T has always been my custom, as a notorious and much-sought-after criminal, to give special care to the building up of a new identity. It is my success in the various impersonations I have attempted which has enabled me for many years completely to puzzle that highly astute body of men leagued together under the auspices of Scotland Yard.
After my brief but successful career as Colonel Escombe, of the Indian Army, I determined upon a complete change of characterization and circumstances. I established myself in modest rooms at the back of Russell Square, took a small office at the top of a block of buildings in Holborn, had cards and stationery printed and a brass plate engraved, and made a fresh appearance in the metropolis of my fancy as Mr. Sidney Buckross, jobbing stationer. I cannot say that my operations made very much impression upon the trade which I had adopted. I transferred a thousand pounds to my credit at a well-known London bank, wrote myself several letters a day, which I opened and replied to at my office, sallied out with a small black bag, soon after ten, and with the exception of a leisurely hour for my midday meal, spent the rest of my time in the safe seclusion of the British Museum.
I reëstablished a new hobby. In the intervals of idleness which the spasmodic activities of my profession had entailed, I had always been fascinated by the subject of ciphers. I knew quite well, for instance, that half of the advertisements in the personal column of the Times contained, to the person for whose eyes they were intended, a meaning utterly different from their obvious one. For example, one afternoon, after having wasted a score of sheets of paper and an immense amount of ingenuity, I was able at last to find the real message conveyed under this absurd medley of words:
“Charles. What you require may be found in 1740. Laughing Eyes bids you have courage. Bring James.”
With only one word of the cipher at first clear to me, I looked upon it as something of a triumph when I was able to extract from this rubbish the following message:
“Lady in green, man dinner jacket and white tie. Frascati's 8 o'clock Monday. Will bring documents. Have currency.”
The announcement interested me. If these documents were worth money to the person to whom this invitation was addressed, they were probably worth money to me. I decided, without a moment's hesitation, that I would meet the lady in green and the gentleman in a dinner coat and white tie on Monday at Frascati's, notwithstanding the shock to my sartorial instincts which the costume of the latter was likely to inflict. My only trouble was not to clash with the person for whom the advertisement was really intended. At this I could only make an attempt. I inserted the following advertisement in the personal column of the Times on the following morning:
“Frascati's 7 not 8.”
The upshot I was compelled to leave to Fate....
At ten minutes to seven on Monday evening I arrived at the restaurant indicated. I ordered a table for three and the best dinner the place could offer. The moment I stepped back into the reception-room I recognized, beyond a shadow of doubt, my prospective guests. The man was a powerful-looking fellow, with large, clumsy limbs, a mass of untidy hair, a bushy brown mustache streaked with gray, a somewhat coarse complexion and bulbous eyes. He wore, gracelessly, the costume which the advertisement had indicated. The woman in green had somewhat overdone her color-scheme. There was a green plush band in her hair, and she wore an evening gown of the same color, cut very low and distinguished by a general air of tawdriness. She was, or rather had been, good-looking in a bold, flamboyant sort of way, and she had still a profusion of yellow hair. They both stared at me when they saw me looking around, and with a little inward shiver, I took the plunge. I went boldly up to them and shook hands
“I have ordered dinner,” I announced. “Will you let me show you the way?”
They accepted the situation without demur, and viewed the gold-topped bottle in the ice-pail, and the other arrangements for their entertainment, with considerable satisfaction.
“I must say you're not quite the sort of chap we expected to find—is he, Lizzie?” the man remarked as he seated himself heavily and performed wonderful operations with his napkin. “I thought all your lot were water-drinkers.”
I smiled.
“We are often misunderstood,” I ventured.
We settled down and took stock of one another. The woman looked approvingly at my tie and studs. I have made it a rule never to be without a supply of the right sort of clothes.