And you'll give me some more
material about your adventures?'
As I entered the inn porch I heard from far off the beat of an
engine. There silhouetted against the dusky West was my friend,
the monoplane.
He gave me a room at the back of the house, with a fine outlook
over the plateau, and he made me free of his own study, which was
stacked with cheap editions of his favourite authors. I never saw the
grandmother, so I guessed she was bedridden. An old woman called
Margit brought me my meals, and the innkeeper was around me at
all hours. I wanted some time to myself, so I invented a job for him.
He had a motor-bicycle, and I sent him off next morning for the daily
paper, which usually arrived with the post in the late afternoon. I
told him to keep his eyes skinned, and make note of any strange
figures he saw, keeping a special sharp look-out for motors and
aeroplanes. Then I sat down in real earnest to Scudder's note-book.
He came back at midday with the SCOTSMAN. There was nothing in
it, except some further evidence of Paddock and the milkman, and a
repetition of yesterday's statement that the murderer had gone
North. But there was a long article, reprinted from THE TIMES, about
Karolides and the state of affairs in the Balkans, though there was no
mention of any visit to England. I got rid of the innkeeper for the
afternoon, for I was getting very warm in my search for the cypher.
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