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Author: H. F. Heard
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this chance may be gone for good.”
    â€œMr.________?”
    â€œIntil,” he added.
    â€œMr. Intil,” I said, “you have come to call on me without making an appointment. What exactly do you want me to do?”
    â€œI’ve said; I’ve told you,” he replied. “Have I come to the wrong place? You are Mr. Silchester, aren’t you?” Taking my nod for enough, he rushed on: “First you wrote that little book on cross-word puzzles and their setting and solving. Then you made that study of the Roger Bacon stuff—whether there was really hidden Greek information in the twirls and twists of the tails of the letters in the actual manuscripts. And I know you’re the author of a dozen articles in The Decoder . I know your style even when you don’t sign. Yes, I know about your lot. You’re just like the chess-champions—they can look and be as dumb as a dolt till you put a board in front of them. Then they just go through it like a water-diviner following a buried drain.”
    I let his compliments rest. “You want me to decode that piece of paper?”
    â€œOf course! What have I been saying since I came here!”
    â€œThen hand it to me.”
    He hesitated, then put it carefully down on my desk in front of me. The passage which he had copied out, maybe from a press-cutting, ran as he had read it.
    â€œIt’s usual ‘agony column’ stuff,” I was remarking, when he cut in, “That’s the disguise—put your sense and your secret where only fools look for fun.”
    â€œMr. Intil,” I said decisively,” please sit down! As you know my work, you know my method is aboveboard as chess.”
    He drew a chair and sat on the edge, watching his beloved copy.
    I went on, “You know, therefore, that there are a number of basic tests to make. Anyone can work these out, but, as in chess, some people have a natural knack for eliminating at once the blind alleys.”
    While I was saying this, I ran my eye through and across the lines. The born decoder, I’ve found, keeps his mind open, taking in the whole text. Then, if there is a clue, suddenly he’ll see certain letters almost as though they were of slightly different type. These letters generally give him a start on the message. None of us, I believe, ever gets the code message straight off—it glimmers through too briefly and is gone; Any strain or pull and it sinks away. But that diagnostic dip has shown if there is a message, running through and under the disguised surface-sentence—just as a chess master sees there’s a middle game and a “mate” standing out, if he can keep the path clear among all the possible other moves that lead nowhere.
    But nothing came through to me—not a hint. To stop strain and keep fresh I raised my eyes. My visitor was looking to and from the paper, glancing at it and then at me.
    â€œHaven’t you gotten a clue?” he questioned.
    I said nothing, but again gave that quick total glance. Then I was sure. Of one thing there could be no further question.
    â€œMr. Intil, this is no word code.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œWhy do you come to me unless you think I know?”
    â€œBut you haven’t tried!”
    â€œThat’s just what I have done.”
    â€œYou haven’t worked at it!”
    â€œHow do you work to find if a bell is sound? Ring it. I’ve rung this. There’s no letter code here.”
    Before I could say more he’d reached over and pocketed his precious paper. “Then you’re just a fraud,” he snapped, “Mr. Sydney Silchester!”
    Yes, I’m Mr. Sydney Silchester, whose sole distinctions were that he liked honey and being left alone, and so, quietly living on the rim of life, was nearly pushed over the edge by his honey dealer. How, then, did I get into the position where Mr. Intil thought it worth while to call on me, and

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