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Scudder had said it was the key to the Karolides business, and it occurred to me to try it on his cypher. It worked. The five letters of 'Julia' gave me the position of the vowels. A was J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, and so represented by X in the cypher. E was XXI, and so on. 'Czechenyi' gave me the numerals for the principal consonants.
The fact is, I was more interested in his own adventures than in his high politics. I reckoned that Karolides and his affairs were not my business, leaving all that to him. So a lot that he said slipped clean out of my memory.
I thought of Karolides lying dead and all Europe trembling on the edge of earthquake, and the men I had left behind me in London who were waiting anxiously for the events of the next hours. There was no doubt that hell was afoot somewhere. The Black Stone had won, and if it survived this June night would bank its winnings.
They were clever enough for anything, and an English prison was as good a way of getting rid of me till after June 15th as a knife in my chest. Besides, if I told the whole story, and by any miracle was believed, I would be playing their game. Karolides would stay at home, which was what they wanted. Somehow or other the sight of Scudder's dead face had made me a passionate believer in his scheme.
Now Karolides is reckoned the principal guest, and if my friends have their way he will never return to his admiring countrymen. 'That's simple enough, anyhow, I said. 'You can warn him and keep him at home. 'And play their game? he asked sharply. 'If he does not come they win, for he's the only man that can straighten out the tangle.
There was nothing else in the paper, nothing about foreign politics or Karolides, or the things that had interested Scudder. I laid it down, and found that we were approaching the station at which I had got out yesterday.
His kind had put the bullet in Karolides. The plump man's features seemed to dislimn, and form again, as I looked at them. He hadn't a face, only a hundred masks that he could assume when he pleased. That chap must have been a superb actor. Perhaps he had been Lord Alloa of the night before; perhaps not; it didn't matter.
I told him all Scudder had told me about Karolides and the Foreign Office conference, and that made him purse his lips and grin. Then I got to the murder, and he grew solemn again. He heard all about the milkman and my time in Galloway, and my deciphering Scudder's notes at the inn. 'You've got them here? he asked sharply, and drew a long breath when I whipped the little book from my pocket.
He had the artistic temperament, and wanted a story to be better than God meant it to be. He had a lot of odd biases, too. Jews, for example, made him see red. Jews and the high finance. 'The Black Stone, he repeated. 'DER SCHWARZE STEIN. It's like a penny novelette. And all this stuff about Karolides.
'Karolides was shot dead this evening at a few minutes after seven. The Coming of the Black Stone I came down to breakfast next morning, after eight hours of blessed dreamless sleep, to find Sir Walter decoding a telegram in the midst of muffins and marmalade. His fresh rosiness of yesterday seemed a thought tarnished. 'I had a busy hour on the telephone after you went to bed, he said.
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