Sir Benjamin was moody. He had been cursing the rain, and, afterwards, the presence of strong language was still as palpable as a whisky breath. They found him looking hungrily at the cold tea-things before the study fire.
"Halloa!" said Dr. Fell. "My wife not back yet? How did you get in?"
"I walked in," the chief constable responded, with dignity. "The door was open. Somebody's been neglecting a jolly good tea… I say, what about a drink?
"We-ah-had tea," said Rampole.
The chief constable was aggrieved. "I want a brandy-and-soda. Everybody is pursuing me. First the rector. His uncle — New Zealander — old friend of mine; I got the rector the parish here — is making his first trip to England in ten years, and the rector wants me to meet him. How the devil can I go away? The rector's a New Zealander. Let him go to Southampton. Then Payne…"
"What's wrong with Payne?" asked Dr. Fell.
"He wants the door of the Governor's Room sealed up with bricks for good. Says its purpose is over now. Well, I only hope it is. But we can't do it yet. Payne always has a kind of mental toothache about something. Finally, since the last Starberth male heir is dead, Dr. Markley wants the well filled up."
Dr. Fell puffed out his cheeks. "We certainly can't do that," he agreed. "Sit down. There's something we've got to tell you."
While the doctor was pouring out stiff drinks at the sideboard, he told Sir Benjamin everything that had happened that afternoon. During the recital, Rampole was watching the girl's face. She had not spoken much since Dr. Fell had begun to explain what lay behind the Starberths; but she seemed to see peace.
Sir Benjamin was flapping his hands behind his back. His damp clothes exhaled a strong odour of tweed and tobacco.
"I don't doubt it, I don't doubt it," he grumbled. "But why did you have to be so confoundedly long about telling this? We've lost a lot of time.- Still, it doesn't alter what we've got to face-that Herbert's the only one who could be guilty. Inquest said so."
"Does that reassure you?"
"No. Damn it. I don't think the boy's guilty. But what else can we do?"
"No trace of him yet?"
"Oh, he's been reported everywhere; but they haven't found him. In the meantime, I repeat, what else can we do?"
"We can investigate the hiding-place Anthony made, for one thing."
"Yes. If this infernal cipher, or whatever it is… Let's have a look. I suppose we have your permission, Miss Starberth?"
She smiled faintly. "Of course — now. But I am inclined to think Dr. Fell has been overconfident. Here's my own copy."
Dr. Fell was seated spread out in his favourite armchair, his pipe glowing and a bottle of beer beside him. With white hair and whiskers, he could have made a passable double for Father Christmas. He watched benignly as Sir Benjamin studied the verses. Rampole's own pipe was drawing well, and he sat back comfortably on the red sofa where, in an, unobtrusive way, he could touch Dorothy's hand. With his other hand he held a drink. Thus, he reflected, there were all the requisites of life.
The chief constable's horsy eyes squinted up. He read aloud:
"How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun;
Great Homer's tale of Troy?
Or country of the midnight sun
What doth all men destroy?"
Slowly he read the lines again, in a lower voice. Then he said with heat:
"Look here, this is nonsense!"
"Ah!" said Dr. Fell, like one who savours a rare bouquet of wine.
"It's just a lot of crackbrain poetry―" "Verse," corrected Dr. Fell.
"Well, it certainly isn't any cryptogram, whatever it is.
Have you seen it?"
"No. But it's a cryptogram, all right."
The chief constable tossed the paper across to him.
"Righto, then. Tell us what it means. `How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun; Great Homer's tale of Troy?' It's a lot of rubbish… Hold on, though!" muttered Sir
Benjamin, rubbing his cheek. "I've seen those puzzles in the magazines. And I remember in the stories — you take every other word, or every second word, or something — don't you?"
"That won't work," said Rampole, gloomily. "I've tried all the combinations of first, second, and third words. I've tried it as an acrostic, down the whole four verses. The first letters give you 'Hgowatiwiowetgff.' With the last letters you produce 'Nynyfrdrefstenen.' The last one sounds like an Assyrian queen.
"Ah," said Dr. Fell, nodding again.
"In the magazines―" began Sir Benjamin.
Dr. Fell settled himself more deeply into his chair, blowing an enormous cloud of smoke.
"By the way," he observed, "I have a quarrel to pick with those puzzles in the magazines and illustrated papers. Now, I'm very fond of cryptograms myself. (Incidentally, you will find behind you one of the first books on cipherwriting: John Baptist Porta's De Furtivis Literarum Notis, published in 1563.) Now, the only point of a good cryptogram is that it should conceal something which somebody wanted to keep a secret in the first place. That is, it is really a piece of secret writing. Its message should be something like, `The missing jewels are hidden in the archdeacon's pants,' or, 'Von Dinklespook will attack the Worcestershire Guards at midnight.'-But when these people in the illustrated papers try to invent a cryptogram which will baffle the reader, they don't try to baffle you by inventing a difficult cryptogram at all. They only try to baffle you by putting down a message which nobody would ever send in the first place. You puzzle and swear through a gigantic mass of symbols, only to produce the message: `Pusillanimous pachyderms primarily procrastinate procreative prerogatives.' Bah!" stormed the doctor. "Can you imagine an operative of the German secret service risking his life to get a message like that through the British lines? I should think that General Von Googledorfer would be a trifle nettled when he got his dispatch decoded and found that cowardly elephants are in the habit of putting off any attempt to reproduce their species."
"That isn't true, is it?" inquired Sir Benjamin, with interest.
"I'm not concerned with the natural history of the statement," returned the doctor, testily; "I was talking about cryptograms." He took a long pull at his beer-glass, and went on in a more equable tone:
"It's a very old practice, of course. Plutarch and Gellius mention secret methods of correspondence used by the Spartans. But cryptography, in the stricter sense of substituting words, letters, or symbols, is of Semitic origin. At least, Jeremiah uses it. A variant of this same simple form is used in Caesar's 'quarta elementorus littera,' where―"
"Put look at the blasted thing!" exploded Sir Benjamin, picking up Rampole's copy from the hearth and slapping it. "hook here, in the last verse. It doesn't make sense. `The Corsican was vanquished here, Great mother of all sin.' if that means what I think it does, it's a bit rough on Napoleon."
Dr. Fell took the pipe out of his mouth. "I wish you'd shut up." he said, plaintively. "1 feel like lecturing, I do. I was going on from Trithemius to Francis Bacon, and then―"
"I don't want to hear any lecture," interposed the chief constable. "I wish you'd have a look at the thing. I don't ask you to solve it. But stop lecturing and just look at it."
Sighing, Dr. Fell came to the centre table, where he lighted another lamp and spread the paper out before him. The pipe smoke slowed down to thin, steady puffs between clenched teeth.
"H'm." he said. There was another silence.
"Wait a bit." urged Sir Beniamin, holding up his hand as the doctor seemed about to speak. "Don't begin talking like a damned dictionary, now. But do you see any lead there?"
"I was about to ask you," replied the other, mildly, "to pour me out another bottle of beer. However, since you mention it… the old-timers were children to, our modern cryptographers; the war proved that. And this one, which was written in the late eighteenth or early
nineteenth century, shouldn't be so difficult. The rebus was a favorite form then; it isn't that, I know. But it's a bit more difficult than the ordinary substitution cipher Poe was so fond of. It's something like a rebus, only…"
They had gathered round his chair and were bending over the paper. Again they all read the words:
How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun;
Great Homer's tale of Troy?
Or country of the midnight sun
What doth all men destroy?
Against it man hath dashed his foot;
This angel bears a spear!
In garden glade where Lord Christ prayed
What spawns dark stars and fear?
In this the white Diana rose;
Here was Dido bereft
Where on four leaves good fortune grows;
East, south, west, what is left?
The Corsican was vanquished here,
Great mother of all sin;
Find green the same as shiretown's name,
Find Newgate Gaol, and win!
Dr. Fell's pencil worked rapidly, making unintelligible symbols. He grunted, shook his head, and returned to the verses again. Reaching to a revolving bookshelf beside him, he took down a black-bound volume labelled, "L. Fleissner, Handbuck der Kryptographik," and glanced at the index, scowling again.
"Drafghk!" he snapped, like one who says "damn." "That works out to 'drafghk,' which is nonsense. I'll swear the thing isn't a substitution cipher at all. I'll try Latin as well as English on the tests. I'll get it. The classical background always triumphs. Never, young man," he said, fiercely, "forget that…. What's the matter, Miss Starberth?"
The girl was leaning both hands on the table, her dark hair gleaming under the light. She let out a small laugh as she glanced up.
"I was only thinking," she returned, in a puzzled way, "that, if you disregarded punctuation…,"
"What?"
"Well… look at the first verse. `Homer's tale of Troy.' That's the Iliad, isn't it? `Country of the midnight sun.' That's Norway. If you took each of the lines separately, and put down the definition for each — I hope I'm not being silly," she hesitated, "and put down the definition for each as a separate word…."
"My God!" said Rampole, "it's a cross-word puzzle!"
"Nonsense!" shouted Dr. Fell, growing more red in the face.
"But look at it, sir," insisted Rampole, and bent over the paper suddenly. "Old Anthony didn't know he was doing a cross-word puzzle; but, in effect, that's what it is. You said it was, a form of the rebus―"
"Come to think of it," rumbled Dr. Fell, clearing his throat, "the process was not unknown―"
"Well, work it!" said Sir Benjamin. "Try it that way. `What called the dwellers of Lyn-dun?' I supposed that means, `What were the dwellers of Lyn-dun called?' Does anybody know?"
Dr. Fell, who had been puffing out his moustache and acting like a sulky child, took up the pencil again. He answered, shortly:
" `Fenmen,' of course. Very well, we'll try it. As Miss Starberth has suggested, our next two words are `Iliad' and `Norway.' `What doth all men destroy?' I can't think of anything except Death. So there we are — FENMEN ILIAD NORWAY DEATH."
There was a silence.
"That doesn't seem to make much sense," muttered Sir Benjamin, dubiously.
"It makes the most sense of anything yet, at least," Rampole said. "Let's go oh. `Against it man hath dashed his foot…' That sounds familiar. `Lest he dash his foot against a- Got it! Try `stone.' Now, what angel bears a spear?"
"That's Ithuriel," Dr. Fell pointed out, recovering his good humour. "The next line is obviously 'Gethsemane.' Let's see what we have now — FENMEN ILIAD NORWAY DEATH STONE ITHURIEL GETHSEMANE."
Then a broad grin creased up the folds of his many chins. He twisted his 'moustache like a pirate.
"It's all up now," he announced. "I've got it. Take the first letter of each word separately…."
"F I N D―" Dorothy read, and then looked round, her eyes very bright. "That's it. S I G-What comes next?"
"We need an N. Yes. `What spawns dark stars and fear?"' the doctor read. "The next word is `Night.' Next, the place where the white Diana rose — Ephesus. The next line is bad, but Dido's city was Tyre. So we have FIND SIGNET. I told you it would be simple."
Sir Benjamin was repeating, "By Jove!" and slapping his fist into his palm. He had a burst of inspiration, and added:
"Good fortune growing on four leaves: that must mean a shamrock, or clover, or whatever they call the dashed things. Anyway, the answer is Ireland."
"And," Rampole put in, "after you've taken away east, west, and south, the only thing left is north. North. That adds an N. FIND SIGNET IN — "
Dr. Fell's pencil added four words and then four letters.
"Complete," he said. "In the last verse, the first word has to be `Waterloo.' The second is `Eve.' That line about a green the same as the shiretown's name-why, Lincoln, of course. Lincoln green. Finally, we find Newgate Gaol in London. -The whole word is WELL." He threw down his pencil. "Crafty old devil! He kept his secret for over a hundred years."
Sir Benjamin, still muttering imprecations, sat down blankly. "And we solved it in half an hour…."
"Let me remind you, sir," rumbled Dr. Fell, thoroughly roused, "that there is absolutely nothing in this cipher I couldn't have told you already. The explanation was all made. This is only proof of the explanation. If this cryptogram had been solved without that previous knowledge, it would have meant nothing. Now we know what it means, thanks to — ah-that previous knowledge." He finished his beer with a swashbuckling gesture, and glared.
"Of course, of course. But what does he mean by signet?"
"It could be nothing but that motto of his, `All that I have I carry with me.' It's been helpful so far. And it'll help us again. Somewhere down in that well it's carved on the wall…."
Again the chief constable was rubbing his cheek and scowling.
"Yes. But we don't know where. And it's an unhealthy place to go foraging, you know."
"Nonsense!" the doctor said, sharply. "Of course we know where it is."
As the chief constable only looked sour, Dr. Fell settled back again to a comfortable lighting of his pipe. He went on in a thoughtful voice:
"If, for example, a heavy rope were to be run round the balcony railing in the groove of old Anthony's rope, and its end dropped into the well as Anthony's rope was… well, we shouldn't be very far from the place, should we? The well may be large, but a line dropped from that groove would narrow our search down to a matter of feet. And if a stout young fellow-such as our young friend here — were to take hold of it at the mouth of the well and swarm down…"
"That's sound enough," the chief constable acknowledged. "But what good would it do? According to you, the murderer has long ago cleaned out whatever might have been in there. He killed old Timothy because Timothy surprised him, and he killed Martin because Martin would have learned his secret if he'd read the paper in the vault… What do you expect to find down there now?"
Dr. Fell hesitated. "I'm not sure. But we should have to do it, anyhow."
"I dare say." Sir Benjamin drew a long breath. "Well. Tomorrow morning I'll get a, couple of constables-'
"We should have all Chatterham round us if we did it that way," said the doctor. "Don't you think this had better be kept among ourselves and done at night?"
The chief constable hesitated. "It's damned risky," he muttered. "A man could easily break his neck. What do you say, Mr. Rampole?"
It was an alluring prospect, and Rampole said so.
"I still don't like it," grunted the chief constable; "but it's the only way to avoid unpleasantness. We can do it tonight if the rain clears off. I'm not due back at Ashley Court until tomorrow, and I dare say I can put up at the Friar Tuck… Look here. Won't lights in the prison, when we go up to attach that rope-well, won't they attract attention?"
"Possibly. But I'm pretty sure nobody will bother us. Anybody from the village would be too frightened."
Dorothy had been looking from one to the other, the lids tightening down over her eyes. There were small lines of anger round her nostrils.
"You're asking him to do this," she said, nodding at Rampole, "and I know him well enough to be sure he will. You can be cool. And you say none of the villagers will be there. Well, you may have forgotten somebody who is very apt to be there. The murderer."
Rampole had moved round to her side, and unconsciously he had taken her hand. She did not notice it; her fingers closed over his. But Sir Benjamin noticed it, with a startled expression which he tried to conceal by saying, "Hem!" and teetering on his heels. Dr. Fell looked up benevolently from his chair.
"The murderer," he repeated. "I know it, my dear. I know it."
There was a pause. Nobody seemed to know what to say. The expression of Sir Benjamin's eyes seemed to indicate that it wasn't British to back out now. In fact, he looked downright uncomfortable.
"Then I'll be on my way," he said at length. "I shall have to take the magistrate at Chatterham into my confidence, by the way; we need ropes, spikes, hammers things like that. If the rain holds off, I can return here about ten o'clock tonight."
He hesitated.
"But there's one thing I want to know. We've heard a great deal of talk about that well. We've heard of drowned men, and ghosts, and bullion and jewels and plate and God knows what. Well, doctor, what are you looking for down in that well?"
"A handkerchief," said Dr. Fell, taking another drink of beer.