“Yes, it’s hers,” he answered, to which Dangle replied asking if he would take it for her. Cheyne slipped the purse into his pocket, and next moment he was walking along Dalton Road towards the station, free, well, and with the tracing in his pocket. Until that moment, in the inner recesses of his consciousness doubt of the _bona fides_ of the trio had lingered. Until then the fear that he was to be the victim of some plausible trick had dwelt in his heart. But now at last he was convinced. Had the men desired to harm him they had had a perfect opportunity. He had been for the last hour entirely in their power. No one knew where he had gone, and they could with the greatest ease have murdered him, and either hidden his body about the house or garden or removed it in the car during the night. Yes, this time he believed their story. It was eminently reasonable, and as a matter of fact, it had been pretty well proved by their actions, as well as by the facts that he had learned at the Admiralty and elsewhere. They were at a standstill because they couldn’t read the cipher, and they really did want, as they said, the help of his and Joan’s fresh brains. From their point of view they had done a wise thing in thus approaching him—indeed, a masterly thing. Cheyne was not conceited and he did not consider his own mental powers phenomenal, but he knew he was good at puzzles, and at the very least, he and Joan were of average intelligence. Moreover, they were the only other persons who knew of the cipher, and it was the soundest strategy to turn their antagonism into cooperation. He reached North Wembley to find a train about to start for Town, and some half hour later he was walking up the platform at Euston. He looked at his watch. It was barely eleven. An hour would elapse before Joan would reach her rooms, and that meant that he had more than half an hour to while away before going to meet her. It occurred to him that in his excitement he had forgotten to breakfast, and though he was not hungry, he thought another cup of coffee would not be unacceptable. Moreover, he could at the same time have a look over the cipher. He therefore went to the refreshment room, gave his order, and sat down at a table in a secluded corner. Then drawing the mysterious sheet from his pocket, he began to examine it. As he leaned forward over his coffee he felt Joan’s purse in his pocket, and suddenly fearful lest in his eagerness to tell her his experiences he should forget to give it to her, he took it out and laid it on the table, intending to carry it in his hand until he met her. Then he returned to his study of the tracing.