* * *
That afternoon. Lord Peter received a letter.
“DEAR LORD PETER, — I have just thought of something funny you ought to know about, though I don’t see how it can have anything to do with the murder. But in detective stories the detective always wants to know about anything funny, so I am sending you the paper. Uncle Edward wouldn’t like me writing to you, because he says you encourage me about wanting to be a writer and mixing myself up in police work — he is a silly old stick-in-the-mud! So I don’t suppose Miss Garstairs — that’s our H.M. — would let me send you a letter, but I’m putting this into one to Penelope Dwight and I do hope she sends it on all right.
“I found the paper lying in the belfry on the Saturday before Easter Day and I meant to show it to Mrs. Venables because it was so funny, but Dad dying made me forget all about it. I thought it must be some rubbish of Potty Peake’s, but Jack Godfrey says it isn’t Potty’s writing, but it’s quite mad enough to be him, isn’t it? Anyway, I thought you might like to have it. I don’t see how Potty could have got hold of that foreign paper, do you?
“I hope you are getting on well with the investigations. Are you still at Fenchurch St. Paul? I am writing a poem about the founding of Tailor Paul. Miss Bowler says it is quite good and I expect they will put it in the School Magazine. That will be one in the eye for Uncle Edward, anyhow. He can’t stop me being printed in the School Mag. Please write if you have time and tell me if you find out anything about the paper.
“Yours sincerely,
“HILARY THORPE.”
“A colleague, as Sherlock Holmes would say, after my own heart,” said Wimsey, as he unfolded the thin enclosure. “Oh, lord! ‘I thought to see the fairies in the fields’—a lost work by Sir James Barrie, no doubt! Literary sensation of the year. ‘But I saw only the evil elephants with their black backs.’ This is neither rhyme nor reason. Hum! there is a certain dismal flavour about it suggestive of Potty, but no reference to hanging, so I conclude that it is not his — he surely couldn’t keep King Charles’ Head out of it so long. Foreign paper — wait a minute! I seem to know the look of that paper. By God, yes! Susanne Legros’ letter! If the paper isn’t the dead spit of this, I’m a Dutchman. Let me think. Suppose this was the paper Jean Legros sent to Cranton, or Will Thoday, or whoever it was? Blundell had better have a look at it. Bunter, get the car out. And what do you make of this?”
“Of this, my lord? I should say that it was written by a person of no inconsiderable literary ability, who had studied the works of Sheridan Lefanu and was, if I may be permitted the expression, bats in the belfry, my lord.”
“It strikes you that way? It does not look to you like a cipher message, or anything of that kind?”
“It had not occurred to me to regard it in that light, my lord. The style is cramped, certainly, but it is cramped in what I should call a consistent manner, suggestive of — ah! — literary rather than mechanical effort.”
“True, Bunter, true. It certainly isn’t anything simple and bucolic of the every-third-word type. And it doesn’t look as if it was meant to be read with a grid, because, with the possible exception of ‘gold,’ there isn’t a single word in it that’s significant — or could be significant of anything but moonshine. That bit about the moon is rather good, of its kind. Mannered, but imaginative. ‘Frail and faint as a sickle of straw.’ Alliteration’s artful aid, what? ‘So then came minstrels, having gold trumpets, harps and drums. These played very loudly beside me, breaking that spell.’ Whoever wrote that had an ear for a cadence. Lefanu, did you say? That’s not a bad shot, Bunter. It reminds me a little of that amazing passage in Wylder’s Hand about Uncle Lorne’s dream.”
“That was the passage I had in mind, my lord.”
“Yes. Well — in that case the victim was due to ‘be sent up again, at last, a thousand, a hundred, ten and one, black marble steps, and then it will be the other one’s turn.’ He was sent up again, Bunter, wasn’t he?”
“From the grave, my lord? I believe that was so. Like the present unknown individual.”
“As you say — very like him. ‘Hell gapes, Erebus now lies open,’ as our correspondent has it. ‘The mouths of Death wait on thy end.’ Does he mean anything by that. Bunter?”
“I could not say, my lord.”
“The word ‘Erebus’ occurs in the Lefanu passage too, but there, if I remember rightly, it is spelt with an H. If the man who wrote this got his inspiration there, he knew enough, at any rate, about Erebus to be familiar with both spellings. All very curious, Bunter mine. We’ll go along to Leamholt and get the two sheets of paper put side by side.”
* * *
There was a great wind blowing over the fen, and immense white clouds sailing fast in the wide blue dome of sky. As they drew up before the police-station at Leamholt, they met the Superintendent just about to step into his own car. “Coming to see me, my lord?”
“I was. Were you coming to see me?”
“Yes.”
Wimsey laughed.
“Things are moving. What have you got?”
“We’ve got Cranton.”
“No!”
“Yes, my lord. They’ve run him to earth in a place in London. I heard from them this morning. Seems he’s been ill, or something. Anyway, they’ve found him. I’m going up to interrogate him. Would you like to come?”
“Rather! Shall I run you up there? Save the force a bit of money, you know, on train-fares. And be quicker and more comfortable.”
“Thank you very much, my lord.”
“Bunter, wire to the Rector that we have gone to Town. Hop in, Super. You will now see how safe and swift modern methods of transport are when there is no speed-limit. Oh, wait a moment. While Bunter is wiring, have a look at this. It reached me this morning.”
He handed over Hilary Thorpe’s letter and the enclosure. “Evil elephants?” said Mr. Blundell. “What in the name of goodness is all this about?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping your friend Cranton can tell us.”
“But it’s potty.”
“I don’t think Potty could rise to such heights. No, I know what you mean — don’t trouble to explain. But the paper, Superintendent, the paper!”
“What about it? Oh, I get you. You think this came from the same place as Suzanne Legros’ letter. I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right. Step in and we’ll have a look. By Jove, my lord, and you are right. Might have come out of the same packet. Well, I’ll be — Found in the belfry, you say. What do you think it all means, then?”
“I think this is the paper that Legros sent to his friend in England — the ‘guarantee’ that he composed, shut up in his room for so many hours. And I think it’s the clue to where the emeralds were hidden. A cipher, or something of that sort.”
“Cipher, eh? It’s a queer one, then. Can you read it?”
“No, but I jolly well will. Or find somebody who can. I’m hoping that Cranton will read it for us. I bet he won’t, though,” added his lordship, thoughtfully. “And even if we do read it, it isn’t going to do us much good, I’m afraid.”