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.

 

Chapter III.

 

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 cypher in all this. That is a subject which has