Henry Blaine paused a moment before replying.

"I might let him take his chance before the court, on the strength of
his years, and his having turned State's evidence voluntarily, Guy,
but he's an old offender, and Carlis' faction is strong. My racing car
will make ninety miles an hour, easily, and it can do it unmolested,
with my private sign on the hood. It can meet the Canadian express at
Branchtown at dawn. I've a little farm in a nice community in Canada,
not too isolated, and I'm going to make it over to you as part of your
reward for your work on the Lawton case....

"No, don't thank me! I'm sworn on the side of law and order, but
Justice is stern and sometimes blind because she will not see.
Remember, the Greatest Jurist Himself recommended mercy!"

Soon afterward, as they sat discussing the wind-up of the case, the
subject of the second set of cryptograms was broached, and Blaine
smiled at Morrow's utter bewilderment concerning them.

"Still puzzling about those, Guy? They weren't as simple as the first
one was, that of the system of odd-shaped characters and dots. The
later ones were the more difficult because they were of no set system
at all--I mean no one system, but a primitive conglomeration,
probably evolved by Paddington himself, based on script music and also
the old childish trick of writing letters shaped like figures, which
can be read by reversing the paper, and holding it up to the light.

"Just a minute, and we'll look at the two notes, the one you found in
Brunell's room in the deserted cottage, and the other which came to me
in the cigarette box meant for Paddington, from Mac Alarney. Then
we'll be able to see how they were worked out. And you'll see that
though they look extremely meaningless and confusing, they are in
reality extremely simple."

As he spoke, Blaine produced them from his desk drawer, and spread
them out before him.

"Before you examine them," he went on, "let me explain the musical
script idea on which they are fundamentally based, in case you are
unfamiliar with it. The sign '&' before a bar of music means that
music is written in the treble clef--that is, all the notes following
it are above the central _C_ on the piano keyboard. Thus"--here he
drew rapidly on a scrap of paper and passed a scrawled scale over to
the interested operative.

[Illustration: An image of a music scale diagram is shown here in the
text.]

"The dot on the line below the five lines whic