Part 28 (1/2)

My companion stopped short there, and leaned back in her chair, expectantly staring at me.

”Like Marian Haviland Norton's readers,” I said, ”I should like some of the T's crossed and the I's dotted a little more plainly. Don't spare me, either, as far as the 'base rattle of the foreground' is concerned.

But tell me, please, literally just what you think happened.”

She showed her disappointment at that; looked almost aggrieved. Then she laughed out in spite of herself.

”Hurrell Oaks didn't expect a party,” she declared; ”he didn't, at all events, mean to have one. He didn't-_she_ was right about that-'want to see many of us.' He didn't want to see anybody. He just wanted to do his manners. He couldn't decently get out of that much. And, although he may have been asked to come at exactly five-n.o.body, of course, knows how _his_ invitation was worded-he reached Newfair earlier, perhaps unintentionally so, and came instead at four, and knocked politely for admittance. But Mrs. Edgerton's servants, unfortunately, hadn't arrived, and Miss Haviland was, as she herself admitted, taking a bath. She was no doubt actually _in the tub_ when Hurrell Oaks slipped his card under the door.”

IN THE OPEN CODE

_By_ BURTON KLINE From _The Stratford Journal_ _Copyright, 1918, by The Stratford Journal._ _Copyright, 1919, by Burton Kline._

The day's work was finished and the entire job well started. I felt sure we should meet old Bankard's wishes fully. The rare old Virginia manor and its wooded park were going to look again as the original designer meant them to appear. Gordon, I know, agreed with me-Gordon, who was to restore the house as I restored the grounds.

That evening he and I were sitting on a rusted iron bench in a corner of the park that looked off over the hills, watching the summer dusk steal up the eastern sky. I still wanted to talk of the day's accomplishment, but Gordon seemed to have grown-I was going to say dreamy, but he was watchful instead.

Presently he drew out his watch and said, ”In just about four minutes you will hear it.”

”Hear what?”

”See that notch between those two hills about a mile and a half away over there?” He pointed. ”Keep your eye on that.”

”A blast?”

”Yes, a blast. But not the kind you think. Just watch.”

We smoked in silence, and my curiosity was about to break into speech again, or ebb altogether, when it happened.

An ordinary freight train pa.s.sed, but the locomotive, as it emerged from the flat hillside and traversed the broad notch, let off a stream of white puffs from its whistle, and then disappeared behind the other hill, precisely like an episode on the stage.

In a moment the white puffs translated themselves from a sight in the eye to a sound in the ear. And I tell the truth when I say that they reproduced, with a mimicry that was startling, the notes of the last two bars of ”Annie Laurie.”

”What do you make of that!” Gordon turned and exulted to me over his odd little discovery.

”How did you get on to it?”

”Oh, stumbled across it the first evening we were here. It goes every day at this time, as regular as clock-work.”

”Some engineer with a sense of humor amusing himself,” I conjectured.

”But regularity isn't amus.e.m.e.nt. He blows it every day at this time. And always in the same way.”

I tried another hypothesis. ”A code signal of some sort, most likely.”

”But what an odd code! What a poetic code, for a railroad!”

”Well, I've learned to expect a good deal of life in Virginia. It seems to be different here.”

”Yes, it's a code.... Of course it's a code!” Gordon amended himself.