SECRETS OF DUSKY FOWL
To this day that drive to Paddington recalls to mind a nightmare. The
entire confidence I had placed in Dulcie was shattered. Had anybody told
me it was possible she could deceive me as she had done I should, I
know, have insulted him—so infuriated should I have felt at the bare
thought. And yet she clearly had deceived me, deceived me most horribly,
inasmuch as she had done it in such cold blood and obviously with
premeditation. Her eyes, which had always looked at me, as I thought, so
truthfully, had gazed into mine that morning with the utmost coolness
and self-possession while she deliberately lied to me. Dulcie a liar!
The words kept stamping themselves into my brain until my head throbbed
and seemed on the point of bursting. As the car sped along through the
busy streets I saw nothing, heard nothing. The remarks she made to me
seemed to reach my brain against my will. I answered them mechanically,
in, for the most part, monosyllables.
What did it all mean? How could she continue to address me as though
nothing in the least unusual had occurred? Did she notice nothing in my
manner that appeared to be unusual? True, she addressed to me no term of
endearment, which was singular; but so engrossed was I in my
introspection and in my own misery that I scarcely noticed this.
Indeed, had she spoken to me fondly, her doing so just then would but
have increased the feeling of bitterness which obsessed me.
Several times during that drive I had been on the point of telling her
all I knew, all I had seen and heard: the suspicions I entertained
regarding her friend Connie—her abominable friend as she now seemed to
me to be; the grave suspicions I entertained also regarding Gastrell,
with whom she seemed to be on good terms, to say the least—these,
indeed, were more than suspicions. But at the crucial moment my courage
had failed me. How could I say all this, or even hint at it, in the face
of all I now knew concerning Dulcie herself, Dulcie who had been so much
to me, who was so much to me still though I tried hard to persuade
myself that everything between us must now be considered at an end?
I saw her off at Paddington. Mechanically I kissed her; why I did I
cannot say, for I felt no desire to. It was, I suppose, that
instinctively I realized that if I failed to greet her then in the way
she would expect me to she would suspect that I knew something. She had
asked me during our drive through the streets of London who had told me
where to find her; but what I answered I cannot recollect. I made, I
believe, some random reply which apparently satisfied her.
For two hours I lay upon my bed in my flat in South Molton Street,
tossing restlessly, my mind distraught, my brain on fire. Never before
had I been in love, and perhaps for that reason I felt this cruel
blow—my disillusionment—the more severely. Once or twice my man,
Simon, knocked, then tried the door and found it locked, then called out
to ask if anything were amiss with me. I scarcely heard him, and did
not answer. I wanted to be left alone, left in complete solitude to
suffer my deep misery unseen and unheard.
I suppose I must have slept at last—in bed at three and up at eight, my
night had been a short one—for when presently I opened my eyes I saw
that the time was half-past two. Then the thought flashed in upon me
that in my telegram I had promised to go to Eton to see Dick by the
train leaving Paddington at three. I had barely time to catch it. A
thorough wash restored me to some extent to my normal senses, and at
Paddington I bought a sandwich which served that day instead of lunch.
Once or twice before I had been down to Eton to see Dick, though on
those occasions I had been accompanied by Sir Roland. I had little
difficulty now in obtaining leave to take him out to tea. He wanted to
speak to me "quite privately," he said as we walked arm in arm up the
main street, so I decided to take him to the "White Hart," and there I
ordered tea in a private room.
"Now, Mike," he said in a confidential tone, when at last we were alone,
"this is what I want to draw your attention to," and, as he spoke, he
produced a rather dirty envelope from his trousers pocket, opened it and
carefully shook out on to the table several newspaper cuttings, each
three or four lines in length.
"What on earth are those about, old boy?" I asked, surprised. "Newspaper
advertisements, aren't they?"
"Yes, out of the _Morning Post_, all on the front page. If you will wait
a minute I will put them all in order—the date of each is written on
the back—and then _you_ will see if things strike _you_ in the way
they have struck me."
These were the cuttings:
"R.P, bjptnbblx. wamii. xvzzjv. okk.
zxxp.—DUSKY FOWL."
"Rlxt. ex. lnvrb. 4. zcokk. zbpl. qc.
Ptfrd. Avnsp. Hvfbl. Ucaqkoggwx.—DUSKY
FOWL."
"Plt. ecii. pv. oa. t1vp. uysaa. djt. xru.
przvf. 4.—DUSKY FOWL."
"Nvnntltmms. Pvvvdnzzpn. ycyswsa.
Bpix. uyyuqecgsqa. X. W. ljfh. sc.
jvtzfhdvb.—DUSKY FOWL."
"I can't make head or tail of them," I said when I had looked carefully
at each, and endeavoured to unravel its secret, for obviously it must
possess some secret meaning. "What do you make of them, Dick—anything?"
"Yes. Look, and I will show you," he answered, going to the
writing-table and bringing over pen, ink and paper. "I have always been
fond of discovering, or trying to discover, the meanings of these queer
cypher messages you see sometimes in some newspapers, and I have become
rather good at it—I have a book that explains the way cyphers are
usually constructed. I have found out a good many at one time and
another, but this one took me rather a long time to disentangle. I can
tell you, Mike, that when I found it concerned you I felt
frightfully excited."
"Concerned me!" I exclaimed. "Oh, nonsense. What is it all about?"
"Follow me carefully, and I'll show you. I guessed from the first that
it must be one of those cyphers that start their alphabet with some
letter other than A, but this one has turned out to be what my book
calls a 'complex alphabet' cypher. I tried and tried, all sorts of
ways—I began the alphabet by calling 'b' 'a'; then by calling 'c' 'a';
then by calling 'd' 'a,' and so on all the way through, but that was no
good. Then I tried the alphabet backwards, calling 'z' 'a'; then 'y'
'a'; right back to 'a,' but that wasn't it either. Then I tried one or
two other ways, and at last I started skipping the letters first
backwards, and then forwards. Doing it forwards, when I got to 'l' I
found I had got something. I called 'l' 'a'; 'n' 'b'; 'p' 'c'; and so
on, and made out _bjptnbblx_, the first word in the first cypher, to be
the word 'improving,' and the two letters before it in capitals 'R.P.'
to be really 'D.C.' The next cypher word, _wamii_, stumped me, as the
code didn't make it sense; then it occurred to me to start the alphabet
with 'm' instead of 'l,' skipping every alternate letter as before, and
I made out _wamii_ to mean 'shall.' The next cypher word, _xvzzjv_, I
couldn't get sense out of by starting the alphabet with either 'l' or
'm,' so I tried the next letter, 'n,' skipping alternate letters once
more, and that gave me the word 'settle.' I knew then that I had got the
key, and I soon had the whole sentence. It ran as follows:
"_D.C. improving shall settle all soon.—Dusky Fowl._"
"Still, I wasn't much the wiser, and it never for a moment occurred to
me that D.C. stood for Dulcie Challoner—"
"Good heavens, Dick!" I cried, "you don't mean to tell me that
Dulcie—"
"Do be patient, brother-in-law, and let me go through the whole thing
before you interrupt with your ejaculations," Dick said calmly. "Well,
four days went by, and then in the _Morning Post_ of February 7th the
second advertisement appeared:
"Rlxt. ex. sroehnel. 28. Zcokk. zbpl. qc.
Ptfrd. Avnsp. Hvfbl. Ucaqkoggwx.—DUSKY
FOWL."
"The code was the same as the first, and I deciphered it quite easily.
Here it is," and he read from a bit of paper he held in his hand:
"_Date is February 28. Shall stay at Mount Royal Hotel,
Bedlington.—Dusky Fowl_."
There was nothing more after that until February 12th, when the third
advertisement appeared, same code,—here it is deciphered:
"_Car will be at Clun Cross two day February 28.—Dusky Fowl_."
"That 'Dusky Fowl' bothered me a lot. I couldn't think what it meant.
Several times I had gone through the names of all the 'dusky birds'
I could think of—blackbird, rook, crow, raven, and so on, but
nothing struck me, nothing seemed to make sense. Then the next
day—yesterday—an advertisement in the same code appeared which
startled me a lot because your name and Mr. Osborne's were in it, and it
didn't take me long then to get at the meaning of 'Dusky Fowl.' Here is
the advertisement from yesterday's _Morning Post_, and directly I had
read it I wrote that letter asking you to come to see me at once, or to
let me come to you."
He read out:
"_Osborne and Berrington suspect. Take precautions. D.C. with me
Hampstead.—Dusky Fowl_"
"'Dusky Fowl' evidently stands for 'rook,' and 'rook' for 'Rook Hotel,'
and 'Rook Hotel' for 'Mrs. Stapleton.' And that being the case, who else
can 'D.C.' stand for but 'Dulcie Challoner'? It's as plain as a
pike-staff."
"By Jove, Dick," I said after a few moments' pause, "I believe you are
right!"
"I am sure I am," he answered with complete self-assurance.
This clearly was a most important discovery. I decided to take the
cuttings and their solutions to Osborne the moment I got back to town,
and I intended to go back directly after delivering Dick safely back at
his school.
"Really," I exclaimed, feeling now almost as excited as the boy, "you
are pretty clever, old chap, to have found out all that. I wonder,
though, why Mrs. Stapleton doesn't telegraph or write to the man or
people these messages are intended for. It would be much simpler."
"It wouldn't be safe, Mike. I read in a book once that people of that
sort, the kind of people Mr. Osborne always speaks of as 'scoundrels,'
nearly always communicate in some sort of cypher, and generally by
advertising, because letters are so dangerous—they may miscarry, or be
stopped, or traced, and then they might get used as evidence against the
people who wrote them. By communicating in cypher and through a
newspaper of course no risk of any sort is run."
"Except when the cyphers get deciphered," I said, "as you have
deciphered these."
"Oh, but then people seldom waste time the way I do, trying to find
these things out; when they do it's generally a fluke if they come
across the key. It took me hours to disentangle the first of those
advertisements—the rest came easy enough."
All this conversation had distracted my mind a good deal, and I began to
feel better. For several minutes I was silent, wrapped in thought, and
Dick had tact enough not to interrupt me. I was mentally debating if
Dick might not, in more ways than one, prove a useful associate with
Osborne, Preston and myself in our task of unveiling the gang of clever
rogues and getting them convicted. One thing, which had struck me at
once, but that I had not told Dick, for fear of exciting him too much,
was that Bedlington was the large town nearest to Eldon Hall, the Earl
of Cranmere's seat, the place the mysterious, unseen man in the house in
Grafton Street had asked Jack Osborne about while he lay bound upon the
bed; also that February 28th was the date when Cranmere's eldest son
would come of age, on which day a week's festivities at Eldon would
begin—and festivities at Eldon were events to be remembered, I had been
told. What most occupied my thoughts, however, was the question I had
asked myself—should I make a confidant of little Dick and tell him how
things now stood between Dulcie and myself?
"Dick, old boy," I said, at last, "I wonder if I can treat you as I
would a grown man—as I would treat some grown men, I should say."
"I dare say you could, brother-in-law," he answered. "Why don't you
try?"
"Supposing that you were not to become my brother-in-law, as you seem so
fond of calling me, would you be sorry?"
"I jolly well think I should!" he replied, looking up sharply. "But what
makes you say a thing like that? It's all rot, isn't it?"
He seemed, as he looked at me with his big brown eyes which were so like
Dulcie's, to be trying to discover if I spoke in jest or partly
in earnest.
"You are going to marry Dulcie, aren't you? You're not going to break it
off? You haven't had a row or anything of that kind"
"No, not exactly a row," I said, staring into his nice frank face.
"Then why do you talk about not becoming my brother-in-law? If you don't
marry Dulcie you'll jolly nearly kill her. You don't know how fearfully
fond of you she is. You can't know, or you wouldn't talk about not
marrying her."
"I haven't talked about not marrying her," I answered hurriedly. "Tell
me, Dick, is that true—what you say about her being so awfully fond
of me?"
"I shouldn't say it if it wasn't true," he said with a touch of pride.
"But what did you mean when you said you wondered if you could treat me
as if I were a man?"
I put my arm round the lad, as he stood at the table, and drew him close
to me.
"Dick, old boy," I said with a catch in my voice, "I am very unhappy,
and I believe Dulcie is too, and I believe it is possible you may be
able to put things right if you set about it in the right way. But
first, tell me—you have talked to Mrs. Stapleton; do you like her?"
"I have never liked her from the first time she talked to me," he
answered without an instant's hesitation. "And I don't like her any the
better since I have heard you and Mr. Osborne talking about her, and
since I spotted her in that advertisement yesterday."
"Well, Dick," I went on, "Mrs. Stapleton and Dulcie are now tremendous
friends, and I believe that Mrs. Stapleton is trying to make Dulcie
dislike me; I believe she says things about me to Dulcie that are
untrue, and I think that Dulcie believes some of the things she
is told."
"What a beastly shame! But, oh no, Mike, Dulcie wouldn't believe
anything about you that was nasty—my word, I'd like to see anyone say
nasty things to her about you!"
"I am glad you think that, but still—anyway, certain things have
happened which I can't explain to you, and I am pretty sure Dulcie likes
me less than she did. I want you to try to find that out, and to tell
me. Will you try to if I can manage to get you a week-end at Holt?"
"Will I? You try me, Mike. And I won't only try to find out—I shall
find out."
It was six o'clock when I arrived back at Eton with Dick. Word was sent
to me that the headmaster would like to speak to me before I left. He
came into the room a few minutes afterwards, told Dick to go away and
return in ten minutes, then shut the door and came over to me. He looked
extremely grave.
"Half an hour ago I received this telegram," he said, pulling one out of
his pocket and handing it to me. "As I know you to be an intimate friend
of Sir Roland's, you may like to read it before I say anything to Dick."
I unfolded the telegram. It had been handed in at Newbury at five
o'clock, and ran:
"My daughter suddenly taken seriously ill. Dick must return at once. My
butler will await him under the clock on Paddington departure platform
at 7:15, and bring him down here. Please see that Dick is under clock at
7:15 this evening without fail.—CHALLONER."
I read the telegram twice, and even then I seemed unable to grasp its
full significance. Dulcie seriously ill! Good God, what had happened to
her—when we had parted on Paddington platform only a few hours before
she had appeared to be in perfect health. Had this sudden attack,
whatever it might be, any connection with Mrs. Stapleton, or with that
hateful affair that I had witnessed the night before—my darling Dulcie
gambling recklessly and losing, and then borrowing—from a woman I now
fully believed to be an adventuress—money to go on gambling with? Was
it even possible that, beside herself with dismay at the large amount of
money she now owed Mrs. Stapleton, she had in a sudden moment of madness
attempted to take—
I almost cried out as I banished from my brain the hideous thought. Oh,
God, anything rather than that! I must get further news, and without a
moment's loss of time. I must telegraph or telephone to Holt.
The headmaster's calm voice recalled me to my senses.
"It is indeed terrible news," he said sympathetically, struck, no doubt,
at the grief which the news had stamped upon my face. "But it may, after
all, be less serious than Sir Roland thinks. I was about to suggest, Mr.
Berrington," he went on, pulling out his watch, "that as you are, I take
it, returning to London by the 6:25, you might take Dick up with you and
place him in charge of Sir Roland's butler who will be awaiting him at a
quarter past seven under the clock on Paddington platform. If you can be
so very kind as to do this it will obviate the necessity of my sending
someone to London with him. I have given an order for such things as he
way require to be packed, and they should be ready by now. We must
break the news very gently to the boy, for I know that he is devoted to
his sister, so for the boy's sake, Mr. Berrington, try to bear up. I
know, of course, the reason of your deep grief, for Dick has told me
that you are engaged to be married to his sister."
Hardly knowing what I said, I agreed to do as he suggested, and see Dick
safely to Paddington. How we broke the news to him, and how he received
it when we did break it, I hardly recollect. All I remember distinctly
is standing in a telephone call office in Eton town, and endeavouring to
get through to Holt Manor. Not until it was nearly time for the London
train from Windsor to start, did the telephone exchange inform me they
had just ascertained that the line to Holt Manor was out of order, and
that they could not get through.
Anathematizing the telephone and all that had to do with it, I hurried
out to the taxi in which Dick sat awaiting me.
All the way from Windsor to London we exchanged hardly a word. Dick, I
knew, was terribly upset at the news, for his devotion to his sister was
as well known to me as it was to his father and to Aunt Hannah. But he
was a plucky little chap, and tried hard not to show how deeply the news
had affected him. For my part my brain was in a tumult. To think that I
should have parted from her that morning with feelings of resentment in
my heart, and that now she lay possibly at death's door. Again and again
I cursed myself for my irritability, my suspicions. Were they, after
all, unjust suspicions? Might Dulcie not have excellent reasons to give
for all that had occurred the night before? Might she not have been
duped, and taken to that house under wholly false pretences? An uncle of
hers believed to be dead, a brother of Sir Roland's, had, I knew, been
a confirmed gambler. There was much in heredity, I reflected, in spite
of modern theories to the contrary. Was it not within the bounds of
possibility that Dulcie, taken to that gambling den by her infamous
companion, and encouraged by her to play, might suddenly have felt
within her the irresistible craving that no man or woman born a gambler
has yet been able to overcome? And in any case, what right had I had
metaphorically to sit in judgment upon her and jump to conclusions which
might be wholly erroneous?
The train travelled at express speed through Slough, Didcot, and other
small stations. It was within a mile of London, when my thoughts
suddenly drifted. Why had Sir Roland not sent James direct to Windsor to
meet Dick, instead of wasting time by sending him all the way to London?
But perhaps James had been in town that day—he came up sometimes—and
Sir Roland had wired to him there. Again, why had he not sent the car to
Eton to fetch Dick away? That would have been the quicker plan; ah, of
course he would have done that had it been possible, but probably the
car had been sent into Newbury to fetch the doctor. That, indeed, was
probably what had happened, for the telegram had been handed it at
Newbury instead of at Holt Stacey. I knew that Sir Roland's chauffeur
had a poor memory—it was well known to be his chief fault; probably he
had shot through Holt Stacey, forgetting all about the telegram he had
been told to send off there, and, upon his arrival in Newbury,
remembered it and at once despatched it. Sir Roland had, I knew, a
rooted dislike to telephoning telegraphic messages direct to the post
office, and I had never yet known him dictate a telegram through his
telephone. Oh, how provoking, I said again, mentally, as I thought of
the telephone, that the instrument should have got out of order on this
day of all days—the one day when I had wanted so urgently to use it!
Now the train was slowing down. It was rattling over the points as it
passed into the station. Looking out of the window I could see the clock
on the departure platform. A few people were strolling near it, but
nobody was under it—at least no man. I could see a woman standing under
it, apparently a young woman.
Dick's luggage consisted of a suit-case which we had taken into the
carriage with us, and this I now carried for him as we descended into
the sub-way. The clock on the departure platform is only a few yards
from the exit of the sub-way, and, as we came out, the woman under the
clock was not looking in our direction. Somehow her profile seemed
familiar, and—
I stopped abruptly, and, catching Dick by the arm, pulled him quickly
behind a pile of luggage on a truck. An amazing thought had flashed into
my brain. As quickly as I could I gathered my scattered wits:
"Dick," I said after a few moments' reflection, trying to keep my brain
cool, "I believe—I have an idea all isn't right. There is no sign of
James, though our train was some minutes late and it is now twenty past
seven—James was to be here at a quarter past, according to that
telegram. But that woman waiting there—I know her by sight though I
have never spoken to her. She might remember me by sight, so I don't
want her to see me. Now look here, I want you to do this. Take hold of
your suit-case, and, as soon as that woman's back is turned, walk up and
stand under the clock, near her, as though you were awaiting someone.
Don't look at her or speak to her. I believe this is some trick. I don't
believe that telegram was sent by your father at all. I don't believe
Dulcie is ill. I think that woman is waiting for you, and that when you
have been there a few moments she will speak to you—probably ask you if
you are Master Challoner, and then tell you that she has been sent
instead of James to meet you, and ask you to go with her. If she does
that, don't look in the least surprised, answer her quite naturally—you
can inquire, if you like, how Dulcie is, though I shall not be a bit
surprised if we find her at home perfectly well—and if she asks you to
go with her, go. Don't be at all frightened, old chap; I shall follow,
and be near you all the time, whatever happens. And look here, if I have
guessed aright, and she does say that she has been asked to meet you and
tells you to come along with her, just put your hand behind you for an
instant, as you are walking away, and then I shall know."
"Oh, Mike, if Dulcie isn't ill, if after all nothing has happened to
her—"
His feelings overcame him, and he could not say more.
I moved a little to one side of the pile of trunks, and peered out.
"Now, Dick—now!" I exclaimed, as I saw the woman turn her back to us.
Dick marched up to her, carrying his suit-case, and waited under the
clock, just as I had told him to. He had not been there ten seconds when
I saw the woman step up to him and speak to him.
They exchanged one or two remarks, then, turning, walked away together.
And, as they walked, Dick's hand went up his back and he scratched an
imaginary flea.
Instantly I began to walk slowly after them. Dick was being taken away
by the dark, demure, quietly-dressed little woman I had seen at Connie
Stapleton's dinner party, and, only the night before, standing among the
onlookers in Gastrell's house in Cumberland Place.