The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-10

the aOu11Fd1Iy C1O0 CdD16S-
 I sat at the desk and the others stood round, for somehow or other I had got charge of this expedition.
 It was no good. There were hun dreds of entries, and as far as I could see 1o:17 might cover fifty places. We had to find some way of narrowing the possibilities.
 I took my head in my hands and thought. There must be some way of reading this riddle. What did Scudder mean by steps? I thought of dock steps, but if he had meant that l did not think he would have mentioned the number.
 It must be some place where there were several staircases and one mark edfout from the others by having thirty nine steps.
 Then I had a sudden thought and hunted up all the steamer sailings. | There was no boat which left for the | continent at 10:17 p. m.
 Why was high tide important? If it was a harbor it must be some little 1 place where the tide mattered, or else | 1t was heavy draft boat. But there ] was no regular steamer sailing at that | hour, and somehow I didn't think they | would travel by a big boat from reg | ular harbor.
 So it must be some little harbor l where the tide was important or per l haps no harbor at all. But if it was a little port I couldn't see what the steps signifed. There | were no sets of staircases on any har- bor that I had ever seen. It must be l some place which a particular stair 1 case identified and where the tide was | full at 1O:17. On the whole, it seemed to me that the place must be bit or l open coast. But the staircases kept l puzzling me.
 1 Then I went back to wider cons1d- l erations. Whereabouts would man
 be likely to leave for Germany, man 1 in hurry who wanted a speedy and secret passage? Not from any of the l big harboFs, and not from the channel i or the west coast or the north of Scot i land, for, remember, he was starting | from London. measured the distance on the map and tried to put myself 1n l the enemy's shoes. II should try for 1 Ostend or Antwerp or Rotterdam, and l I should sail from somewhere on the
 east coast between Cromer and Dover.
 All this was very loose guessing, and
 don't pretend it was ingenious or
 scientific.
 l wasn't any kind of Sherlock
 Holmes. But I have always fancied
 had a kind of instinct about questions
 like this. I don't know if I can ex-
 plain myself, but I used to use my
 brains as far as they went, and after
 they came to blank wall guessed,
 and usually found that my guesses | came pretty nearly being right.
 So I set out all my conclusions on a
 bit of admiralty paper. They ran like
 this:
 | FAIRLY CERTAIN. | F'irst.-Place where there several
 sets of stairs-one that matters distin- guished by having thirty-nine steps. Second.-Fsull tide at 10:17 p. m.. from l place Leaving shore only possible at full l tide.
 1 probably not harbor.
 l Fourth.-No regular night steamer al
 10:17. Means of transport. must be trannr | (unlikely) yacht fishing boat.
 There my reasoning stopped. I made
 another list, which headed Guess ed,'' but I was just as sure of the one as the other:
 GUESSED. | FIrst-Place not harbor, but open coast second.-Boat small-trawler, yacht ol
 launch.
 Third.-PIace somewhere on east coas
 between Cromer and Dover
 It struck me as odd that I should be
 sitting at that desk with cabinet min
 ister, a field marshal two high govern
 ment officials and a French genera ] watching me, while from the scribblt
 of a dead man I was trying to drag { secret which meant life or death for us Sir Walter had joined us and pres entIy cGillivray arrived. He hat } sent out instructions to watch the fort and railway stations for the three gen ] tlemen whom I had described to Si 3 Walter Not that he or any of his col ] leagues thought that that would d.
 much good.
 1l tsHere's the most can make of it, said. we have got to find plac 3 where there are several staircase ? down to the beach, one of which ha 3 thirty nine steps. think it's piece o l open coast with biggish cliffs some ? where between the wash and the chan a nel Also it's a place where full tid
 is at 1O:17 tomorrow night"
 Then an idea struck me. "Is ther I no inspector of coast guards or som r fellow like that who knows the eas
 coast?'
 u Whitaker said there was and that h
 lived in Clapham. He went off in a car to fetch him, and the rest of US sa e about the little room and talked z anything that came into our Heads.
 lit pipe apd went over the whol 2 thing again till my brain grew weary. e About 1 in the morning the coas e guard man arrived. He was a fine ol
 fellow with the look of a naval office t and was desperately respectful to tn
 company. I left the war minister l. cross examine him. for felt he woui s think it cheek in me to talk. J. "We want you to tell US the place 4H xr1I1o " there are cliffs and where several set e of steps run down to the beach,"
 He thought for bit What kin e of steps do you mean, sir? There ar
 plenty of places with roads cut dow n through the cliffs and most roads hay