look for you, sir," he announced, glibly. "Telegram,
sir--just harrived."

"Thanks," said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on into
his rooms.

His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed by
this manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his heels.

Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a display
of languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram is
ordinarily acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment staring
thoughtfully at nothing and absently turning the envelope over and over in
his hands; while Nogam with specious nonchalance found something
unimportant to do in another quarter of the room.

The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had brought
with it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a mile from the
post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as charity; and an
envelope recently steamed open might be expected to hold the heat for a few
minutes.

Victor thumbed the flap. It lifted readily, without tearing, its gum was
wet and more abundant than usual--in fact, it felt confoundedly like
library paste, a pot of which, in an ornamental holder, was among the
fittings of the escritoire. On the desk pad of blotting paper, too, Victor
detected marks of fresh paste defining the contour of the flap.

With a countenance whose inscrutability alone was a threat, Victor took out
and conned the telegraph form.

"CONSULTATION SET FOR MIDNIGHT TO-NIGHT TAKING YOUR ADVICE SHALL NOT ATTEND
BUT LEAVE FOR BRIGHTON ELEVEN P.M."

A message ostensibly so open and aboveboard that it hadn't been thought
worth while to hide its wording under the cloak of a code.

There was no signature--unless one were clever or wise enough to transpose
the two final letters and take them in relation to the word immediately
preceding. "Eleven, M.P.", however, could mean nothing to anybody but
Victor--except a body clever enough to hide a dictograph detector in a
turnip. So Victor saw no reason to believe that Nogam, although
undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, had been able to read the meaning
below the surface of this communication.

Nevertheless, undue inquisitiveness on the part of a servant in the pay of
Victor Vassilyevski could have but one reward.

"Nogam!"

"Sir?"

"Fetch me an A-B-C."

"Very good, sir."

With Nogam out of the way, Victor enclosed the telegram in a new env