e
Continent, I was to sail for Canada. 'Before you go,' he said, 'I will
give you the code--but I am afraid that I cannot do that until after
ten o'clock.'"

McNorton was scribbling notes in shorthand and carefully circled the
hour.

"We went back to his flat and had breakfast together--it was then about
five o'clock. He packed a few things and I particularly noticed that he
looked very carefully at the interior of a little grip which he had
brought the previous night from Staines. He was so furtive, carrying the
bag to the light of the window, that I supposed he was consulting his
code, and I wondered why he should defer giving me the information until
ten o'clock. Anyway, I could swear he took something from the bag and
slipped it into his pocket. We left the flat soon after and drove to a
railway station where the baggage was left. Van Heerden had given me
bank-notes for a thousand pounds in case we should be separated, and I
went on to the house in South London. You needn't ask me where it is
because van Heerden is not there."

He gulped again at the wine.

"At eleven o'clock van Heerden came back," resumed Milsom, "and if ever
a man was panic-stricken it was he--the long and the short of it is that
the code was mislaid."

"Mislaid!" Beale was staggered.

Here was farce interpolated into tragedy--the most grotesque, the most
unbelievable farce.

"Mislaid," said Milsom. "He did not say as much, but I gathered from the
few disjointed words he flung at me that the code was not irredeemably
lost; in fact, I have reason to believe that he knows where it is. It
was after that that van Heerden started in to do some tall cursing of
me, my country, my decadent race and the like. Things have been strained
all the afternoon. To-night they reached a climax. He wanted me to help
him in a burglary--and burglary is not my forte."

"What did he want to burgle?" asked McNorton, with professional
interest.

"Ah! There you have me! It was the question I asked and he refused to
answer. I was to put myself in his hands and there was to be some
shooting if, as he thought likely, a caretaker was left on the premises
to be entered. I told him flat--we were sitting on Wandsworth Common at
the time--that he could leave me out, and that is where we became
mutually offensive."

He looked at his maimed hand.

"I dressed it roughly at a chemist's. The iodine open dressing isn't
beautiful, but it is antiseptic. He shot to kill, to