by Sax Rohmer
“You see, it’s so difficult to make him relax. He has such a restless spirit. For instance, he works at night, when he should be asleep, on what he calls ‘Flint’s Fist’.”
“Flint’s Fist? But this intrigues me, yes. Acquaint me with the character of Flint’s Fist.”
“Well — it’s a meaningless sentence which he found on the back of an old envelope. Dan is crazy about ‘Treasure Island’, and he pretends that this thing is a clue to Captain Flint’s buried treasure. I should think he has wasted a whole writing block trying to work it out! He pesters everyone who calls with it.”
“And what is this sentence?”
“It consists of several odd words — I can’t quite remember them; but it has no apparent meaning.”
“But the envelope, eh?”
“Oh, the envelope.” Fay reproduced that tiny grimace first inspired by a reference to Mrs. Vane; it made her straight nose wrinkle in a really delightful way. “I know I am rather uncharitable, but the envelope was given to me by poor Sir Giles Loeder on the day he visited Otterly. He had no cards, apparently, and he ... wanted me to ‘phone or write. It was addressed to him, and he scribbled his number in the corner. This queer sentence is written in pencil on the back.”
“Mon dieu!” Dr. de Brion’s swift change of manner, of voice, was electrifying: he stood quite still, watching Fay. “If it could be! Nurse Fay, it was your Shakespeare who said ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men—’ If it could be! Yes — let us go to Rosemary Cottage.”
Fay stared at him in a way which reminded Dr. de Brion of a startled deer. “I am of crossword puzzles the expert,” he explained gaily. “Perhaps I shall enable Squadron Leader Dan to relax!” And he grasped her arm in his irresistibly affectionate way and led her on, insisting that she march in step with the strains of “Up in the morning early,” which he whistled for that purpose.
So, entering a tree-shaded path which did its best to follow the erratically winding stream, they presently opened a white gate, and walked under a pergola smothered with roses, many still in bloom. It led to the porch of Rosemary Cottage, a typical workman’s cottage, modernised no doubt by Lord Huskin. In this porch a very small corporal stood smoking a cigarette, which he immediately extinguished at sight of the visitors, dropped and trod on. He had gray hair, a neat gray moustache, walked with one shoulder higher than the other, and in fact presented much of the appearance of a gnome. It presently appeared that he was Squadron Leader Corcoran’s batman, and that he was an Irish Canadian.
“The top o’ the mornin’, nurse,” said he, “and a fine mornin’ it is, too.”
“Splendid, Toby — and how is our patient? This is Dr. de Brion to see him.”
“Good mornin’, your honor. Sure the boss is in fine fettle.”
And, Fay tripping lightly up an open staircase which began almost immediately inside the door, Toby followed with slower steps.
Dr. de Brion smoked a cigarette, taking almost photographic note of the appointments of this small but cosy room, and listening delightedly to the song of birds in a shrubbery outside the windows. The place was so restful, fragrant, and far, far removed from that world in which much of his life was passed. He turned at the sound of voices and footsteps.
The patient, rather carelessly dressed in mufti, was coming downstairs, assisted by Toby and Fay Perigal. He was a slightly built fellow with a shock of fair brown hair, which evidently defied both brush and comb, for it could not have been described as well behaved; it was not that kind of hair. The clean shaven, rather freckled face in all probability normally displayed a healthy color; at present it was rather pale. Corcoran had steadfast hazel eyes and shaggy brows, and would have been better looking if his nose had not assumed a perpetual expression of surprise on finding itself (at birth no doubt) tip-tilted, slightly, but unmistakably.
“Normal this morning,” cried Fay in a gay voice. “We shall have you about again in a week, Dan.”
Dan grinned boyishly and squeezed the shoulder upon which he leaned. He wore slippers, and his fumbling gait indicated that he was far from strong, yet.
“So there’s no news from old Dick,” he said to Fay.
Again that cloud shadowed her expression, and the watchful visitor knew, now, that “old Dick” must be Flight Lieutenant Kershaw. She shook her head. “Not a word, Dan! But I suppose he will turn up, sometime.” As they reached the foot of the short stair: “And here is Dr. de Brion — Squadron Leader Corcoran.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Dr. de Brion, pushing forward an armchair which evidently had been prepared for the invalid. “Be seated, my dear fellow. How lucky you are to have crashed in so lovely a spot!”
“Yes, I am,” grinned Corcoran, raising the steadfast but shy eyes to the speaker. “It would be sheer ingratitude to want to get well too soon.”
“It would be sheer folly,” cried Dr. de Brion. “Oh, but so stupid.”
“Do you want to make me over, doctor? I don’t really think there is any need.”
“But certainly not! I came to see you, not to vet you. It is a pleasure and a privilege.”
“I’m sure you are very welcome.”
Dr. de Brion’s ornamental case made a flashing appearance. Corcoran accepted a cigarette reluctantly, saying that he had a large supply of his own, and the doctor urged Fay to follow his example in spite of protestations that she was officially on duty. “It is a prescription,” he declared, “medical orders.”
“You are just the kind of M.O. everybody is looking for,” said Dan Corcoran.
“This place is better than any physic. Here is nothing pathological, nothing ugly, nothing deformed. Ah!” — he inhaled the sweetness of the air: “Why do fools herd in towns?”
“Some towns, once, were very good fun,” said Fay wistfully. “For instance, doctor, how you must miss Paris.”
“Yes.” A shadow crossed the smiling face, but was gone again immediately. “Yes, I miss Paris — poor Paris. But one day, Miss Fay, Paris will be herself again. Paris has known many terrors, many sorrows, but Paris is old in strength, in wisdom, in patience — like London. Soon, very soon, you will see.”
“Can’t you stay to lunch, doctor?” Dan asked, looking up at him. “Then we will take you out to Treasure Island — won’t we, Fay?”
Fay laughed, but even her laughter was rather wistful. “Treasure Island,” she explained, “is a tiny island in the stream, connected with the garden by a wooden bridge. Dan spends fine afternoons there. A mound in the middle is called Spyglass Hill, and an old wooden barrel in the water is Skeleton Island. Then there’s Cape of the Woods, isn’t there, Dan?”
“There’s everything,” Dan assured her firmly, “which appears on Flint’s map — except the treasure.”
“Here is the treasure,” said Dr. de Brion, resting his arm lightly on Fay’s shoulder, and he was delighted when she blushed.
“Which reminds me,” Dan added: he raised his voice: “Toby!” Toby appeared in the doorway, winking significantly at the visitor. “Bring down Flint’s Fist — and all the notes. They’re right beside my bed.”
“Very good, sir.”
Toby proceeded upstairs, and Fay glanced smilingly at Dr. de Brion. “I warned you!” She turned to the convalescent. “Dr. de Brion is a crossword expert, Dan, so perhaps he can help you.”
“I need help,” Dan declared pathetically. “Because it stands to reason that the words must mean something.”
Toby returning with a writing block and a bundle of loose sheets, Dan detached an envelope clipped to the block and handed it to Dr. de Brion. Dr. de Brion read the typed address aloud: —
“‘Sir Giles Loeder, 90, Mount Street, Mayfair, W.1.’ — h’m! ‘Mayfair 30031’ in pencil.” He reversed the envelope. “Ah! the same writing! What have we here, my infants! Name of a name, what have we here!”
“Well,” grumbled Dan, “we have the remarkable words, ‘Pythagoric buds’ written in capitals. I can’t find pythagoric in my dictionary. That
’s bad enough. But in between the capitals a lot of small letters have been added. That makes it worse.” He looked up from his armchair — and became silent.
Dr. de Brion’s face was transfigured; indeed, his entire body seemed to radiate energy and his eyes to be on fire.
“What is it, doctor?” Fay asked in a hushed voice.
Dr. de Brion turned to her. “It is the answer to an enigma! It is a reproach to my stupidity!” He returned the envelope to Dan. “I can remember it. Take, oh, great care of this! Heaven is on our side after all—” and he extended his hand. “Forgive me! I must go. Au revoir, Dan Corcoran, my friend. I must go.”
“Now?” exclaimed Fay with such unconcealed disappointment that he came about in a swift turn, grasped her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
“My car I left at the hospital. Even now, I may not be too late. Au revoir, Miss Fay. I believe your troubles will pass like a summer cloud. God bless you both.”
He snatched his hat and darted from the room. Faintly, they heard the tinkle of a cowbell attached to the white gate. Toby crossed to a window and looked out.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” exclaimed Dan, in a voice denoting stark amazement. “Can you see him, Toby?”
“Sure.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s running, your honor.”
“D’you hear that, Fay? He’s running.” Corcoran turned in his chair, looking back at her. “Hullo, what is bothering you?”
Fay was staring into vacancy, and the gray eyes were speculative. “I was only wondering, Dan, why a man whose name is de Brion should carry a cigarette-case with diamond initials G. M....”
14
Pythagoric Buds
That gray building known to some as the War Shop, to others as the Stone Jug, and to others (the majority) as the War Office, presented its usual yawn of somnolence to Whitehall when dusk fell. At ‘bus stops, jaded looking workers queued up; others hurried towards Tube stations; Naval officers from the Admiralty, near-by, and military officers from Headquarters sought, and sometimes found, taxis. The Naval officers all carried paradoxical walking sticks: for who ever saw a sailor pacing the deck with a walking stick? And in a submarine such a thing would be worse than superfluous — it would be in the way.
As darkness, accompanied by a threatening ground mist, extended its hold on Whitehall, two by two weary workers found their way into arks green or red, that is, into those ‘buses for which they had waited so patiently. The human stream being sucked into plugs of the Underground decreased in volume. Officers had found taxis, or had been absorbed by the Tube. The pall of black-out fell upon London.
This phenomenon, this mass disappearing trick, had nearly achieved its nightly purpose when a car came racing to the main entrance of the War Office, and a man jumped out, spoke rapidly to the driver, and ran up the steps. Some slight delay occurred, and this he suffered impatiently. However, he was admitted.
Three minutes later, a staff captain rapped on a door upstairs, opened it and looked across an office the walls of which were almost entirely covered with maps, to a desk whereat Lieutenant General Sir Aubrey Bulwer (in his youth accounted the most handsome officer in the British Army) was seated.
“Mr. Gaston Max is here, sir.”
“Please show him in.”
Gaston Max entered so promptly that evidently he had been immediately behind the captain, who retired and closed the door. One who knew the Frenchman well would have perceived that his glance had lost some of its vivacity, that he was less spruce than usual, that, in short, he was laboring under the influence of a powerful emotion.
“Sit down, Mr. Max. What can I do for you?”
But Gaston Max did not sit down; he crossed the room and stood before the speaker. “I have a question to ask, General. I beg that you will not hesitate to answer it — to relieve me of a terrible anxiety. The raid by Combined Operations ... has it started?”
He leaned forward, his hands resting on the desk, and searched the lined, somewhat tired looking face of the soldier, who met this strange regard and who seemed to hesitate. “I don’t know that I’m at liberty—”
“General! I have made a request. Grant it, I beg! I know the entire composition of this force, the ships engaged, the names of the officers, the armaments and vehicles employed. I will tell you all this, in a minute. But I ask — has the expedition started?”
General Bulwer, manifestly much disturbed, seemed suddenly to make up his mind. He looked at a rather elaborate timepiece which stood before him. “The convoy with its escort left port almost exactly forty-nine minutes ago.”
Gaston Max fell back; one might legitimately have said that he staggered: his normally pale face grew even paler, and he clapped an open palm to his forehead in a gesture of anguish melodramatic, Gallic, but passionately sincere.
“My God! I am too late!”
Ten minutes after Gaston Max had uttered that cry of despair, it would have been difficult to decide whether he or General Bulwer presented the more haggard appearance ...
“The details you have given me, Mr. Max, are correct in every particular. The plan of operations is almost equally so. I am appalled. All that can humanly be done I have done; but I fear that recall is impossible. The mere idea that this information is in enemy hands is nearly unendurable. They have gone—”
“To destruction, general — many of them, yes. For this information is in enemy hands. For hours I have been at work, but not until an hour ago did I find myself in a position to produce definite evidence — and it was an hour too late. I will show you.”
He spoke, and moved, in the dull manner of a dispirited man. The general watched him feverishly: he had abandoned his desk and was pacing the office like a wild thing trapped. From an attaché case Gaston Max drew out a bundle of papers.
“First, the key. For this key I have sought for months. No wonder I failed. See.” General Bulwer halted in that febrile promenade, stood beside him and studied a typewritten sheet. “Observe the top line, in capitals, with wide spaces: —
“PYTHAGORIC BUDS”
“Yes, yes. What does it mean?”
“It means, my general, that fourteen letters of the twenty-six contained in the English alphabet are represented here. In their proper order, those omitted are: e, f, j, k, l, m, n, q, v, w, x and z. Now, regard the second line, in which I have filled in these missing letters, in that order, between the capitals: —
“PeYfTjHkAlGmOnRqIvCwBxUzD S”
“Very well. What now?”
“Now, the third line, above which I have written the alphabet: —
“A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
“p e f t j h k a l g m o n r q i v c w b x u z d s”
“And what does that convey?”
“It conveys, with one small flaw represented by the letter N, a scientifically shuffled alphabet! No letter, except N, is in its usual place! If you knew how difficult this is to do, you would appreciate, but yes, the cleverness of these scoundrels; for the formula has to be one that can easily be memorised: no code book is carried to incriminate. Hence, ‘Pythagoric buds’. One remembers that: the remainder is automatic.”
“And the information?”
“Messages, decipherable only by those acquainted with this key, have been cunningly, so cunningly, hidden in speeches openly broadcast from England — and listened to and transcribed in Berlin! It was the sometimes strange language — sentences, oh, so tortured — in these broadcasts, which first attracted my attention. But the code defied me. Yes, I, Gaston Max, was at a loss. A divine accident — perhaps the presence of an angel — put the clue in my hands. All those details which I have given to you have been transmitted to Berlin from time to time in this way. I have records of those speeches; but it has taken me all day to decipher the coded passages. Mon dieu! it took me an hour too long!”
A ‘phone buzzed, and General Bulwer literally sprang to the instrument. His expression, as he listened, w
as tragic; he seemed to age before the eyes of the one who watched, a gray shadow to creep over his fine features. He said simply, “Very good,” hung up the receiver and dropping into his chair buried his face in his hands.
“No hope?” whispered Gaston Max.
The stricken man looked up. “They are just approaching the French coast.”
Gaston Max sank slowly down into a well worn leathern armchair; and he, too, buried his face in his hands. The blacked-out War Office admitted no sound from a semi-deserted Whitehall. It was the soldier who broke that oppressive silence.
“You have one thing more to tell me: — the name of the man for whom a firing party is waiting at the Tower.”
Gaston Max looked up. “It is the name of a clever man; a dangerous man; an evil man — but a man who ceased to be clever or even dangerous, when under the influence of his ruling passion — women. He forgot, this poor fool, that he had (or so I suppose) been actually coding sentences for a broadcast, in his car, on the back of an envelope, when he met a girl so beautiful, and so sweet. He gave her this envelope because it bore his address. He may even have remembered the scribbled notes, but have thought that they could mean nothing to her.”
“And his name, Monsieur Max?”
“Sir Giles Loeder.”
General Bulwer came to his feet as though the seat of his chair had suddenly become electrified. “What do you say?”
“I said Sir Giles Loeder. Perhaps I should have said, the late Sir Giles Loeder.”
General Bulwer, clutching the edge of his desk, glared at Gaston Max as though, even now, he doubted if he had heard aright. “But, good God, sir! Loeder! Damn it! he knew everybody! The last time I met him (not long before his death) was at a luncheon where there were two Cabinet Ministers and another officer of the General Staff as well as myself! Are you mad?”
Gaston Max forced a wan smile: he shrugged. “Would you like to see the original envelope, my general? It is in safe keeping; but I can borrow it if you wish. It is because Sir Giles Loeder knew everybody that he was one of the most dangerous Axis agents in England. But I have yet to learn, first, who killed him, and second, who was his chief ...”