“Why in this cipher?” I asked, when she handed it to me, requesting me to go to Fleet Street after our midday dinner.
“Because—well, because I don’t wish it to be read by other people. It is for the eye of one person only.”
I placed it in my pocket without further comment, and after we had eaten together I went out to do her bidding.
While seated in the tram-car in the Old Kent Road I took out the mystic message she had written, and with the key which I had fortunately carried away with me from Bolton Street I deciphered the words she had penned.
They read,—
“To Nello.—Will make appointment when safe for us to meet. Note that Eric is in Paris. I still trust you.—S.”
I sat staring at the paper like a man in a dream.
Was Tibbie, the woman I had promised to save and for whose sake I was sacrificing everything, reputation, honour, even my life, actually playing me false?
How did she know that Eric was in Paris? Was that really true?
And who was Nello to whom she sent that message of trust?