"CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT ATTEND
BUT LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M."
A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn't been thought
worth while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code.
There was no signature--unless one were clever or wise enough to transpose
the two final letters and take them in relation to the word immediately
preceding. "Eleven, M.P.", however, could mean nothing to anybody but
Victor--except a body clever enough to hide a dictograph detector in a
turnip. So Victor saw no reason to believe that Nogam, although
undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, had been able to read the meaning
below the surface of this communication.
Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay of
Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward.
"Nogam!"
"Sir?"
"Fetch me an A-B-C."
"Very good, sir."
With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new envelope
and addressed it simply to _"Mr. Sturm--by hand."_ Then he took a sheet of
the stamped notepaper of Frampton Court, tore it roughly, at the fold, and
on the unstamped half inscribed several characters in Chinese, using a
pencil with a fat, soft lead for this purpose. This message sealed into a
second envelope without superscription, he lighted a cigarette and sat
smiling with anticipative relish through its smoke, a smile swiftly
abolished as the door re-opened; though Nogam found him in what seemed to
be a mood of rare sweet temper.
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