Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum was wet and more abundant than usual—in fact, it felt confoundedly like library paste, a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the fittings of the escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, Victor detected marks of fresh paste defining the contour of the flap.
With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took out and conned the telegraph form.
“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.”