The Little River news., 1922-08-16
True Detective Stories
OUT OF THE AIR

to the fatherland. That much was certain. Washington knew 1t beyond the shadow of doubt, but the way in which the messages were trans mitted was a mystery-dark and ap- parently unfathomable.
 This was in the days before Amer ica entered the war, in the days when the United States was, theoretically at least, a neutral nation. But Won Bernstorff, Won Papen and the rest Of the embassy at Washington were do- ing everything they could to further their schemes from this side of the Atlantic.
 But not even the secret service could penetrate the mystery of the messages. That these were flashed from the huge wireless towers on this side of the Atlantic, or relayed from the German radio stations, seemed fairly obvious. But how?
 "They must be sending the stun through the air." argued the chief of the secret service to Talbot, one of his best men, flor the simple reason that we've closed all their other chan nels."
 Any idea as to the code they are using?" asked Talbot.
 "None at all, but it's probably con- cealed somewhere in the messages which they send out to the ships at sea-press bulletins, stock quotations, and the like. We've studied them carefully, but haven't been able to find thing"
 "How about the outburst from Nauen every morningT'
 "The only explanation for that seems to be that it's an attempt to fog the air so that ships and other towers can't get anything through"
 "Yes, but in that case would the Germans send 1t for an hour early every morning? Why not all day long7 And why that hash of language that doesn't mean thing7 If they were trying to fog things they'd wireless the Bible or Nietzsche or excerpts from some other long book instead of that mess of meaningless rot"
 "All right" retorted the chief, If you think there's clue there, go to it." But Talbot didn't begin his inves- tigations with a study of the Nauen "hast." He made his way at first to the laboratory of Charles B. Apgar, deep student of wireless telegraphy. It was to Apgar that he told his trou- bles and, when he had finished, the expert leaned forward and picked up something from the table in front of him.
 "See thatY Apgar asked. Talbot nodded.
 Looks like an old-fashioned cylin- drical photograph record" he said.
 "Just what it is,' admitted the ex- pert, "only you use it in connection with a wireless phonograph."
 "A wireless phonograph? and the government operatives voice showed that he had never heard of such a contrivance.
 "Yes, a photograph attached to the receiving end of radio station. finished working on 1t few days ago. and I think it's just what you need for this job. It will record and keep track of every sound that comes into the station, enabling you to listen in on messages months after they have been sent With a supply of these records and the necessary patience you ought to be able to figure out the syS- tenn the Huns are using, without their being any the wiser. It may take weeks or even months, but it's just question of being everlastingly at it."
 Apgar was right. Talbot found that it took him nearly four months to get on to the system-four months of ceaseless listening-in at the end of a De Forest audion detectOr which picks up sound waves from thousands of miles away, and even then he would never have located the secret had 1t not been for the wax cylinders. But with the aid of these automatic detec- lives he was able to repeat each mes- sage until he had it almost by heart, trying out the various combinations and symbols until he stumbled across the right one.
 Then, one morning, when the chief of the secret service least expected him, he burst into the office with the exclamation:
 eve got 1.-the fifth, tenth and fifteenth flashes! SeeT' and he held out a sheet of paper on which were row upon row of figures and letters. commencing with "5-S-K-14-B." Looks interesting" admitted tlle chief, "but what does 1t mean?'
 "Got German dictionary here? Newell, have. Luckily it's an old edition-just the one they're using for the code. The letters give the num- bers of the pages, and the figures des- ignate the words, the big ones in bold type. Five and eight K means the fifth and eighth words on page eleven, l4 B means the fourteenth word on page two, and so on. By spacing lem so far apart in the meaningless wire less meSSageS-Or even in the DreSS