“You may,” said Sorley blandly. “I am getting on slowly but surely. It has taken me years to gather material.” “Precious stones, I suppose.” “Certain gems of small value amongst other material, such as legends and superstitions connected with jewels. It will be an interesting book.” “I’m sure it will,” said Miss Grison more graciously, “but don’t work too hard at it. You are fond of exercise?” “Yes, I take a great deal.” “Ah, Selina Millington told me that you had bought a motor bicycle.” “Yes,” said Sorley stiffly and still laboriously polite. “I ride it round the country.” “And up to London?” “No,” he replied swiftly. “I have not yet travelled on it to town.” “I don’t think it takes many hours to get to town on so rapid a machine,” said Miss Grison in a musing tone. “But perhaps you are wise; you might get knocked over in the streets.” What answer Sorley made to this speech Alan did not hear. Marie, who had resented his attention to the speech of the elderly couple, now insisted that he should converse with her. He did so rather unwillingly, in spite of his genuine love. But his brain was running on the odd and somewhat spasmodic conversation, and he wondered why Miss Grison so pointedly referred to the motor bicycle. Also it seemed strange that Sorley should be on such familiar terms with a humble woman who kept a Bloomsbury boarding-house. To be sure her brother had been the man’s secretary, and Sorley probably had been intimate with the visitor in early days. Perhaps—and here Fuller started—perhaps the two had been in love, and the hatred Miss Grison felt for the well-preserved old gentleman was that of a woman scorned. When he again caught the drift of the conversation she was talking about cryptograms, and this also Alan thought strange. “My poor brother was always trying to work out secret writings,” said she. “Why?” asked Sorley, again uneasy at this mention of the dead. “I don’t know,” answered Miss Grison indifferently. “He wanted to learn some secret that would bring him money.” “In connection with what?” “I don’t know.” “Did he ever decipher the secret writing you refer to?” “I don’t know,” said Miss Grison again. “He spent his days and nights in trying to work out the cryptogram.’ “Alan,” murmured Marie under her breath on hearing this, “there is some cryptogram connected with the peacock, I fancy.” “Yes! yes, and he had it,” said Fuller hastily. Then he raised his voice. “Are you talking about ciphers, Miss Grison? I am fond of solving them myself and indeed I am rather good at it.” “Are you?” It was Mr. Sorley who replied and not the woman. “I think that I could puzzle you.” “No, you couldn’t,” rejoined Alan deliberately boastful. “Set me any cryptogram and I am sure I can solve it. I go on the system of Poe.” “What is that?”