“You don’t admire our reverend friend?” he asked, noting with secret amusement her wrathful expression.
“I think he is horrid!” she ejaculated. “So—so slimy. And Mrs. Nash is so straightforward and absolutely sincere.” Hastily she changed the subject. “How did that last code message read?”
Trenholm looked carefully around before answering her, to be sure they were alone, then approaching close to her side, whispered it in her ear.
“‘Watch thirteenth letter. Suicides grave.’”
“It sounds like gibberish,” she murmured. “Do you still think it refers to the thirteenth letter of the alphabet?”
“I do,” firmly. “And quite appropriately so,” he went on slowly, “when it commences such words as morphine, murder, madness—”
“And Mason,” she completed, quietly. “But, Mr. Trenholm, it’s a poor rule that doesn’t work both ways—”
“What do you mean?” as she paused.
“Counting the alphabet from A to M is thirteen,” she said. “But counting from M to A the thirteenth letter is A.” She looked at him queerly. “Alexander Nash.”
“Why not Alan Mason—counting both ways his initials make the number thirteen?” Trenholm stuffed his hands into his pockets and gazed at her tall, shapely figure, her clear, olive skin, and her great beautiful eyes, and was conscious of an accelerated pulse. He came a step closer. “I have learned that Alan was on the troopship from Vladivostok with his cousin Paul.”