INTHEINNINTH BBFVVZBJAHKL
He traces the I column until B is reached; the _first_ letter in that line, T, is the first letter of the message--and so on.
Simple! Yes, childishly simple with the key-word; and the key-word can be carried in one"s mind. Without the key-word, translation is impossible.
Harleston put down the paper and leaned back.
Altogether it was a most interesting collection, these four articles on the table. It was a pity that the cab and the sleeping horse were not among the exhibits. Number one: a lady"s lace handkerchief. Number two: three American Beauty roses, somewhat the worse for wear and violent usage. Number three: a cipher message. Number four: photograph of Madame--or Mademoiselle--de Cuthbert, de Spencer, de Lotzen. There was a pretty plot behind these exhibits; a pretty plot, or he missed his guess. It might concern the United States--and it might not. It would be his duty to find out. Meanwhile, the picture stirred memories that he had thought long dead. Also it suggested possibilities. It was some years since they had matched their wits against each other, and the last time she rather won out--because all the cards were hers, as well as the _mise en scene_. And she had left--
His thought trailed off into silence; and the silence lasted so long, and he sat so still, that the ash fell unnoticed from his cigarette; and presently the cigarette burned itself into the tip, and to his fingers.
He tossed it into the tray and laughed quietly.
Rare days--those days of the vanished protocol and its finding! He could almost wish that they might be again; with a different _mise en scene_, and a different ending--and a different client for his. He was becoming almost sentimental--and he was too old a bird for sentiment, and quite too old at this game; which had not any sentiment about it that was not pretence and sham. Yet it was a good game--a mighty entertaining game; where one measured wits with the best, and took long chances, and played for high stakes; men"s lives and a nation"s honour.
He picked up the photograph and regarded it thoughtfully.
"And what are to be the stakes now, I wonder," he mused. "It"s another deal of the same old cards, but who are players? If America is one, then, my lady, we shall see who will win this time--if you"re in it; and I take it you are, else why this picture. Yet to induce you to break your rule and cross the Atlantic, the moving consideration must be of the utmost weight, or else it"s purely a personal matter. H-u-m! Under all the circ.u.mstances, I should say the latter is the more likely. In which event, I may not be concerned further than to return these--" with a wave of his hand toward the exhibits.
For a while longer he sat in silence, eyes half closed, lips a bit compressed; a certain sternness, that was always in his countenance, showing plainest when in reflective thought. At last, he smiled. Then he lit another cigarette, took up the letter and the photograph, and put them in the small safe standing behind an ornate screen in the corner--not, however, without another look at the calmly beautiful face.
The roses he left lie on the table; the steel safe would not preserve them in _statu quo_; moreover, he knew, or thought he knew, all that they could convey. He swung the door shut; then swung it open, and looked again at the picture--and for sometime--before he put it up and gave the k.n.o.b a twirl.
"I"m sure bewitched!" he remarked, going on to his bedroom. "It"s not difficult for me to understand the Duke of Lotzen. He was simply a man--and men, at the best, are queer beggars. No woman ever understands us--and no more do we understand women. So we"re both quits on that score, if we"re not quite on some others." Then he raised his hands helplessly, "Oh, Lord, the petticoats, the petticoats!"
Just then the telephone rang--noisily as befits two o"clock in the morning.
"Who the devil wants me at such an hour?" he muttered.
The clang was repeated almost instantly and continued until he unhooked the receiver.
"Well!" he said sharply.
"Is that Mr. Harleston?" asked a woman"s voice. A particularly soft and sweet and smiling voice, it was.
"I am Mr. Harleston," he replied courteously--the voice had done it.
"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Harleston!" the voice rippled. "I suppose you are rather astonished at being called up at such an unseemly hour--"
"Not at all--I"m quite used to it, mademoiselle," Harleston a.s.sured her.
"Now you"re sarcastic," the voice replied again; "and, somehow, I don"t like sarcasm when I"m the cause of it."
"You"re the cause of it but not the object of it," he a.s.sured her. "I"m quite sure I"ve never met you, and just as sure that I hope to meet you today."
"Your hope, Mr. Harleston, is also mine. But why, may I ask, do you call me mademoiselle? I"m not French."
"It"s the pleasantest way to address you until I know your name."
"You might call me madame!"
"Perish the thought! I refuse to imagine you married."
"I might be a widow."
"No."
"Or even a divorcee."
"And you might be a grandmother," he added.
"Yes."
"And doing the Maxixe at the Willard, this minute."
"Yes!" she laughed.
"But you aren"t; and no more are you a widow or a divorcee."
"All of which is charming of you, Mr. Harleston but it"s not exactly the business I have in hand."
"Business at two o"clock in the morning!" he exclaimed.
He had tried to place the voice, and had failed; he was becoming convinced that he had not heard it before.
"What else would justify me in disturbing you?" she asked.
"Yourself, mademoiselle. Let us continue the pleasant conversation and forget business until business hours."
"When are your business hours, Mr. Harleston--and where"s your office?"
"I have no office--and my business hours depend on the business in hand."
"And the business in hand depends primarily on whether you are interested in the subject matter of the business, _n"est-ce pas_?"
"I am profoundly interested, mademoiselle, in any matter that concerns you--as well as in yourself. Who would not be interested in one so impulsive--and anything so important--as to call him on the telephone at two in the morning."
"And who on his part is so gracious--and wasn"t asleep," she answered.
Harleston slowly winked at the transmitter and smiled.
He thought so. What puzzled him, however, was her idea in prolonging the talk. Maybe there was not any idea in it, just a feminine notion; yet something in the very alluring softness of her voice told him otherwise.
"You guessed it," he replied. "I was not asleep. Also I might guess something in regard to your business."
"What?"
"No, no, mademoiselle! It"s impertinent to guess about what does not concern me--yet."