Word by word the message, unaltered by its transmission through the hands of the party at the second station, was passed down to us by the turret signalman. Something in his tone drew my attention, and I looked up at him. He was red in the face with suppressed emotion.
“Is your man Orcutt efficient with his hands?” I asked Kenryck.
“Ought to be,” he replied. “He played left guard on the eleven for a couple of years.”
“You’d better ask him, then,” I suggested, feeling that a rare opportunity for testing the fighting capacity of the volunteer service had arrived, “why he doesn’t fly down from his roost and punch the fellow’s head?”
“I will!” said Kenryck promptly. And off went the question on its trip around the circuit.
The reply came quickly back: “Citizen’s name is Boardman. Has policeman with him, with some sort of papers. Orcutt’s willing to punch citizen, but has serious doubts about punching policeman. Says it’s all mistake: doesn’t owe anybody in Cambridge.” All of which I carefully entered in the book, exactly as it was given to me.
“See here, Millar!” Kenryck shouted, as he caught the sound of laughter from overhead, “do you know anything about this business?”
“I think I do, a little—if not a good deal,” admitted that young man in a choked sort of voice, grinning down at us through an embrasure. “Yes, I think I’m in a fairly good position for understanding the whole complication.”
“Humph! if it’s so almightily funny I fancy we’d better have more light on it,” said Kenryck, with much dignity. “We’ll flag over—‘Instructions coming: wait!’—and then I’ll trouble you to explain the meaning of all this foolishness.”
“It’s this way,” said the signalman, appearing at the parapet wall, after starting Kenryck’s order upon its travels: “Orcutt and I—you may have noticed it—look almost enough alike to be taken for twins, especially since he’s forced out that moustache of his. And that’s the key to the mystery.”