Part 16 (1/2)
THE TRACK OF THE TRUTH.
When the Countess had gone, leaving behind her a sweet breath of ”Ideale,” that newest invention of the Parisian perfumer, I sat with my elbows idly upon the table, pondering over her strange words and becoming more than ever puzzled.
Beauty may be only skin-deep, yet it makes a very deep impression. The brilliant woman who was my dear friend's wife had never captivated me.
Nevertheless I had seen in her a genuine desire for reform and had therefore given her my promise. Still the mystery of it all seemed to increase, instead of diminish.
The Earl of Stanchester had, of course, seen the dead man on the morning after the discovery, but had not recognised him. At least it was quite clear that he had no suspicion whatever of who the young man really might be.
From a drawer I took that piece of paper with those puzzling numerals upon it which I had managed to obtain in secret. The cipher was, however, utterly unreadable. Staring at the paper I sat wondering what was written there. If only I could learn the meaning of those figures, then I knew that the truth would quickly become revealed.
Only that morning I had received a response from an expert in cipher-- one of the officials at the Record Office in London--to whom I had submitted a copy of that tantalising doc.u.ment.
”This,” he wrote, ”is what is known as the checker-board cipher, a numerical cipher invented by a Russian revolutionist some forty years ago, and of all secret means of correspondence is the most complicated and ingenious. It is absolutely undecipherable unless the keyword or words agreed upon by the two correspondents be known, and it is therefore much used by Anarchists and Revolutionists. The meaning of the present cipher can never be solved until you gain knowledge of the keyword used, for in writing it the numbers representing each letter of that word are added to the numbers representing each letter of the message. Therefore, in deciphering, the proper subtraction must be made before any attempt can be successful in learning the message contained.
I enclose you a copy of the checker-board used in writing the cipher, but without knowledge of the keyword this can be of no use whatever. It will, however, serve to show you what an extremely ingenious cipher it is, devised as it has been by a Russian of quick and subtle intellect, and used as means of secret communication in the constant plots against the Russian aristocracy. In the Russian prisons this square with its five numbers and twenty-five letters is used in a variety of ways, for most political prisoners have committed it to memory. If two persons are in separate cells, for instance, and one wishes to communicate with the other, who in all probability is acquainted with the use of the square, he will ask, `Who are you?' by rapping on the wall, thus, 5 raps, a pause, 2 raps, a pause (W); 2 raps, a pause, 3 raps, a pause (H); 3 raps, a pause, 4 raps, a pause (O); and so on until the whole question is rapped out. This is the way in which the cipher you have submitted to me is written, but in this case, as I have said, with the numbers of the keyword added. Discover that, and the secret here will be yours.”
Enclosed was a half sheet of note-paper on which was drawn the following device:--
- 1 2 3 4 5 1 A B C D E 2 F G H I K 3 L M N O P 4 Q R S T U 5 V W X Y Z
Ah! If only I could read what was written there! I placed the key beside the message, but saw that all the numbers were higher than those of the checker board, showing that the unknown keyword had been added, thus rendering the cipher secure from any save the person aware of the pre-arranged word. If, however, the expert failed to decipher what was written there, how could I hope to decipher it? I therefore replaced the papers in the drawer regretfully, locked it, and went upstairs to the long, old-fas.h.i.+oned room set apart for me when I dined and slept at the Hall.
My thoughts were full of Lolita and of the curious effect the news of Richard Keene's return had produced upon the Countess. For a long time I sat gazing out across the park, flooded as it was by the bright white light of the harvest moon.
My window was open, and the only sound that reached me there was the distant barking of the hounds in the kennels and the bell of the old Norman church of Sibberton striking two o'clock.
Over there, beyond the long dark line of the avenue, was the spot where the tragedy had been enacted, the spot where, in the clay, was left the imprints of Lolita's shoes. Time after time I tried to get rid of those grave suspicions that ever rose within me, but could not succeed. The evidence against my love, both confirmed by her own words and by the circ.u.mstances of the affair, was so strong that they seemed to convey an overwhelming conviction.
Yet somehow the Countess herself seemed to have united with Lolita in order to preserve the secret. Their interests, it seemed, were strangely identical. And it was this latter fact that rendered the enigma even more puzzling than ever.
Next day the guests shot over at Banhaw, the Countess accompanying them, but ”cubbing” having just opened, the Earl was out with the hounds at five o'clock at the Lady Wood.
A letter I received by the morning post from Lolita at Strathpeffer told of a gay season at the Spa, for quite a merry lot of well-known people always a.s.semble there in early autumn and many pleasant entertainments are given. One pa.s.sage in the letter, however, caused me considerable apprehension. ”If Marigold should question you regarding the re-appearance of a certain person at the inn in Sibberton, tell her _nothing_. She must not know.”
What could she mean? Unfortunately her warning had come too late! I had told the Countess exactly what was contrary to my love's interests.
Could any situation be more perilous or annoying?
When I recollected her ladys.h.i.+p's words of the previous night I saw with chagrin how clever and cunning she was, and with what marvellous tact she had succeeded in eliciting the truth from me.
Pink came in during the afternoon, and flinging himself into the armchair opposite me, took a pinch of snuff with his usual nonchalant air.
”Thought you'd be out cubbing this morning,” he commenced. ”Too early for you--eh? We killed a brace in Green Side Wood. Frank Gordon was there, of course. He's as keen a sportsman as he ever was, and rides as straight as half the young ones. Wonderful man! They say he used, back in the fifties, to ride seventy miles to the meet, hunt all day, and ride home again. That's what I call a sportsman!”
”Yes,” I said. ”There are few left nowadays like old Frank Gordon. He was one of the hunting crowd at the Hayc.o.c.k at Wansford in the old days when men rode hard, drank hard, and played hard. He did the first, but always declares that his present good health is due to abstinence from the other two.”
The old gentleman we were speaking of was the _doyen_ among hunting-men in the Midlands. He had hunted with the Belvoir half a century ago, and was as fine a specimen of an Englishman as existed in these degenerate days when men actually go to meets in motor cars.
The doctor himself hunted, as indeed did every one, the parson of Sibberton included, and the opening of ”cubbing” was always a time of speculation as to what the season was to be, good or bad. The Earl had been delighted at his success at winning the cup for the best dog-hound at the Hound Show at Doncaster back in July, and certainly the pack was never in better form even under the old Earl than it was at present. Of course he spent money lavishly upon it, and money, as is so often the case, meant efficiency. The thousand pounds or so subscribed annually by the Hunt was but a drop in the ocean of expenditure, for a Master of Hounds, if he wishes to give his followers good sport, must be a rich man and not mind spending money to secure that end.
”I had a funny adventure last night,” the doctor remarked presently, after we had discussed the prospects of hunting and all appertaining to it. ”Devilish funny! I can't make it out. Of course you won't say a word of what I tell you, for we doctors aren't supposed to speak about our patients.”