Valentine Williams

“ If Grundt realizes that he has been tricked before we are out of his clutches, all a British warship can do is to give us a military funeral. Do you understand me? Now I had thought of withdrawing our guns and stores to the upper part of the island and trying to find a safe hiding-place there until the Naomi comes back. But the sight of the launch has given me a better idea than that. ”

“ In the light of the fresh clue I had obtained, I must push on with my investigations at the grave itself and that with out a moment's delay. For the rest of the cipher, notably those baffling bars of music, which were firmly fixed in my mind—well, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!
I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes past eleven. “Mittag”—noon—the message was dated, clearly an indication of the time at which the experiment with the heliograph was to be made. If I were to act, I must act at once. Fortunately the grave could not be far from where I lay. But what of Clubfoot? ”

“ Garth replied. “And that's intact. And her tank's half full!”
“Then,” said I, broaching my idea, “why shouldn't you and Carstairs take her and fetch the Naomi back? Alcedo is only a matter of a hundred miles or so. You could be back here with the yacht to-morrow or the next day. You've got the chart, haven't you?”
“Aye,” rejoined Garth slowly, “I've got the chart and a compass. But we're not leaving you here?”
“Yes,” I said, “you are.”
“With luck,” I told him, “I may have twenty-four hours—not more—in which to work undisturbed on the clearing-up of the cipher. ”

“ The message, therefore, read:
“Turn the heliograph at an angle of 85 degrees [i.e., from the horizontal, since it had been wired so as only to be raised or lowered] on a compass bearing of 27 degrees...”
The weight of the little mirror in my jacket pocket heartened me immensely. Clubfoot, I knew, would see the figure “85” in the allusion to the Kiel garrison. But the mirror was the starting-point for the whole cipher. And he had never known that a mirror was on the grave! The mirror, fixed in position as I had found it, made the first half of the message as clear as day. ”