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him, and the whole thing looked desperately fishy. If I made a clean

breast of it and told the police everything he had told me, they

would simply laugh at me. The odds were a thousand to one that I

would be charged with the murder, and the circumstantial evidence

was strong enough to hang me. Few people knew me in England; I

had no real pal who could come forward and swear to my character.

Perhaps that was what those secret enemies were playing for. They

were clever enough for anything, and an English prison was as

good a way of getting rid of me till after June 15th as a knife in

my chest.

Besides, if I told the whole story, and by any miracle was believed,

I would be playing their game. Karolides would stay at home,

which was what they wanted. Somehow or other the sight of

Scudder's dead face had made me a passionate believer in his

scheme. He was gone, but he had taken me into his confidence, and

I was pretty well bound to carry on his work.

You may think this ridiculous for a man in danger of his life, but

that was the way I looked at it. I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not

braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed,

and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play

the game in his place.

It took me an hour or two to think this out, and by that time I

had come to a decision. I must vanish somehow, and keep vanished

till the end of the second week in June. Then I must somehow find

a way to get in touch with the Government people and tell them

what Scudder had told me. I wished to Heaven he had told me

more, and that I had listened more carefully to the little he had told

me. I knew nothing but the barest facts. There was a big risk that,

even if I weathered the other dangers, I would not be believed in

the end. I must take my chance of that, and hope that something

might happen which would confirm my tale in the eyes of the Government.

My first job was to keep going for the next three weeks. It was

now the 24th day of May, and that meant twenty days of hiding

before I could venture to approach the powers that be. I reckoned

that two sets of people would be looking for me - Scudder's

enemies to put me out of existence, and the police, who would

want me for Scudder's murder. It was going to be a giddy hunt,

and it was queer how the prospect comforted me. I had been slack

so long that almost any chance of activity was welcome. When I

had to sit alone with that corpse and wait on Fortune I was no

better than a crushed worm, but if my neck's safety was to hang on

my own wits I was prepared to be cheerful about it.

My next thought was whether Scudder had any papers about him

to give me a better clue to the business. I drew back the table-cloth

and searched his pockets, for I had no longer any shrinking from

the body. The face was wonderfully calm for a man who had been

struck down in a moment. There was nothing in the breast-pocket,

and only a few loose coins and a cigar-holder in the waistcoat. The

trousers held a little penknife and some silver, and the side pocket

of his jacket contained an old crocodile-skin cigar-case. There was

no sign of the little black book in which I had seen him making

notes. That had no doubt been taken by his murderer.

But as I looked up from my task I saw that some drawers had

been pulled out in the writing-table. Scudder would never have left

them in that state, for he was the tidiest of mortals. Someone must

have been searching for something - perhaps for the pocket-book.

I went round the flat and found that everything had been ransacked

- the inside of books, drawers, cupboards, boxes, even the

pockets of the clothes in my wardrobe, and the sideboard in the

dining-room. There was no trace of the book. Most likely the enemy

had found it, but they had not found it on Scudder's body.

Then I got out an atlas and looked at a big map of the British

Isles. My notion was to get off to some wild district, where my

veldcraft would be of some use to me, for I would be like a trapped

rat in a city. I considered that Scotland would be best, for my

people were Scotch and I could pass anywhere as an ordinary

Scotsman. I had half an idea at first to be a German tourist, for my

father had had German partners, and I had been brought up to

speak the tongue pretty fluently, not to mention having put in

three years prospecting for copper in German Damaraland. But I

calculated that it would be less conspicuous to be a Scot, and less in

a line with what the police might know of my past. I fixed on

Galloway as the best place to go. It was the nearest wild part of

Scotland, so far as I could figure it out, and from the look of the

map was not over thick with population.

A search in Bradshaw informed me that a train left St Pancras at

7.10, which would land me at any Galloway station in the late

afternoon. That was well enough, but a more important matter was

how I was to make my way to St Pancras, for I was pretty certain

that Scudder's friends would be watching outside. This puzzled me

for a bit; then I had an inspiration, on which I went to bed and

slept for two troubled hours.

I got up at four and opened my bedroom shutters. The faint

light of a fine summer morning was flooding the skies, and the

sparrows had begun to chatter. I had a great revulsion of feeling,

and felt a God-forgotten fool. My inclination was to let things

slide, and trust to the British police taking a reasonable view of my

case. But as I reviewed the situation I could find no arguments to

bring against my decision of the previous night, so with a wry

mouth I resolved to go on with my plan. I was not feeling in any

particular funk; only disinclined to go looking for trouble, if you

understand me.

I hunted out a well-used tweed suit, a pair of strong nailed boots,

and a flannel shirt with a collar. Into my pockets I stuffed a spare

shirt, a cloth cap, some handkerchiefs, and a tooth-brush. I had

drawn a good sum in gold from the bank two days before, in case

Scudder should want money, and I took fifty pounds of it in

sovereigns in a belt which I had brought back from Rhodesia. That

was about all I wanted. Then I had a bath, and cut my moustache,

which was long and drooping, into a short stubbly fringe.

Now came the next step. Paddock used to arrive punctually at

7.30 and let himself in with a latch-key. But about twenty minutes

to seven, as I knew from bitter experience, the milkman turned up

with a great clatter of cans, and deposited my share outside my

door. I had seen that milkman sometimes when I had gone out for

an early ride. He was a young man about my own height, with an

ill-nourished moustache, and he wore a white overall. On him I

staked all my chances.

I went into the darkened smoking-room where the rays of morning

light were beginning to creep through the shutters. There I

breakfasted off a whisky-and-soda and some biscuits from the cupboard.

By this time it was getting on for six o'clock. I put a pipe in

My Pocket and filled my pouch from the tobacco jar on the table by

the fireplace.

As I poked into the tobacco my fingers touched something hard,

and I drew out Scudder's little black pocket-book ...

That seemed to me a good omen. I lifted the cloth from the body

and was amazed at the peace and dignity of the dead face. 'Goodbye,

old chap,' I said; 'I am going to do my best for you. Wish me

well, wherever you are.'

Then I hung about in the hall waiting for the milkman. That was

the worst part of the business, for I was fairly choking to get out of

doors. Six-thirty passed, then six-forty, but still he did not come.

The fool had chosen this day of all days to be late.

At one minute after the quarter to seven I heard the rattle of the

cans outside. I opened the front door, and there was my man,

singling out my cans from a bunch he carried and whistling through

his teeth. He jumped a bit at the sight of me.

'Come in here a moment,' I said. 'I want a word with you.' And

I led him into the dining-room.

'I reckon you're a bit of a sportsman,' I said, 'and I want you to

do me a service. Lend me your cap and overall for ten minutes, and

here's a sovereign for you.'

His eyes opened at the sight of the gold, and he grinned broadly.

'Wot's the gyme?'he asked.

'A bet,' I said. 'I haven't time to explain, but to win it I've got to

be a milkman for the next ten minutes. All you've got to do is to

stay here till I come back. You'll be a bit late, but nobody will

complain, and you'll have that quid for yourself.'

'Right-o!' he said cheerily. 'I ain't the man to spoil a bit of sport.

'Ere's the rig, guv'nor.'

I stuck on his flat blue hat and his white overall, picked up the

cans, banged my door, and went whistling downstairs. The porter

at the foot told me to shut my jaw, which sounded as if my make-up

was adequate.

At first I thought there was nobody in the street. Then I caught

sight of a policeman a hundred yards down, and a loafer shuffling

past on the other side. Some impulse made me raise my eyes to the

house opposite, and there at a first-floor window was a face. As the

loafer passed he looked up, and I fancied a signal was exchanged.

I crossed the street, whistling gaily and imitating the jaunty

swing of the milkman. Then I took the first side street, and went

up a left-hand turning which led past a bit of vacant ground. There

was no one in the little street, so I dropped the milk-cans inside the

hoarding and sent the cap and overall after them. I had only just

put on my cloth cap when a postman came round the corner. I gave

him good morning and he answered me unsuspiciously. At the

moment the clock of a neighbouring church struck the hour of seven.

There was not a second to spare. As soon as I got to Euston

Road I took to my heels and ran. The clock at Euston Station

showed five minutes past the hour. At St Pancras I had no time to

take a ticket, let alone that I had not settled upon my destination. A

porter told me the platform, and as I entered it I saw the train

already in motion. Two station officials blocked the way, but I

dodged them and clambered into the last carriage.

Three minutes later, as we were roaring through the northern

tunnels, an irate guard interviewed me. He wrote out for me a

ticket to Newton-Stewart, a name which had suddenly come back

to my memory, and he conducted me from the first-class compartment

where I had ensconced myself to a third-class smoker,

occupied by a sailor and a stout woman with a child. He went off

grumbling, and as I mopped my brow I observed to my companions

in my broadest Scots that it was a sore job catching trains. I had

already entered upon my part.

'The impidence o' that gyaird!' said the lady bitterly. 'He needit a

Scotch tongue to pit him in his place. He was complainin' o' this

wean no haein' a ticket and her no fower till August twalmonth,

and he was objectin' to this gentleman spittin'.'

The sailor morosely agreed, and I started my new life in an

atmosphere of protest against authority. I reminded myself that a

week ago I had been finding the world dull.

CHAPTER THREE

The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper

I had a solemn time travelling north that day. It was fine May

weather, with the hawthorn flowering on every hedge, and I asked

myself why, when I was still a free man, I had stayed on in London

and not got the good of this heavenly country. I didn't dare face

the restaurant car, but I got a luncheon-basket at Leeds and shared

it with the fat woman. Also I got the morning's papers, with news

about starters for the Derby and the beginning of the cricket season,

and some paragraphs about how Balkan affairs were settling down

and a British squadron was going to Kiel.

When I had done with them I got out Scudder's little black

pocket-book and studied it. It was pretty well filled with jottings,

chiefly figures, though now and then a name was printed in. For

example, I found the words 'Hofgaard', 'Luneville', and 'Avocado'

pretty often, and especially the word 'Pavia'.

Now I was certain that Scudder never did anything without a

reason, and I was pretty sure that there was a cypher in all this.

That is a subject which has always interested me, and I did a bit

at it myself once as intelligence officer at Delagoa Bay during the

Boer War. I have a head for things like chess and puzzles, and I

used to reckon myself pretty good at finding out cyphers. This one

looked like the numerical kind where sets of figures correspond to

the letters of the alphabet, but any fairly shrewd man can find the

clue to that sort after an hour or two's work, and I didn't think

Scudder would have been content with anything so easy. So I

fastened on the printed words, for you can make a pretty good

numerical cypher if you have a key word which gives you the

sequence of the letters.

I tried for hours, but none of the words answered. Then I fell

asleep and woke at Dumfries just in time to bundle out and get into

the slow Galloway train. There was a man on the platform whose

looks I didn't like, but he never glanced at me, and when I caught

sight of myself in the mirror of an automatic machine I didn't

wonder. With my brown face, my old tweeds, and my slouch, I was

the very model of one of the hill farmers who were crowding into

the third-class carriages.

I travelled with half a dozen in an atmosphere of shag and clay

pipes. They had come from the weekly market, and their mouths

were full of prices. I heard accounts of how the lambing had gone

up the Cairn and the Deuch and a dozen other mysterious waters.

Above half the men had lunched heavily and were highly flavoured

with whisky, but they took no notice of me. We rumbled slowly