ve a look--trembling in every limb, mind
you--at the Chateau of Eaucourt Sainte-Anne.

I had only to think of Mary to know just what Joan of Arc was. No man
ever born could have done that kind of thing. It wasn't recklessness.
It was sheer calculating courage.

Then Blenkiron took up the tale. The newspaper we found that Christmas
Eve in the Chateau was of tremendous importance, for Bommaerts had
pricked out in the advertisement the very special second cipher of the
Wild Birds. That proved that Ivery was at the back of the Swiss
business. But Blenkiron made doubly sure.

'I considered the time had come,' he said, 'to pay high for valuable
noos, so I sold the enemy a very pretty de-vice. If you ever gave your
mind to ciphers and illicit correspondence, Dick, you would know that
the one kind of document you can't write on in invisible ink is a
coated paper, the kind they use in the weeklies to print photographs of
leading actresses and the stately homes of England. Anything wet that
touches it corrugates the surface a little, and you can tell with a
microscope if someone's been playing at it. Well, we had the good
fortune to discover just how to get over that little difficulty--how to
write on glazed paper with a quill so as the cutest analyst couldn't
spot it, and likewise how to detect the writing. I decided to sacrifice
that invention, casting my bread upon the waters and looking for a
good-sized bakery in return ... I had it sold to the enemy. The job
wanted delicate handling, but the tenth man from me--he was an Austrian
Jew--did the deal and scooped fifty thousand dollars out of it. Then I
lay low to watch how my friend would use the de-vice, and I didn't wait
long.'

He took from his pocket a folded sheet of _L'Illustration_. Over a
photogravure plate ran some words in a large sprawling hand, as if
written with a brush.

'That page when I got it yesterday,' he said, 'was an unassuming
picture of General Petain presenting military medals. There wasn't a
scratch or a ripple on its surface. But I got busy with it, and see
there!'

He pointed out two names. The writing was a set of key-words we did not
know, but two names stood out which I knew too well. They were
'Bommaerts' and 'Chelius'.

'My God!' I cried, 'that's uncanny. It only shows that if you chew long
enough---'

'Dick,' said Mary, 'you mustn't say that again. At the best it's an
ugly metaphor, and you're making it a platitude.'

'Who is Ivery a