this chance may be gone for good.â
âMr.________?â
âIntil,â he added.
âMr. Intil,â I said, âyou have come to call on me without making an appointment. What exactly do you want me to do?â
âIâve said; Iâve told you,â he replied. âHave I come to the wrong place? You are Mr. Silchester, arenât you?â Taking my nod for enough, he rushed on: âFirst you wrote that little book on cross-word puzzles and their setting and solving. Then you made that study of the Roger Bacon stuffâwhether there was really hidden Greek information in the twirls and twists of the tails of the letters in the actual manuscripts. And I know youâre the author of a dozen articles in The Decoder . I know your style even when you donât sign. Yes, I know about your lot. Youâre just like the chess-championsâthey 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.â
I let his compliments rest. âYou want me to decode that piece of paper?â
âOf course! What have I been saying since I came here!â
âThen hand it to me.â
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.
âItâs usual âagony columnâ stuff,â I was remarking, when he cut in, âThatâs the disguiseâput your sense and your secret where only fools look for fun.â
âMr. Intil,â I said decisively,â please sit down! As you know my work, you know my method is aboveboard as chess.â
He drew a chair and sat on the edge, watching his beloved copy.
I went on, âYou 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.â
While I was saying this, I ran my eye through and across the lines. The born decoder, Iâve found, keeps his mind open, taking in the whole text. Then, if there is a clue, suddenly heâll 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 offâit 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-sentenceâjust as a chess master sees thereâs a middle game and a âmateâ standing out, if he can keep the path clear among all the possible other moves that lead nowhere.
But nothing came through to meânot 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.
âHavenât you gotten a clue?â 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.
âMr. Intil, this is no word code.â
âHow do you know?â
âWhy do you come to me unless you think I know?â
âBut you havenât tried!â
âThatâs just what I have done.â
âYou havenât worked at it!â
âHow do you work to find if a bell is sound? Ring it. Iâve rung this. Thereâs no letter code here.â
Before I could say more heâd reached over and pocketed his precious paper. âThen youâre just a fraud,â he snapped, âMr. Sydney Silchester!â
Yes, Iâm 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
Michelle Pace, Andrea Randall