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.
Chapter 15
Mr. Budge had been spending an edifying evening. Three nights a month he had to himself. Two of these he generally contrived to spend at the motion pictures in Lincoln, watching people being placed on the spot with gratifying regularity, and refreshing his memory anew with such terms as 'scram,' 'screwey,' and other expressions which might be useful to him in his capacity as butler at the Hall. His third evening out he invariably spent with his good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rankin, butler and housekeeper at the home of the Paynes in Chatterham.
In their snug rooms downstairs, the Rankins greeted him with a hospitality whose nature rarely varied. Mr. Budge had the best chair, a squeaky rush rocker whose top towered far above the head of any sitter. Mr. Budge was offered a drop of something-port from upstairs, from the Paynes' own table, or a hot toddy in wet weather. The gaslights would sing comfortably, and there would' be the usual indulgent baby-talk to the cat. Three rocking-chairs would swing in their separate tempos — Mrs. Rankin's quick and sprightly, her husband's more judicially, and that of
