a code. All began to explain to the head investigator that newspapers never use a code, anyhow—that is, a cipher code. Of course the Associated Press stuff is a sort of code—an abbreviation, rather—but—

  The m.e. knew all that, and said so. He asked each man how long he had worked on the paper. Not one of them had drawn pay from an Enterprise envelope for longer than six years. Calloway had been on the paper twelve years. “Try old Heffelbauer,” said the m.e. “He was here when Park Row was a potato patch.”

  Heffelbauer was an institution. He was half janitor, half handy-man about the office, and half watchman—thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors.

  Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality. “Heffelbauer,” said the m.e., “did you ever hear of a code belonging to the office a long time ago—a private code? You know what a code is, don’t you?”

  “Yah,” said Heffelbauer. “Sure I know vat a code is. Yah, apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code. Der reborters in der city-room haf it here.”

  “Ah!” said the m.e. “We’re getting on the trail now. Where was it kept, Heffelbauer? What do you know about it?”

  “Sometimes,” said the retainer, “dey keep it in der little room behind der library room.”

  “Can you find it?” asked the m.e. eagerly. “Do you know where it is?”

  “Mein Gott!” said Heffelbauer. “How long you dink a code live? Der reborters call him a maskeet. But von day he butt mit his head der editor, und—”

  “Oh, he’s talking about a goat,” said Boyd. “Get out, Heffelbauer.”

  Again discomfited, the concerted wit and resource of the Enterprise huddled around Calloway’s puzzle, considering its mysterious words in vain.

  Then Vesey came in.

  Vesey was the youngest reporter. He had a thirty-two-inch chest and wore a number fourteen collar; but his bright Scotch plaid suit gave him presence and conferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts. He wore his hat in such a position that people followed him about to see him take it off, convinced that it must be hung upon a peg driven into the back of his head. He was never without an immense, knotted, hard-wood cane with a German-silver tip on its crooked handle. Vesey was the best photograph hustler in the office. Scott said it was because no living human being could resist the personal triumph it was to hand his picture over to Vesey. Vesey always wrote his own news stories, except the big ones, which were sent to the rewrite men. Add to this fact that among all the inhabitants, temples, and groves of the earth nothing existed that could abash Vesey, and his dim sketch is concluded.

  Vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer’s “code” would have done, and asked what was up. Some one explained, with the touch of half-familiar condescension that they always used toward him. Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the m.e.’s hand. Under the protection of some special Providence, he was always doing appalling things like that, and coming off unscathed.

  “It’s a code,” said Vesey. “Anybody got the key?”

  “The office has no code,” said Boyd, reaching for the message. Vesey held to it.

  “Then old Calloway expects us to read it, anyhow,” said he. “He’s up a tree, or something, and he’s made this up so as to get it by, the censor. It’s up to us. Gee! I wish they had sent me, too. Say—we can’t afford to fall down on our end of it. ‘Foregone, preconcerted rash, witching’—h’m.”

  Vesey sat down on a table corner and began to whistle so
ftly, frowning at the cablegram.

  “Let’s have it, please,” said the m.e. “We’ve got to get to work on it.”

  “I believe I’ve got a line on it,” said Vesey. “Give me ten minutes.”

  He walked to his desk, threw his hat into a waste-basket, spread out flat on his chest like a gorgeous lizard, and started his pencil going. The wit and wisdom of the Enterprise remained in a loose group, and smiled at one another, nodding their heads toward Vesey. Then they began to exchange their theories about the cipher.

  It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes. He brought to the m.e. a pad with the code-key written on it.

  “I felt the swing of it as soon as I saw it,” said Vesey. “Hurrah for old Calloway! He’s done the Japs and every paper in town that prints literature instead of news. Take a look at that.”

  Thus had Vesey set forth the reading of the code:

  Foregone—conclusion

  Preconcerted—arrangement

  Rash—act

  Witching—hour of midnight

  Goes—without saying

  Muffled—report

  Rumour—hath it

  Mine—host

  Dark—horse

  Silent—majority

  Unfortunate—pedestrians*

  Richmond—in the field

  Existing—conditions

  Great-White Way

  Hotly—contested

  Brute—force

  Select—few

  Mooted—question

  Parlous—times

  Beggars—description

  Ye—correspondent

  Angel—unawares

  Incontrovertible—fact