hack journalist as well, as you reminded me just now,"
Julian explained a little evasively.

"I wonder you stuck at the censoring so long. Isn't it terribly
tedious?"

"Sometimes. Now and then we come across interesting things, though. For
instance, I discovered a most original cipher the other day."

"Did it lead to anything?" Furley asked curiously.

"Not at present. I discovered it, studying a telegram from Norway.
It was addressed to a perfectly respectable firm of English timber
merchants who have an office in the city. This was the original: `Fir
planks too narrow by half.' Sounds harmless enough, doesn't it?"

"Absolutely. What's the hidden meaning?"

"There I am still at a loss," Julian confessed, "but treated with the
cipher it comes out as `Thirty-eight steeple on barn.'"

Furley stared for a moment, then he lit his pipe.

"Well, of the two," he declared, "I should prefer the first rendering
for intelligibility."

"So would most people," Julian assented, smiling, "yet I am sure there
is something in it--some meaning, of course, that needs a context to
grasp it."

"Have you interviewed the firm of timber merchants?"

"Not personally. That doesn't come into my department. The name of the
man who manages the London office, though, is Fenn--Nicholas Fenn."

Furley withdrew the pipe from his mouth. His eyebrows had come together
in a slight frown.

"Nicholas Fenn, the Labour M.P.?"

"That's the fellow. You know him, of course?"

"Yes, I know him," Furley replied thoughtfully. "He is secretary of the
Timber Trades Union and got in for one of the divisions of Hull last
year."

"I understand that there is nothing whatever against him personally,"
Julian continued, "although as a politician he is of course beneath
contempt. He started life as a village schoolmaster and has worked
his way up most creditably. He professed to understand the cable as it
appeared in its original form. All the same, it's very odd that, treated
by a cipher which I got on the track of a few days previously, this same
message should work out as I told you."

"Of course," Furley observed, "ciphers can lead you--"

He stopped short. Julian, who had been leaning over towards the
cigarette bog, glanced around at his friend. There was a frown on
Furley's forehead. He withdrew his pipe from between his teeth.

"What did you say you made of it?" he demanded.

"`Thirty-eight steeple on barn.'"

"Thirty-eight! That's queer!"