not the moon – Azores answered. – That shines a bottle.
– Well and that?
– And the fact that if it did not drown, so it was corked. In such bottles there are letters crashed, here that. It is necessary to catch this bottle.
Azores hurried to the captain. Makovsky listened to him without special pleasure. To catch a bottle in which, perhaps, there is nothing and – to waste time. On the other hand, sea traditions oblige: the bottle has to be caught. And it gave the command. The trawler reduced the course and stopped. Rolling amplified. Azores was strongly pleased with a new adventure.
Sailors estimated how to catch a bottle. It is inexpedient to lower a trawl: cells of its network were wide and the bottle would slip through them. The small network with small cells was found, it and caught a bottle.
Azores was not mistaken: the bottle hermetically was corked rubber up and in it paper was seen. The bottle was delivered in the captain’s cabin. Makovsky carefully took out a stopper and got the leaf curtailed into a tubule from a bottle. In a note widely it was written in English:
“On a case of death of the steamship “Leviathan”. I ask to deliver this note to Argentina, Buenos Aires, Litl Street, 344. To Zhuan Hurges.
Blasco Jurgues”.
Further there was a ciphered text – continuous rows of the letters printed on the machine. Right at the end, after the code – an addition:
“In the letter extremely important data. I ask to deliver with the courier. Costs of journey will be paid on the place.
If it is impossible to send with the courier, I ask to report on a bildapparata”.
Makovsky turned a leaf in hands and burst out laughing.
– Some odd fellow – he told. – Thinks that there will be people who will give up the business and will go at own expense to South America to find for the addressee and to transfer it the letter in hope for payment of expenses.
– And the addressee, perhaps, already died or left in the unknown direction – the navigator added.
– It is possible to photograph the letter and to send a picture – Ginzburg advised.
Azores before listening silently unexpectedly told:
– For me it is absolutely clear that Blasco Jurgues who died together with well-known “Leviathan” wished that his letter was transferred without publicity. The letter is ciphered not for nothing and if to transmit this code through many countries by telegraph or bildy, then, naturally, secret polices and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of a number of the countries will become interested in it. Jury encoders will lose a dream and appetite, will not decipher this letter yet. Jurgues, obviously, was confident in ingenuity and nobility of into what hands its bottle will get. He asked to resort to a bildapparat only as a last resort. The last will of tragicly died person has to be executed.
– And suddenly this document contains weapon against us, the USSR? What if Hurges is an agent of the imperialistic power planning tricks against us? – the captain asked.
All stopped.
– Fears are sober. Everything is possible – Azores answered after reflection. – However it is improbable that official diplomatic couriers or spies threw into the ocean of a bottle with the ciphered documents. How the code was cunning made, there will always be a meticulous rasshifrovshchik. Deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The governments always have an opportunity to direct classified documents with diplomatic mail. If by steamship the state document died, its copies would remain in the ministry. Instead of the died Hurges other person would be sent if Hurges was a diplomatic courier; on that would business also came to an end. Here something other. I believe, Hurges – whoever he was – worked, as they say, at own risk. Perhaps, it is one of the adventurers who opened a placer or something like that. In the death hour he decided to reveal a secret to the relative – Zhuan Hurges, probably, his brother, the father or the son. – Azores took a view of seamen. All were silent, and it continued: – My plan is as follows: the newspaper editorial office in which I work suggested me to go to South America. There now are interesting events. I will go there and I will take the letter with myself. Just in case we will make the copy. And I, having arrived to Buenos Aires, first of all carefully I find out who such Hurges. If it not from our camp, I… hold the letter until we decipher it and we will be convinced that it is safe for us.
– The last will of the dead has to be executed – with irony Ginzburg repeated Azores’s words.
– Yes, if the died not enemy – quietly parried Azores. – Our ethics consist in guarding interests of the class. So? In a word, I go to search for Hurges. You agree with me, companions?
– We cannot resolve such issue – the captain carefully told.
– Certainly – Azores confirmed. – I will be in Moscow and I will agree. But whether not too we are melochna?. Hurges, throwing a bottle into the sea, knew that she can be brought by the Gulf Stream Current and to northern coast of France, and to west banks of England, and to coast of Norway, even to New Earth and Franz Josef Land where Gulf Stream, by the way, leaves deeply. Hurges, if he is not a fool (and he, apparently, was not the fool), knew that his bottle can appear also in the capitalist country, and in the Soviet Union. He knew, of course, that will be interested in its code. However he was sure, it is obvious that without key its code will not be deciphered. Therefore asked to transfer as a last resort on a bilda. At last, the bottle could get lost in the ocean. Mere chance that we found it, but not Norwegians or Germans. It could fall into hands of fascists…
– Eventually, whether not too the great value is attached by us to all this? – Ginzburg asked. – What makes huge importance for Hurgesov – for us and for all others, perhaps, does not cost the eaten-away egg…
The correspondent accurately curtailed the letter and hid it in a pocket.
– In any case, having come back from Argentina, and maybe earlier, I will notify you on the progress. We still will manage to photograph the letter.
Strongly swung the trawler, wind rose. The captain passed into the cabin and accepted team.
BLIND OLD WOMAN
Azores looked for the street on which Hurges lived. Gloomy people suspiciously examined well dressed Azores and silently showed the direction – each time more and more in depth of slums of working quarter. Azores was a little alarmed. What would it mean? The one who threw a bottle traveled on “Leviathan” – by steamship of rich men. What affairs the wealthy businessman who tragicly died in the ocean could have with people of this suburb?
With great difficulties of Azoresu at last it was succeeded to find the street which he looked for. The gloomy place – near the cemetery of the poor and the new building of prison. “That, the authorities were provident, having arranged the cemetery and prison in this part of the city. Care of the working population of the quarter: to bring closer ‘public’ places with which it most often deals” – Azores thought.
Here and the house No. 344 if it is possible to call only these ruins the house… To call? There is no call. The
