 Blair of the Mounties! We present the 35th episode in Blair of the Mounties, being the second part of the mystery. Into the quiet atmosphere of law-abiding England comes the thrilling news of piracy in the English Channel. Half a million sterling stolen from the motorship Ibex. The pirates disappear, leaving no trace. Suspicion points to Greystone Manor in Devonshire as the headquarters of the robbers. Mysterious radio messages in figure cypher puzzle the police and intelligence officers. Inspector Blair again takes up the trail. Our scene again opens at Astley Cottage, the home of Dr. Craig Holland, where we find Blair and McClain of the County Police, discussing the mysterious raid of the night before. Inspector! Hey! Inspector! Blair! What? Oh, hello, machine. At you? What time is it? Nearly five o'clock. It's getting day late. Well, what's it doing? Oh, nothing much. I've been doing to Greystone Hall to look for Parsons. He was on watch last night. Did he see anything? No, sir. He wasn't at the meeting place. I can't understand it. Oh, he'll turn up all right. I'm interested in this mysterious visitor we had last night. Oh, the man with the machine gun. Yes. Should be light enough to see if he's left any tracks. Hello, Inspector. That was the queerest thing you ever saw in my twenty years' experience. Did you get a side of it? No, I just saw something moving in the bushes. And that machine gun opened up. And I dropped on the carpet. Those bullets made a nice mess of the doctor's study. But what is so queer about this visitor? Well, I'll tell you. I got a view of him as he slept through the bushes. First, I thought it was a big monkey. What? I hear me well say that, sir. The fella was dressed in a tight-fitting suit of green. We are masked over his face. I saw him plainly in the moonlight. Good Lord. What a weird thing. Anyhow, let's have a look outside. It was overhear, sir. Just off the gravel path. See if he left any tracks. Here you are, sir. This is where he stepped off the path. Sure, yes. That's a good print. Why? This fella had no boots on. That's what I told you. He was dressed in a skin-tight suit of dark green from head to foot. Hold on. Look at that mark of his. Seem round the outer edge of the foot. If this was Canada, I'd say he was wearing moxons. Something like that, all right. Look, here's where he fired from. See? The empty shells. Yes. Looks like a light browning machine gun. About 30 karabes. Well, look, he didn't get anybody. Really, McLane, this thing is going beyond a joke. Look, there's the people in London are right, and there is something doing it. Grayston Manor. Well, it couldn't have been, sir. We've searched the whole place from cellar to attic, and there's nothing there. And where does this strange marauder come from? Why should he be after us? Must have something to do with these gold robberies. Oh, my. That's likely. Hello. Who's this? Oh, hi. Come out and read. Good morning, Blair. You're up early. Come out and read. That brings you down here. You came down by plane to Exeter. You heard about the second gold robbery? Yes. Hello. Hello. Who broke the window? Oh, we had a visitor last night. Treated us to a burst of machine gun fire through the window. Anybody hit? No. Washington McClane saw him in time, but he got clean away. What sort of a man was it? Well, sir, it was queer. He was all in green. Wait a minute. Green, you say? In a close fitting suit with a green hood. Aye, that's it, sir. What do you mean, Reed? I don't know, but wait till I tell you about the second gold robbery. The Altonia was stopped last night in the Irish coast. They got away with it again? Yes. They got away again. But the Altonia's a big liner. How'd they work it? This time, they used two planes. The ship was stopped in the same way. The engines failed suddenly. The lights went out. Then the planes closed in on the ship and dropped gas bombs. Gas bombs? Good Lord, that's a new one. Yes, the whole ship was filled with gas. Tear gas, apparently. Anyway, it didn't harm anybody. There were some of the bandits already barred as before. They made for the strong room. There must have been 20 men in it again. Did they use the ship's boats? Yes, same as before. But here's the funny thing. These people wore a sort of green suit, just like this man you saw last night. Yes, apparently a sort of gas-proof clothing. Bulletproof, too. The Third Office have fired at one of them at close range. It didn't seem to bother him much. It was a bad business range, I should say. It was the biggest thing we ever had to deal with since the war. Every destroyer available is out patrolling the channel. But we never got a trace of those people. After the robbery, they just vanished. And you're still getting those radio messages? Yes, the air was full of them last night. But we haven't been able to decode them yet. It's maddening to have this thing going on and not to be able to do anything. What about Greaston Hall, McLean? Nothing to do in there last night, sir. We had men patrolling the roads. I haven't heard from Sergeant Parsons yet. Here's one of your men now, McLean. Yes, what does it mean? We found Parsons. What? You phoned him. You mean he's... Yes, he's dead. Shot through the head from behind. Where is he? Out by the backwater, just below the awl. Anything else? Not much. There was this earpiece of piper in his hand. A leaf out of his notebook. Just a couple of words on it. Must have been trying to write something when he kicked off. Let's see it. All right. Heavenly, what is it, Mac? Look in, and then there's a no, or maybe it's a cue. Who do you make of it, sir? I say, look in, cue. I don't know. It doesn't help much. Better get someone who knows the district here. How many men have you, McLean? Oh, we've got a dozen police between here and Coombs here watching the road, sir. They're sending another lot from Plymouth this morning. But I don't see what we can do. Our men are unarmed and this crowd seem to be pretty well healed. All right. There'll be a landing party ashore from the Repulse in a little while. Now tell me, where does Grayston Hall lie from here? You can see the chimneys over by the trees yonder in the valley, sir. I see. What's that water in the eastward there? That's the estuary of the River Taser. Is this Grayston Hall on the river? No, sir. There's a backwater that runs up to the hall, though. Mead here knows it better than I do. Yes, sir. It's an old backwater. It used to be a canal. It runs through the all grounds. Hmm. Is it used at all? Not now, sir. Years ago, the barges used to go up there for stone. There's several old quarries along the bank, just below Grayston Hall. Quarries? I say, McCain? That might be what Parsons meant. Look in quarry. Sure enough. That's an idea. I'll take a look around there this morning. All right. You'd better go ahead. Let me know if you find anything. I'll be inside with a command to read. Yes, sir. Well, what's the next move, Blair? Pretty hard to say. There are a lot of new factors to work out. Let's go over the whole situation and see what we've got. The first thing was that Ibex robbery. Yes, that was the first robbery, but not the first time we heard of this mysterious stopping of a ship. That's right. You mentioned the case of that cruiser in the Mediterranean. What was that? Several months ago, the light cruiser Thetis, about a hundred miles west of Malta, reported that her engine suddenly failed, from no apparent cause. No damage was done? No, it was daylight, a calm sea. A few minutes later, the power came on again and she proceeded on her course. Any definite theory what this strange influence was? No. Naturally, there were all sorts of theories advanced, but nothing that explained the cause. It must be something that affects the electric power on a ship. Thetis was an ordinary oil-burning steam vessel, wasn't she? Yes, but the boilers are fed by electric pumps. I see. In the case of the Ibex, she was a motor ship. Yes, in that case, it was the electric power again. The engine stopped. The lights went out and she was helpless. And that was the first time these people tried the piracy stuff? Yes, of course. That was a fairly easy job compared with this last robbery. They had their men aboard, the shipless passengers. Then the ship stopped. All they had to do was to deal with a few members of the crew that were on duty. Transfer the gold to the boats and the job was done. All except the getaway. As far as I can see, that was the easiest thing of all. You're convinced they were using a submarine? Not much doubt about that. It couldn't be anything else. And if that is correct, this mysterious neutralizing power must come from that submarine. Of course. We'd give a lot to get hold of that craft to find out how they managed to stop a big ship would be worth a lot more to us than the gold they've stolen. Yes, that's right enough. And on that theory we have the modus operandi. This submarine gets into position right ahead of the ship. Turns on the power and stops the ship. Yes, then the robbery occurs. The robbers take to the boats, pull clear of the ship. Then the power's switched off and the ship proceeds on her course. Yes, the rest is simple. The submarine picks up the men and the gold. The boats are set adrift, and that's all. There's just one thing that is important to us. What's that? This submarine must come to the surface to pick up those men. I see. You mean that would be the opportunity for getting the submarine? Certainly. You see, there's a lot of gold moving just now. Practically every westbound liner carries bullion. But what about this last case of the Altonia? It is the most serious of all. I should say it was. It points to a highly organized system and a carefully worked out time schedule. Every one of these men knew his job and the thing worked perfectly. That confirms or it tends to confirm our theory that this work is done by a nation and not an ordinary gang of bandits. Exactly. Something entirely new in history. But the battling thing is still the question of the getaway. Where did those planes come from? And where is that submarine? That becomes of all these new men between times. They're certainly working fast. Two robberies in three days, and here we are without a single clue that leads anywhere. I don't know, Blair. I think we're pretty warm here at Coombs Seaton. That man who came last night is undoubtedly one of the crowd that handled these robberies. Funny, they should take a risk like that. That's funny, all right. Yet it's understandable. It points to one thing. What's that? That they're not through with these robberies and that they're playing for time, doing everything to upset any chance of detection till they finish this series of raids. It also tends to confirm your idea that their headquarters is down here somewhere. Let's concentrate on that, then. What do you get out of these minor occurrences? A raid on this house last night. Then the killing of that police sergeant near Greaston Hall. I was just thinking that over. In the first place, it suggests this to me. This series of gold raids is all in a cut-and-dried plan, made some time ago. That stopping of the thesis in the Mediterranean was a sort of rehearsal. Yes, evidently. But where does that get you? Hold on, just consider that a minute. You've got a set of men carrying out a sort of blueprint job in which every detail is thought out. Yes, of course. Then you have these two minor incidents. Not in the plan. It points to the fact that the man in charge is a good executive, but not a good thinker. I see what you mean. These two local occurrences, particularly, sending that man in the protective suit were rather crude. Much cruder than the actual robberies. And it was a very dangerous risk to take. Maybe. But it indicates that they know well on to their headquarters. Yes. If we could only get a line on those wireless messages. Oh, that reminds me. McLean gave me one message that they found on Swartz in that Waverton case. Ah. That's funny. Does it help any? Well, there's one thing about it. There was a notation in pencil. The letters O-T over the first set of numbers. O-T? Hmm. It reminds me of scripture lessons when I was a youngster. The only thing I can connect with the letters is Old Testament. Here it is again. Old Testament. I wonder. There must be a Bible around here somewhere. Yes. Yes. Here's one in the book here. Got an idea? Just a long shot. Got one of those messages? Yes. Here's the last one we picked up. Just a mass of figures like the rest. All right. Give me the first few figures. It starts with one. Stop. Three. Stop. Forty-seven. Stop. All right. Let's try that. Forty. No. No, that's no good. I thought it might by some wild chance be a Bible cipher. I see. Try New Testament. That's rather ridiculous. They'd never use such a simple... Hold on. Give me those numbers again. One. Three. Forty-seven. Good Lord. It might be. That's the word prepare. What's the next number? Forty. And then a string of single figures. That's the word too. I say Blair. You don't really mean to say that. Yes I do. We've got the key to that code. You have listened to episode 35 in Blair of the Mountains. The third and concluding episode in the mystery of the Ibex will be heard in episode 36 of the series.