“Wait!” he said. “We saw Andros’ shadow on the blind, swelling and diminishing.”
Adrian was sitting at a knee-hole table with drawers at each side. His back was to the side wall of the room. The window was upon his right, the door into the indigo room opposite to him.
“Then Andros went to each side of this table. Wait!” There were three drawers on each side. Adrian opened those upon the right side one after another, and searched them thoroughly. In the top drawer there was nothing but what had been in the drawer yesterday, some indiarubber bands, a box of clips, an eraser. In the second, sheets of sermon paper, a box of black carbon paper, books of stamps. In the third and lowest drawer were extracts of newspapers, reports of speeches, underneath them a couple of Blue Books, and underneath the Blue Books— “Ah!” he cried.
He lifted out of the drawer and laid upon the table one length of a folding measure made of yellow wood.
“We saw that,” cried Bletchworth.
“Andros was carrying it, yes. He put it in this drawer, here, where I was never likely to notice it.”
Adrian turned the measure over. It was the first length of the measure, and on one side it was marked off in inches, on the other in centimetres and millimetres. For a few seconds he sat troubled and bewildered. Then, with a gasp, he leaned forward and snatched up the dictionary. He opened it, and on the page he laid the measure. Once or twice, he moved the measure up and down the page and then turned up to his friend a face as white as a sheet.
“Put these things in your pocket, David,” he said, in a quick whisper, pushing the measure and the book across to him; and whilst Bletchworth obeyed, he opened the drawers in the left-hand pillar of the table and took out five covers of stiff paper such as are used to hold documents and letters. He made sure that the three drawers upon that side were now empty. Then he laid the covers side by side upon the table top.
“We have got to be quick, David,” he said, with a glance towards the ceiling and an ear turned to catch the sound of a step in the hall. “In one of these files there’ll be a paper hidden. It’ll be covered with figures or letters in groups. We’ve got to find it before we’re interrupted.”
The covers were labelled, and on the labels the contents were classified. One cover was marked “Receipts,” a very thin one; another was “Bills,” a very bulky one. The third was marked “For Record,” the fourth “Temporary,” the fifth “Immediate.”
Bletchworth understood nothing whatever of these mysteries, but he asked no questions. That there was urgency, a look at Adrian’s face convinced him. He took one file whilst Adrian took another.
“Look at every leaf, David. Turn out every envelope!”
Silently and swiftly they set to their work, and from the fourth file, marked “Temporary,” Bletchworth plucked out a sheet of notepaper with no engraved heading and no address at all, and thrust it under Adrian’s eyes.
“Is this what you want?”
The paper was covered with figures arranged in groups of five.
“That’s it.”
Adrian, with a low cry, pounced upon it. “Hide it in your pocket! Quick!” Again he listened, but the fear had gone from him. One thing Bletchworth did now understand. There would be a catastrophe for anyone who tried to interfere with Adrian now. So passionate a light burnt in his eyes, so fierce an anger marred his face.
“We had better see that that’s all.”
They went through the rest of the papers. But they found nothing more to claim their notice. Adrian replaced the covers and closed the drawers of the table.
“We can go now,” he said.
The hall was empty. They let themselves out into Grosvenor Street and returned to Adrian’s cottage in the mews.
“We’ll have breakfast,” said Adrian; and whilst they waited for it, and whilst they ate it and after they had eaten it, Adrian, with a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, figured away at the solution of the problem. By half-past nine the work was done.
“It’s a five-figure dictionary cipher,” Adrian explained. “Three figures out of the five give the page of the dictionary on which the word is to be found. To make it look a little more difficult, the three figures are doubled and their order confused, the second figure being put first and the first last. Thus, here,” and Adrian pushed the original sheet of paper under Bletchworth’s eyes, “624 means by true reading page 231. See that!”
Bletchworth pored over the sheet, his forehead frowning, his lips pursed.
“Yes, I see. And the last two numbers?”
“They give the word on the page. Look!”
He opened the dictionary and laid the measure flat upon the page as he had done in his office. The millimetric degrees marked upon the wood corresponded roughly with the words in the dictionary. There were fewer words than fifty upon the page, but since five centimetres were marked off on the measure, there were fifty degrees on the measure.
“But it’s near enough,” said Adrian, “and look, the millimetric lines are numbered arbitrarily.”
Bending forward, Bletchworth saw that numbers had been written in a small hand alongside the degrees.
“You see, here are forty-two and three side by side, and next door to three, seventeen. Without this scale we’d never get at the meaning,” said Adrian.
“Have you got it now?”
“Enough of it to be sure that I’m on the right track. It won’t take ten minutes to get the rest.”
Adrian went back to his bureau by the window, and, as he worked, Bletchworth watched his face darken with anger. At the end, however, he got up very quietly.
“Look at this, David. Remember, it was to be found by accident in my file of temporary papers — this morning, no doubt. A visitor would call — easy enough to arrange — a constituent, perhaps, who would want a meeting fixed. Cratton’ld say, ‘Oh, we’d better have a look at my list of engagements. My secretary’s away for the morning, but I’ve no doubt we can find it.’ And this is found, and the scale and the dictionary.”
“How long would it take an expert to find the key to it?”
“Well, you saw me, and I’m not an expert. Now, read!” and Bletchworth read:
“Everything lovely. Bought BO at eight. Sold out at twenty. Packed up a parcel. Cheerio.”
Bletchworth leaned back in his chair, his face grey and a look of horror in his eyes.
“Yes,” cried Adrian. “That’s what was to be found in the drawer of my table. A head on a charger was wanted. Well, there it is — mine. The private secretary’s. The confidential private secretary’s! I had told him that I had made a hobby of ciphers. How could I fight against it? I was done—”
Adrian broke off as he looked at his friend. “Why, what’s the matter, David? The trick has failed. We-you and Joan and I — saw it all planted last night, and here are the proofs.”
Bletchworth was wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“Yes, yes,” he cried, eagerly, his lips stammering over the words, “but if we hadn’t got the proofs the thing would have been worse than you imagined.
“What do you mean?” asked Adrian.
“You remember I said to you that I was half inclined to have a flutter?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I did. I bought Basra Oilfields at eight and I took my profit yesterday. And I’m your friend. It meant ruin — absolute ruin — if we hadn’t stood in the dark last night and watched from your drawing-room window.”
For a moment the two friends stared at each other aghast. Then Adrian smiled.
“But I think, David, we were to have stood and watched,” he said quietly. “I think, this time, life is going
to broaden out for me and for Sonia, too. I believe nothing is to hinder us,” and if Bletchworth had asked him to explain what he had meant by “this time,” he could not have answered. He packed up the dictionary and the measure, the sheet of figures and the translation of it in a large envelope, and locked it away with the statement the three had
signed the night before.
“What are you going to do about it?” asked Bletchworth.
“I don’t know,” said Adrian thoughtfully.
He looked at the clock. It was a minute to ten. He looked out of the window. His saloon car stood at the door; and as he looked, Sonia in a blue coat and skirt and a white hat came quickly round the corner.
“What I do know is that I’m off to Ranelagh,” and he picked up his hat and ran down the stairs.
XXXII. AT RANELAGH
I SEE BREAKING in upon the image of this world forms of I know not what antiquity. I walk out of strange cities steeped in the jewel glow and gloom of evening or sail in galleys over the silvery waves of the antique ocean.
— A.E.
“You look lovely,” said Adrian.
“Thank you!” said Sonia. “But couldn’t we go?”
The car slid out into Carlos Place and ran by Mount Street and Hyde Park to the Kensington High Street. Sonia cast one scared glance behind her through the small window at the back of the motor car and then sat leaning forward, troubled and, to Adrian’s eyes, frightened. He asked no questions, and once they had crossed Hammersmith Bridge, her face began to lose its distress and the colour to return to her cheeks.
“Better?” Adrian asked, dropping his left hand upon hers.
“Well,” she answered, and returned his clasp.
He avoided an omnibus and circumvented a cart. The long street of villas slipped past the windows.
“I wondered whether you were going to come,” he said.
Sonia looked at him with startled eyes.
“I almost didn’t,” she answered.
For a moment her face was once more troubled. But the cloud passed. She smiled. Then she suddenly clapped her hands and laughed with all the joy of her twenty years.
“Why the amusement?” asked Adrian.
“Heaps of reasons,” answered Sonia. “It’s summer. I’ve got a new hat on—”
“It’s adorable!”
“ — and we’re off by ourselves for the whole morning to — where was it? — Hurlingham.”
“Ranelagh,” Adrian corrected.
“I like that.” Sonia nodded her head. “It’s new to me.”
“You’ve never been there?”
“Never.”
“It’s Sir Francis Walsingham’s old house.”
“You don’t say!”
“It was called Barn Elms in those days.”
“And is that so?”
“There are some of the old rooms left and the cellars where Mary Queen of Scots’ Secretaries were put to the rack—”
Sonia looked anxiously round into the back of the car.
“And, darling,” she interrupted sympathetically, “you’ve left your megaphone behind.”
Adrian stopped the guide-work and, turning sharply at the corner into the long avenue, drove to the porch of the red house. He took Sonia into the hall with its flat roof crossed with narrow beams and its walls painted red.
“I’ll leave you here for a second, sonia,” he said, “whilst I park the car. This is the old part of the house — He stopped short, expecting further jibes, but Sonia had none for him. Her mood had changed since she had entered the hall. She was serious and very quiet and her face difficult to read. She could not, indeed, herself have explained her mood, beyond that it was made up of tenderness and expectation.
“I’ll wait here, Adrian,” she said, and he climbed into the car and drove away from the porch.
The big porter in the red coat offered her a chair, but Sonia was listening to nothing but an extraordinarily faint harsh voice carried from an incalculable distance. She could distinguish no words, but it seemed to her that they were cruel and ruthless, yet somehow gently meant. She had not, indeed, heard the porter speak at all. He said afterwards that she was not uncivil but that she had lost sight of him; that she stood very still whilst the murmur of bees and the rustle of leaves in a light air came in upon the sunlight through the open door; and that she turned and walked, not like a girl in a dream but like one who knew her way, into the room on the right-hand side of the hall as you stood with your back to the porch. This had been the room where Sir Francis Walsingham had kept his secret despatches from his servants overseas, and there he had once broken the heart of a young girl by telling her the story of a galleon sunk in Tobermory Bay with a youth swinging at the yardarm.
There, in a few minutes, Adrian found her. It was a bright room with the windows looking down the great avenue which led towards the river — a room of green walls hung with sporting prints, of pleasant curtains of chintz and of white doors with the woodwork carved at the sides. There were Chinese ornaments on the high mantelshelf and a round mirror above it; and little tables with match-stands and deep armchairs set about in a semicircle. Sonia was seated in one of these chairs when Adrian found her. She was looking towards the door, with her heart in her eyes and her body quite still. She gave him the impression that she was calling and that her soul was in the call and that all the happiness which life might have for her hung upon whether the call was answered or no. When she saw him come into the room she stood up, such a light in her face of expectation fulfilled as set him in her debt and charged him with humility. He crossed to her.
“Sonia,” he said, “I love you very dearly.”
She gave him both her hands, and he took her in his arms and kissed her lips.
They went out through the inner hall into the garden. It was Wednesday morning, and at this hour and on this day of the week, except for one or two parties playing golf, the grounds were empty. They walked across the lawns under the great chestnut trees and elms. It was a day of sunlight and golden warmth. There were wide green playing grounds with pavilions, banks of flowers, a lily pond bordered with a stone pavement and enclosed in a low yew hedge over which a bronze Mercury was poised. Everywhere there was water, everywhere there were statues; and white summer houses crowned little hills amongst groves of trees.
Adrian spoke a word or two about his candidature. “There’ll be an election next year and David thinks I’ll have a decent chance. I wanted to have something, however small, to bring to you.”
“I have less than that, my dear,” said Sonia.
“You have yourself,” said Adrian.
He took her by the elbow and led her across a white bridge above a stream to a winding path. They wandered side by side along the path until they reached a stone pillar set on the grass by the water’s edge. It was an old pillar with a stone ball on the top of it, and on the ball was mounted a gilt ship of the Tudor days. There Adrian stopped.
“I wanted to show you something,” he said, “and it’s no use your looking around for the megaphone, Sonia. You’ve got to go through with it.”
Sonia composed herself to listen.
“I hope that I’m always ready to be improved,” she said sedately.
“Do you see that sail on the mizzen? The mizzen’s the mast behind. It’s a fore-and-aft sail. There are two more, you see, in front of the mainmast, a jib and a foresail.”
“I see them,” said Sonia.
“With those sails you can sail into the wind. They beat the Armada.”
“I shall try and remember that,” said Sonia.
“I will now show you a Spanish galleon,” Adrian went on.
“If you want to, my darling, you shall,” Sonia replied in a small voice. “Where is it?”
He took out of his pocket a cardboard box and opened it. Sonia uttered a cry of delight. For lying in the box was the gold collar with the emerald galleon for a pendant.
“You bought it!” she cried.
“For you,” and he placed it in her hands. “Yes, as far back as that. It was yours when I bought it.”
For a moment Sonia held the gift against her heart, her eyes shining like stars, her lips parted. But in a little while her face clouded over.
“I, too, have something to say to you,” she said. They found a bench and s
at down. “You ought to know these things. They might” — she glanced at him quickly and away again— “make a difference. I bring you nothing.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have enough,” said Adrian, taking her hand in his.
“I had a fortune,” she said ruefully. “I was to come into it in a year’s time. I should have loved to bring it to you. It was my father’s. But there it is — or rather was! It’s gone.”
“It can’t be helped,” said Adrian.
“It could have been,” she answered. “Only — it’s a difficult thing to tell you — my mother and my stepfather were the trustees.” She continued hurriedly. “I learnt by accident that it had gone a few months ago. I had been to a party. I went into the little library — the room you have — to get a book. I heard voices in the blue room. I opened the door. They were talking about it.”
“Your mother, Cratton, and Mr Andros,” said Adrian.
Sonia stared at him.
“Yes.”
“It was a couple of weeks before you went to Sicily. I saw you that night, Sonia. Was it for the first time? Anyway, I saw you open that door.” He thought for a minute and resumed: “In a way, sweetheart, the loss will make things easier for us.”
Sonia was puzzled.
“Easier?”
“Yes. If I say, ‘Give me Sonia and she’ll cry quits’!”
Sonia shook her head.
“They have other plans. It’s all rather hateful to talk about. They want me to marry. But not you.”
Adrian remembered very clearly his first meeting with the mother at Genoa.
“No, not me,” he answered grimly. And Sonia’s next words startled him out of his seat.
“I think they’ve promised me.”
“But they can’t do that!” he cried. “Even if they did, the promise can’t bind you.”
“No, it can’t,” Sonia answered. But the look of fear which had shadowed her face earlier that morning returned to it now. She caught hold of his arm. “No doubt they guessed that we meant to spend these hours together. This morning the front door was locked and the key removed. A footman stood in the hall. He had orders — yes, actually orders — that I was not to go out. He was put on the door like a watchman. I know — it was mediaeval. But what could I do? I couldn’t scream. It was my mother’s order. Oh, I couldn’t go up to her room and argue. It was horrible!”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 635