A SHORT STORY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 66, 18 March 1911, Page 3

A SHORT STORY.

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE.

(By William Freeman.)

Peace brooded ove> the house of Borrodaile. Delia sat at one end of the breakfast table, absorbed in a twelve-page letter from Mrs Tympanny Smyth: I, at the other, eagerly, scanning the "Daily Flashlight."

Suddenly Delia put down her letter and spoke.

"Have they caught the Perivale burglar, or found the jewellery yetP"

i "No, although Sir Ebenezer is offering a reward of fifty pounds. The police have a clue"—Delia sniffed contemptuously—"for they've discovered footprints leading from the | drive to Warham Lane. It ought to j'be easy enough to track the man."

"I don't see why," said Delia. "And it's ghastly to think that the burglary took place the very first time we were invited to the house. Our own may be the next to be robbed !"

When I came home that night she met me at the end of Warham Lane, and. perhaps because we were more than r usually on the alert, actually came upon further traces of the man who burgled Sir Ebenezer Perivale's big grey house, half a mile away.

The thing was a wisp of dusty notepaper, carefully hedged in the roots I of a blackberry "bramble, and it was j Delia, whose* quick eye first perceived I it. She gave a little squeak of ex- " citement. "A clue!" "Nonsense!" said I, picking up the paper. A single line of printed characters ran. across it: "To find joolsetinydirFuoytcepzellahseertrednukool." ; "This must be taken to the police station !" I said. ; - "Dick, don't be silly! You knowhow easy it is to follow up a clue— you said so yourself this morning, And think of the reward. We want a new carpet in the drawing-room, frightfully, and the bedroom curtains are simply dropping to pieces!" Delia snatched the-mper out of my hand and gloated over it. "Oh, let's get home again—quick !" 1 So home we went. "It's like anagrams," she said, breathlessly. - ' "And now to solve the cipher!"; At 7 we were still wrestling, with the task, for I so enlarged^ upon Delia's usefulness that she hadn't the heart to desert me. At half-nast 7 ; we rang for some fresh tea and ate | and drank in gulps. At 8, despite ! some reluctance on my wife's part, we tackled the problem again. The following morning, although the reward1 had been increased to £100, I had grown distinctly weary of the whole affair. - "I shall put back the paper," _ I told Delia, "and wait every evening after dusk—for the confederate isn't likely to put in an appearance before—until it's duly called for." "But-y-I thought you were going to follow up the clue?" said Delia, with less than her usual tact. ,

"I well—l haven't the "time. It must either be that or else I'll take

the paper to the police. I shall explore the lane to-morrow evening and if there are no signs of the place having been disturbed, go on to the station,"

That day I came home rather earlier than usual. No Delia awaited me in the front garden, but the door was ajar, and from within came the sound of voices, masculine, as well as feminine. With vague prognostications of evil, I entered the house. Delia was seated, a limp, white heap, on a dining-room chair, sobbing hysterically. Opposite her stood a short man with a bull neck and unwinking black eyes, in a frame of mind clearly between suspicion and apology.. The eyes of the bull-necked man and myself met.

"I'm sorry to give trouble," he said, "but this 'ere lady was seen to go, after dark, down Warham Lane. After waiting to see if she was noticed—which she was,, by my mate ■^-she began to fool about among the I trees with a trowel, and be'ave so j suspicious that 'c jumped out to ask what she was doin'. We'd a suspicion that a woman was mixed up in the case from the first."

"I see," said I. "Well, of course, the whole thing is utterly absurd, asi you'd have known if you'd been a local man. I have no idea as to why my wife went into the lane—probably m search of violets "

"In any case there is no particular harm done—and, if you're not a teetotaller——"

Bull-neck wasn't. He drank two <;^ of whisky and soda without flinching, accepted a. cigarette and even condescended ■to notice the yellow vases on either side of the sideboard. I was on the verge of offering them to him when something else caught his eye—a scattered row of cardboard squares. From these his gaze wandered absently to a half sheet of notepaper behind it. "Allo!" he said. "A cryptvgram?"

The moment was a crucial one lL "lf<»«nd it/ I said, "wedged in the roots of a tree in the lane." "Oh " said Bull-neck. His name, * .subsequently discovered, was Fhibbs. "Any objection to my examimn' it, sir?" " I gave him the paper. "You fellows are good at clues I believe. Take it away and see what you can make of it."

_ "Very good, sir." He stowed it in hiS T pocket. "I must be goin'. Sorry " uJu x? ps 6£ yo.ur Soo*l lad .V-r' "That's all right. Let me 1 know it anything fresh transpires." Bull-neck said that he would, and departed I went upstairs to find iJelia. She was inclined to be incoherent, and rather difficult to comfort. Eventually I telephoned for seats at the Frivolity, and a few hours later, amid the glitter and tinkle of "The Girls of Gravesend," the ignominies of the afternoon were forgotten. j We stayed to have supper in town, drove from the station in a taxicab an dreached "The Dovecot" feeling extremely well satisfied with the entertainment and ourselves. A light shone in the dining-room, in spite of the fact that we had told Ellen that she needn't trouble to sit up for us.

She opened th« dc.ov bofore I had time to put my key in the latch. "Nothing wrong. I hope?" "N—no. sir. But the gentleman rrom London's been here again." I felt Delia's clasp tighten on my arm. I "Do you mean the detective?" Ellen nodded. " 'E's been waiting for over an | hour," she said. j Delia's breath came quickly as I j opened the door and went into the ' dining-room. | Mr Phibbs, who had apparently

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paper to the police, and there'd be worse trouble. And that is why I went into the lane this-afternoon." "Then," said the detective, "I'm sorry, mum—extremely sorry-r-.but I shall have to ask you to come with me as far as" the p'lice station, because knowin', like every one else, that the Council's goin' to take over the lane to-morrer, and make a reg'lar thoroughfare of it, we dug under the big tree—me and my mate —and about a yard to the right of it we found the jools!"

It was a moment as ghastly and prolonged as the worst ni^Jitmare. I'd known, of course, that Delia herself had written the cipher—known it from the time when, taking a short cut through the fields to the lane, I had. seen her in the very act of inserting the paper in the tree. But who would have imagined, who,could have imagined—that the real burglar >uld have selected a hiding place so •near to her imaginary one? Certainly Delia couldn't, for she slipped quietly backwards to the nearest chair, and—for the first time in her life—fainted clean away.

It was over an hour later when, we set out for the police station. We were nearing the end of the lane, now, within a,.stone's throw •

the high road. A faint, steady muttering became audible. Mr Phibbs, his little eyes shining in the dark-« ness like a cat's, tiptoed forward.

.Nearer, the muttering separated itself into words and syllables. Some one was indulging in a steady, unbroken flow :of invective. Th?-~'^h a gap in the hedge on our right we could distinguish the bowed figure, scraping furiously with his fingers and calling down the vengeance of heayen and earth upon an unprintable someone who had in some unmentionable manner, defrauded him of some highly adjectival possessions. Mr Phibbs slipped still further ahead. I, followed. Lastly came Dalia, wrought up to a state of intense and breathless excitement.

The muttering erretv louder, rose to a cry of amazement and;ended in the sound of frantic, beast-like struggling as the two of us flung ourselves in turn upon a slim, dark, very muscular gentleman whom I dimly remembered having seen in the capacity of a hired waiter at Sir Ebenezer's ball. He had a heat, trowelshaped little instrument in his hand with which he contrived to batter Phibbs pretty effectually before we secured the hand that held it. In the end, we- pinioned him with a rope opportunely found in his own pocket, and with our trio converted into a quartette, finished the journey to the police station. Ten minutes later the muscular gentleman was being accosted by Mr Phibbs's superior as an old adversary, and was strolling to the nearest vacant cell with all the gay fortitude of an experienced criminal. And then, incredibly tired' and stiff, we walked back to our own house. Mr PhibbSj oppressively apologetic, es-^ corted us.

j "Of course, you could have proved an alibi," he said, addressing Delia, "though I wasn't to know it. It was a bit of real all-right, that feller j eomin' for the- spoils so soon arter we'd removed 'em. I 'ope there's no malice borne?" "None whatever." said I. "There's the reward", o' course." He paused awkwardly. "No doubt we can come to some sort of ment."Delia's lips formed the words, "New drawing-room carpet." "No doubt," said I. "In the meantime, my wife and I have been thinking that, in view of the happy termination of events, we should like to show our appreciation. " Delia, in the big chair, nodded. She was very sleepy. "In other words, to beg your acceptance of "

The eye of Mr Phibbs followed mine. The yellow vases, bedecked with purple blossoms, glittered under the incandescent light. They held him as a magnet holds steel. And when, still in a state of chaotic gratitude, he left a little later with them in his arms, Delia and I felt that life haß still its compensations.