"I reckon you're a bit of a sportsman," I said, "and I
want you to do me a service. Lend me your cap and
overall for ten minutes, and here's a sovereign for you."

His eyes opened at the sight of the gold, and he
grinned broadly. "Wot's the gyme?" he asked.

"A bet," I said. "I haven't time to explain, but to win it
I've got to be a milkman for the next ten minutes. All
you've got to do is to stay here till I come back. You'll
be a bit late, but nobody will complain, and you'll have
that quid for yourself."

"Right-o!" he said cheerily. "I ain't the man to spoil a bit
of sport. 'Ere's the rig, guv'nor."

I stuck on his flat blue hat and his white overall, picked
up the cans, banged my door, and went whistling
downstairs. The porter at the foot told me to shut my
jaw, which sounded as if my make-up was adequate.

At first I thought there was nobody in the street. Then I
caught sight of a policeman a hundred yards down,
and a loafer shuffling past on the other side. Some
impulse made me raise my eyes to the house opposite,
and there at a first-floor window was a face. As the
loafer passed he looked up, and I fancied a signal was
exchanged.

I crossed the street, whistling gaily and imitating the
jaunty swing of the milkman. Then I took the first side-
street, and went up a left-hand turning which led past a
bit of vacant ground. There was no one in the little
street, so I dropped the milk-cans inside the hoarding
and sent the hat and overall after them. I had only just
put on my cloth cap when a postman came round the
comer. I gave him good-morning and he answered me
unsuspiciously. At the moment the clock of a
neighbouring church struck the hour of seven.

There was not a second to spare. As soon as I got to
Euston Road I took to my heels and ran. The clock at
Euston Station showed five minutes past the hour. At
St. Pancras I had no time to take a ticket, let alone that I
had not settled upon my destination. A porter told me
the platform, and as I entered it I saw the train already
in motion. Two station officials blocked the way, but I
dodged them and clambered into the last carriage.

Three minutes later, as we were roaring through the
northern tunnels, an irate guard interviewed me. He
wrote out for me a ticket to Newton-Stewart, a name
which had suddenly come back to my memory, and he
conducted me from the first-class compartment where
I had ensconced myself to a third-class smoker,
occupied by a sailor and a stout woman with a child.
He went off grumbling, and as I mopped my brow I
observed to my companions in my broadest Scots that
it was a sore job catching trains. I had already entered
upon my part.

"The impidence o' that gyairdl" said the lady bitterly.
"He needit a Scots tongue to pit him in his place. He
was complainin' o' this wean no haein' a ticket and her
no fower fill August twalmonth, and he was objectin' to
this gentleman spittin'."

The sailor morosely agreed, and I started my new life
in an atmosphere of protest against authority. I
reminded myself that a week ago I had been finding
the world dull.

3 The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper

I had a solemn time travelling north that day. It was
fine May weather, with the hawthorn flowering on
every hedge, and I asked myself why, when I was still a
free man, I had stayed on in London and not got the
good of this heavenly country. I didn't dare face the
restaurant car, but I got a luncheon basket at Leeds
and shared it with the fat woman. Also I got the
morning's papers, with news about starters for the
Derby and the beginning of the cricket season, and
some paragraphs about how Balkan affairs were
settling down and a British squadron was going to Kiel.

When I had done with them I got out Scudder's little
black pocket-book and studied it. It was pretty well
filled with jottings, chiefly figures, though now and then
a name was printed in. For example, I found the words
"Hofgaard," "Luneville," and "Avocado" pretty often,
and especially the word "Pavia."'

Now I was certain that Scudder never did anything
without a reason, and I was pretty sure that there was
a cipher in all this. That is a subject which has always
interested me, and I did a bit at it myself once as
intelligence officer at Delagoa Bay during the Boer
War. I have a head for things like chess and puzzles,
and I used to reckon myself pretty good at finding out