Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/108

 an official envelope, 'perhaps you will look at this!' and from the envelope he took a half sheet of dark blue notepaper of a type and size used by ladies, and handed it across to me, saying:

'This was found in her card-case here. From Scotland Yard they sent it over to us this afternoon, and its real import we very quickly discovered.'

My eyes fell upon the paper, and I saw that it was covered with lines of puzzling figures in groups of seven, all written neatly in a distinctly feminine hand.

'Well,' I asked in surprise, 'what does all this mean?'

'Only one thing,' was the hard reply. 'This paper, folded small and secreted, was found in this card-case. Those figures you see convey a message in the secret code of the Intelligence Department of the German Naval War Staff—a seven-figure code. A couple of hours ago we succeeded in deciphering the message, which is to the effect that you and Ashton have made an astounding discovery and have succeeded in directing a powerful electric wave by which you can charge metals at a distance, and cause sparking across any intervening spaces of those metals. By this means you are hoping to defeat Zeppelins by exploding the gas inside their ballonets, and as you are both highly dangerous to the success of the enemy's plans for the wholesale destruction of life and property by airships, it is here suggested that you should both meet sudden ends at the hands of certain paid hired assassins of the Berlin secret police.'