The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-03-04

sumably to blackmail, had also been
 mentioned as living in Hampshire.
 The letter, then, might either come
 from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret
 which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear enough But then how could this let ter be trivial and grotesque, as de- scribed by the son? He must have
 misread it. If so, it must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem | to mean another. I must seee this
 letter. If there were a hidden mean
 ing in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth For an hour I sat
 pondering over it in the gloom, until
 at last a. weeping maid brought in a l lamp, and close at her heels came my
 friend Trevor, pale but composed,
 with these very papers which lie up-
 on my knee held in his grasp. He
 sat down opposite to me, drew the
 lamp. to the edge of the table, and | handed me a short note scrubbed, as
 you see, upon a single sheet of gray
 paper. The supply of game for Lon | don is going steadily up,' it ran. | 'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has | been now told to receiveal orders for | ny-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's life
 ''I dare say my face looked as be- | wildered as yours did just now when ! first I read this message. Then re-
 read it very carefully. It was evident | 1y as I had thought, and some secret
 meaning must lie buried in this
 strange combination of words. Or | could it be that there was prear- | ranged significance to such phrases as | fly paper and 'hen-pheasant' Such
 a meaning would be arbitrary and 1 could not be deduced in any way And yet I was loath to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed to show that the subject of the message was as. l had l guessed, and that it was from Bed does rather than the sailor I tried l it backwards, but the combination | life pheasant'S hen was not .encour- aging. Then I tried alternate words, but neither the of for nor supply game London promised to throw any
 light upon it.
 And then in an instant the key
 of the riddle was in my hands; and
 I saw that every third word, begin ming with the first, would give
 message which might well drive old
 Trevor to despair.
 ..It was short and terse, the warn ing, as I now read it to my compan- jon:
 S The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your Hfe.'
 "Victor Trevor sank his face into
 his Shaking hands. It must be that, I suppose said he This is worse than death, for it means disgrace as we'll. But what is the meaning of
 these 'head-keepers' and 'hen-pheas- ants 9
 ! [" Tt means nothing to the message,
 but it might mean a good deal to us if we had no other means of discover ing the sender. You see that he has begun by writing ''The game .. is,'' and so on. Afterwards he had, to fulfil the fprearranged cipher, tn in fxxTn words in each He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind. and if there
 were so many which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you | know anything of this Beddoes?' | Why, now that you mention 1t, said he, T remember that my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves every autumn
 Then it is undoubte tedly from him that the note comes, said I. It only
 remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailoor Hudson
 seems to have held over the heads of | these two wealthy and respected men, l Alas, Holmes, fear that it is one of sin and shame! cried my friend. | But from you I shall have no se- cretst Here is the statement which
 was drawn up by my father when he
 knew that the danger from Hudson | had bad judgment imminent I found | it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told l the doctor. Take it and read it to
 me, for I have neither the strength nor the courage to do it myself These are the very papers, Wat l son, which he handed to me, and I | will read them to you, as read them 1 in the old study that night to him. They are endorsed outside. you see, | Some particulars of the voyage of the bark Gloria Scott, from her leav- ing Falmouth on the Sth October, 1855, to her destructio in North Lat l itude 5 degrees 20 minutes, West Iongitudee 25 degrees A minutes, on | Nov 6th-' It is in the form of a