"Oh, nonsense!" said the doctor. "I didn't say a man's thumb went there. A man's thumb, even in the course of thirty years, wouldn't have worn that groove. But I'll tell you what would have done it. A rope."
Rampole slid off the edge of the table. He glanced over at the balcony door, closed and sinister in the faint light of the candle.
"Why," he repeated aloud - "why was Anthony so strong in the arms?"
"Or, if you want more questions," boomed the doctor, sitting up straight, "why is the destiny of everybody so intimately concerned with that well? Everything leads straight to the well. - There's Anthony's son, of course, the second Starberth who was a governor of this prison. He's the one who threw us all off the track. He died of a broken neck, like his father, and started the tradition. If he'd died in bed, there wouldn't have been any tradition, and we could examine the death of Anthony, his father, without any hocus-pocus. We could see it as the isolated problem it is. But it didn't happen that way. Anthony's son had to be governor of this prison when the cholera wiped out most of its inmates, and those poor devils went mad down in their airless cells. Well, the governor of the prison went mad from the same fever. He had it, too, and his delusions were too strong for him. You know what an effect that diary of his father's had on all of us? Then what sort of effect do you imagine it had on a nervous, bogey-ridden man who had been stricken with cholera in the bogey-ridden nineteenth century? What do you suppose is the effect on the brain of living just above the exhalations of a swamp where hanged men have been thrown to rot?-Anthony could hardly have hated his own son enough to want him to get up from his bed in delirium and throw himself from that balcony. But that's what the second governor did."
Rumbling, Dr. Fell exhaled his breath so hard that it almost blew out the candle, and Rampole jumped. For a moment the big room was quiet: dead men's books, dead men's chairs, and now the ancient sickness of their brains had become as terrible here as the face of the Iron Maiden. A rat scurried across the floor. Dorothy Starberth had put her hand on Rampole's sleeve; you would have said that she saw ghosts.
"And Anthony-?" Rampole put in, with an effort.
For a time Dr. Fell sat with his big shock of hair bowed.
"It must have taken him a long time," he remarked, vacantly, "to have worn so deep a groove in the stone. He had to do it all alone, and in the dead of night-time, when nobody could see him. Of course, there were no guards on that side of the prison, so he could escape unnoticed. . . Still, I'm inclined to think he had a confederate for the first few years, until he could develop his own strength. His own terrific strength would come with patience, but until then he had to have a confederate up raise and lower him. Probably, afterwards, he did away with the man...."
"Wait, please!" said Rampole, hitting the table. "You say that the groove was worn by a rope because Anthony spent years ..."
"Hauling himself up and down it."
"Into the well," the other observed, slowly. He. had a sudden vision of a weird spiderish figure in black, swinging on a rope under the night sky. A lamp or two would be burning in the prison. The stars would be out. And Anthony would dangle by night where dead men dangled in daytime, working his way down to the well. .. .
Yes. Somewhere down in that broad well, God knew where, he had spent year's in hollowing out a cache. Or possibly every night he had swung down to examine his treasures there. The reek from the well would dissolve his own sanity as it later dissolved his son's; but more subtly, for he was a harder man. He would see dead men climbing up from the well to knock at his balcony door. He would hear them whispering together at night, because he had decked their flesh with his wealth, and planted gold among their bones. Many nights he must have seen the rats eating in the well. It was only when he saw the rats in his own bed that he believed the dead men were coming to carry him down with them, soon.
Rampole's damp coat felt repulsive against him. The room was full of Anthony's presence.
Dorothy spoke in a clear voice. She did not look afraid now.
"And that," she said, "went on until-?"
"Until he grew careless," answered Dr. Fell.
The rain, which had almost died away, crept up on the prison once more; it rustled in the ivy at the window, splattering the floor; it danced through the prison, as though it were washing things away.
"Or perhaps," resumed the doctor, looking suddenly at the balcony door, "perhaps he didn't grow careless. Perhaps somebody knew of his visits, without knowing what they were about, and cut that rope. Anyway, the knot of his rope slipped, or was cut. It was a wild night, full of wind and rain. The rope, freed, went down with him. Since its edge was on the inside lip of the well, it slid over into the well; nobody would have cared to examine anything down there, so they didn't suspect a rope. But Anthony didn't fall into the well."
And Rampole thought: Yes, a rope that was cut. Much more probable than a noose that slipped. Perhaps there was a lamp burning in the Governor's Room, and the man with the knife was looking over the balcony rail, and saw Anthony's face momentarily as he went whirling down towards the spikes on the edge of the well. In Rampole's mind it was as horribly vivid as a Cruikshank print-the white, staring eyeballs, the outflung arms, the shadowy murderer.
A cry against the wind and rain; then the noise, however it had sounded; and a lamp blown out. It was all as dead as one of those books in the shelves. Ainsworth might have imagined it, just as it took place, in the eighteen-twenties....
Distantly he heard Dr. Fell say: "There, Miss Starberth. There's your damned curse. There's what's been worrying you all this time. Not very impressive, is it?"
She rose without speaking, and began to walk about the room, her hands thrust into her pockets, just as Rampole remembered her that first night at the train. Pausing in front of Dr. Fell, she took a folded paper from her pocket and held it out. The verses.
"Then," she asked, "this? What about this?"
"A cryptogram, undoubtedly. It will tell us the exact place.... But don't you see that a clever thief wouldn't have needed that paper, he wouldn't even need to have known of its existence, to know that there was something hidden in the well? He could have used just the evidence I used. It's all available."
The candle was getting low, and a broad sheet of flame curled about it, throwing momentary brightness. Dorothy went to where the rain was making splattered pools below the window, and stared blankly at the vines.
"I think I see," she said, "about my father. He was - wet, wet all over, when they found him."
"You mean," said Rampole, "that he caught the thief at work?"
"Well, is there any other explanation?" Dr. Fell growled. He had been making ineffectual efforts to light his pipe, and now he laid it down on the table. "He was out riding, you know. He saw the rope going down into the well. We can assume that the murderer didn't see him, because Timothy went down into the well. So-?" He glared ferociously.
"There's some sort of room, or hollowed-out place," Rampole nodded. "And the murderer didn't know he was there until he came down."
"Humph. Well. There's another deduction, but let it go. Excuse me, Miss Starberth: your father didn't fall. He was beaten, coldly and viciously, and then thrown into the bushes for dead."
The girl turned. "Herbert?" she demanded.
With his forefinger Dr. Fell was making a pattern in the dust of the table, like a child drawing, with the utmost absorption. He muttered:
"It can't be an amateur. The thing's too perfect. It can't be. But it's got to be, unless they tell me differently. And if he isn't, it must be a high stake."
Rampole somewhat irritably asked what he was talking about.
"I was talking," the doctor replied, "about a visit to London."
With an effort he hoisted himself to his feet on the two canes; he stood fiery and lowering, blinking about the room behind his glasses. Then he shook one stick at the walls like a schoolmaster.
"Your secret's out," he rumbled. "You can't scare anybody now.
"
"There's still a murderer," Rampole said.
"Yes. And, Miss Starberth, it's your father who has kept him here. Your father left that note in the vault, as I explained to you the other day. The murderer thinks he's safe. He has waited nearly three years to get that condemning paper back. Well, he isn't safe."
"You know who it is?"
"Come along," said the doctor, brusquely. "We've got to get home. I need a cup of tea or a bottle of beer, preferably the latter. And my wife will be returning from Mrs. Payne's before long. . . ."
"Look here, sir," Rampole persisted; "do you know who the murderer is?"
Dr. Fell pondered.
"It's still raining hard," he responded, at length, with the air of one meditating a move at chess. "Do you see how much water has accumulated under that window?"
"Yes, of course, but-"
"And do you see," he indicated the closed door to the balcony, "that none has got in through there?" "Naturally."
"But if that door were open there would be much more water there than under the window, wouldn't there?"
If the doctor were doing all this merely for the purpose of mystification, Rampole could not tell it. The lexicographer was looking through his glasses in a rather cross-eyed fashion, and pinching at his moustache. Rampole grimly resolved to hang on to the coat-tails of the comet.
"Undoubtedly, sir," he agreed.
"Then," said the other, triumphantly, "why didn't we see his light?"
"O God!" said Rampole, with a faint groan.
"It's like a conjuring trick. Do you know," enquired Dr. Fell, pointing with one cane, "what Tennyson said of Browning's 'Sordello'?"
"No, sir."
"He said that the only things you could understand in the poem were the first line and the last-and that both of 'em were lies. Well, that's the key to this business. Come along, children, and have some tea."
There might still have been terror in the house of whips and hangings. But Rampole did not feel it when he led the way down again with his light.
Back in the lamplit warmth of. Dr. Fell's house, they found Sir Benjamin Arnold waiting for them in the study.
Chapter 14
SIR BENJAMIN was moody. He had been cursing the rain, and, afterwards, the presence of strong language was still as palpable as a whisky breath. They found him looking hungrily at the cold tea-things before the study fire.
"Halloa!" said Dr. Fell. "My wife not back yet? How did you get in?"
"I walked in," the chief constable responded, with dignity. "The door was open. Somebody's been neglecting a jolly good tea. . . . I say, what about a drink?
"We-ah-had tea," said Rampole.
The chief constable was aggrieved. "I want a brandy-and-soda. Everybody is pursuing me. First the rector. His uncle - New Zealander - old friend of mine; I got the rector the parish here - is making his first trip to England in ten years, and the rector wants me to meet him. How the devil can I go away? The rector's a New Zealander. Let him go to Southampton. Then Payne . . ."
"What's wrong with Payne?" asked Dr. Fell.
"He wants the door of the Governor's Room sealed up with bricks for good. Says its purpose is over now. Well, I only hope it is. But we can't do it yet. Payne always has a kind of mental toothache about something. Finally, since the last Starberth male heir is dead, Dr. Markley wants the well filled up."
Dr. Fell puffed out his cheeks. "We certainly can't do that," he agreed. "Sit down. There's something we've got to tell you."
While the doctor was pouring out stiff drinks at the sideboard, he told Sir Benjamin everything that had happened that afternoon. During the recital, Rampole was watching the girl's face. She had not spoken much since Dr. Fell had begun to explain what lay behind the Starberths; but she seemed to see peace.
Sir Benjamin was flapping his hands behind his back. His damp clothes exhaled a strong odour of tweed and tobacco.
"I don't doubt it, I don't doubt it," he grumbled. "But why did you have to be so confoundedly long about telling this? We've lost a lot of time.- Still, it doesn't alter what we've got to face-that Herbert's the only one who could be guilty. Inquest said so."
"Does that reassure you?"
"No. Damn it. I don't think the boy's guilty. But what else can we do?"
"No trace of him yet?"
"Oh, he's been reported everywhere; but they haven't found him. In the meantime, I repeat, what else can we do?"
"We can investigate the hiding-place Anthony made, for one thing."
"Yes. If this infernal cipher, or whatever it is ... Let's have a look. I suppose we have your permission, Miss Starberth?"
She smiled faintly. "Of course - now. But I am inclined to think Dr. Fell has been overconfident. Here's my own copy."
Dr. Fell was seated spread out in his favourite armchair, his pipe glowing and a bottle of beer beside him. With white hair and whiskers, he could have made a passable double for Father Christmas. He watched benignly as Sir Benjamin studied the verses. Rampole's own pipe was drawing well, and he sat back comfortably on the red sofa where, in an, unobtrusive way, he could touch Dorothy's hand. With his other hand he held a drink. Thus, he reflected, there were all the requisites of life.
The chief constable's horsy eyes squinted up. He read aloud:
"How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun;
Great Homer's tale of Troy?
Or country of the midnight sun What doth all men destroy?"
Slowly he read the lines again, in a lower voice. Then he said with heat:
"Look here, this is nonsense!"
"Ah!" said Dr. Fell, like one who savours a rare bouquet of wine.
"It's just a lot of crackbrain poetry-" "Verse," corrected Dr. Fell.
"Well, it certainly isn't any cryptogram, whatever it is.
Have you seen it?"
"No. But it's a cryptogram, all right."
The chief constable tossed the paper across to him.
"Righto, then. Tell us what it means. `How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun; Great Homer's tale of Troy?' It's a lot of rubbish. . . . Hold on, though!" muttered Sir
Benjamin, rubbing his cheek. "I've seen those puzzles in the magazines. And I remember in the stories - you take every other word, or every second word, or something - don't you?"
"That won't work," said Rampole, gloomily. "I've tried all the combinations of first, second, and third words. I've tried it as an acrostic, down the whole four verses. The first letters give you 'Hgowatiwiowetgff.' With the last letters you produce 'Nynyfrdrefstenen.' The last one sounds like an Assyrian queen.
"Ah," said Dr. Fell, nodding again.
"In the magazines-" began Sir Benjamin.
Dr. Fell settled himself more deeply into his chair, blowing an enormous cloud of smoke.
"By the way," he observed, "I have a quarrel to pick with those puzzles in the magazines and illustrated papers. Now, I'm very fond of cryptograms myself. (Incidentally, you will find behind you one of the first books on cipherwriting: John Baptist Porta's De Furtivis Literarum Notis, published in 1563.) Now, the only point of a good cryptogram is that it should conceal something which somebody wanted to keep a secret in the first place. That is, it is really a piece of secret writing. Its message should be something like, `The missing jewels are hidden in the archdeacon's pants,' or, 'Von Dinklespook will attack the Worcestershire Guards at midnight.'-But when these people in the illustrated papers try to invent a cryptogram which will baffle the reader, they don't try to baffle you by inventing a difficult cryptogram at all. They only try to baffle you by putting down a message which nobody would ever send in the first place. You puzzle and swear through a gigantic mass of symbols, only to produce the message: `Pusillanimous pachyderms primarily procrastinate procreative prerogatives.' Bah!" stormed the doctor. "Can you imagine an operative of the German secret service risking his life to get a message like that through the British lines? I should think that General Von Googledorfer would be a trifle nettled when he got his dis
patch decoded and found that cowardly elephants are in the habit of putting off any attempt to reproduce their species."
"That isn't true, is it?" inquired Sir Benjamin, with interest.
"I'm not concerned with the natural history of the statement," returned the doctor, testily; "I was talking about cryptograms." He took a long pull at his beer-glass, and went on in a more equable tone:
"It's a very old practice, of course. Plutarch and Gellius mention secret methods of correspondence used by the Spartans. But cryptography, in the stricter sense of substituting words, letters, or symbols, is of Semitic origin. At least, Jeremiah uses it. A variant of this same simple form is used in Caesar's 'quarta elementorus littera,' where-"
"Put look at the blasted thing!" exploded Sir Benjamin, picking up Rampole's copy from the hearth and slapping it. "hook here, in the last verse. It doesn't make sense. `The Corsican was vanquished here, Great mother of all sin.' if that means what I think it does, it's a bit rough on Napoleon."
Dr. Fell took the pipe out of his mouth. "I wish you'd shut up." he said, plaintively. "1 feel like lecturing, I do. I was going on from Trithemius to Francis Bacon, and then--"
"I don't want to hear any lecture," interposed the chief constable. "I wish you'd have a look at the thing. I don't ask you to solve it. But stop lecturing and just look at it."
Sighing, Dr. Fell came to the centre table, where he lighted another lamp and spread the paper out before him. The pipe smoke slowed down to thin, steady puffs between clenched teeth.
"H'm." he said. There was another silence.
"Wait a bit." urged Sir Beniamin, holding up his hand as the doctor seemed about to speak. "Don't begin talking like a damned dictionary, now. But do you see any lead there?"
"I was about to ask you," replied the other, mildly, "to pour me out another bottle of beer. However, since you mention it . . . the old-timers were children to, our modern cryptographers; the war proved that. And this one, which was written in the late eighteenth or early
nineteenth century, shouldn't be so difficult. The rebus was a favorite form then; it isn't that, I know. But it's a bit more difficult than the ordinary substitution cipher Poe was so fond of. It's something like a rebus, only ..."
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