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The newspaper we found that Christmas Eve in the Chateau was of tremendous importance, for Bommaerts had pricked out in the advertisement the very special second cipher of the Wild Birds. That proved that Ivery was at the back of the Swiss business. But Blenkiron made doubly sure. 'I considered the time had come, he said, 'to pay high for valuable noos, so I sold the enemy a very pretty de-vice.
But who were Chelius and Bommaerts, and what in the name of goodness were the Wild Birds and the Cage Birds? Twice in the past three years I had had two such riddles to solve Scudder's scribble in his pocket-book, and Harry Bullivant's three words.
'Do you know more about him than we knew in the summer? Mary, what did Bommaerts pretend to be? 'An Englishman. Mary spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone, as if it were a perfectly usual thing to be made love to by a spy, and that rather soothed my annoyance. 'When he asked me to marry him he proposed to take me to a country-house in Devonshire. I rather think, too, he had a place in Scotland.
'I think I call it the Interpreter's House, I said. 'It's the house of somebody we both know, she went on. 'He calls himself Bommaerts here. That was one of the two names, you remember. I have seen him since in Paris. Oh, it is a long story and you shall hear it all soon. I knew he came here sometimes, so I came here too.
But the name will be on the Commissary's list. It is, as I remember, a sort of Flemish. He hobbled off and returned in five minutes. 'Bommaerts, he said, 'Jacques Bommaerts. A young man with no wife but with money Dieu de Dieu, what oceans of it! That clerk got twenty-five francs, and he was cheap at the price. I went back to my division with a sense of awe on me.
It was true, and it may give us Chelius. I must leave Mr Blenkiron to tell you how. But the trouble is this. We know something of the doings of someone who may be Chelius, but we can't link them with Ivery. We know that Ivery is Bommaerts, and our hope is to link Bommaerts with Chelius. That's why I came here. I was trying to burgle this escritoire in an amateur way.
The writing was a set of key-words we did not know, but two names stood out which I knew too well. They were 'Bommaerts' and 'Chelius'. 'My God! I cried, 'that's uncanny. It only shows that if you chew long enough 'Dick, said Mary, 'you mustn't say that again. At the best it's an ugly metaphor, and you're making it a platitude. 'Who is Ivery anyhow? I asked.
'That's what I'm here for. What's the move? 'The Wild Birds mustn't ever go home, and the man they call Ivery or Bommaerts or Chelius has to decease. It's a cold-blooded proposition, but it's him or the world that's got to break. But before he quits this earth we're bound to get wise about some of his plans, and that means that we can't just shoot a pistol at his face.
'It's only a car on the main road, said Mary. 'How did you get in? I asked. 'By the broken window in the next room. I cycled out here one morning, and walked round the place and found the broken catch. 'Perhaps it is left open on purpose. That may be the way M. Bommaerts visits his country home ... Let's get off, Mary, for this place has a curse on it. It deserves fire from heaven.
We want to know the character which is behind all the personalities. Above all we want to know its foibles. If we had only a hint of some weakness we might make a plan. 'Well, let's set down all we know, I cried, for the more I argued the keener I grew. I told them in some detail the story of the night in the Coolin and what I had heard there. 'There's the two names Chelius and Bommaerts.
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