was Miss Peggy Brooks, cosmopolitan, sister of Madame de Moidrey who lived in a big house among the hills across the meadows – the Château des Oiseaux, prettily named because the protection and encouragement of little birds had been the immemorial custom of its lordly proprietors.
And so the Harem, fully equipped to wrestle with the giant, Art, filed out of the quiet garden and across the meadows by the little river Récollette, where were haystacks, freshly erected and fragrant, which very unusual subject they had unanimously chosen for their morning's crime.
To perpetrate it upon canvas they pitched their white umbrellas, tripod easels, and sketching stools; then each maiden, taking a determined grip upon her charcoal, squinted, so to speak, in chorus at the hapless haystacks. And the giant, Art, trembled in the seclusion of the ewigkeit.
Warner regarded them gloomily; Halkett, who had disinterred a pipe from his pockets, stood silently beside him, loading it.
"They'll paint this morning, and after luncheon," said Warner. "After dinner they all get into an omnibus and drive to Ausone to remain overnight, and spend tomorrow in street sketching. I insist on their doing this once every month. When they return with their sketches, I give them a general criticism."
"Will these young ladies ever really amount to anything?" inquired Halkett.
"Probably never. Europe, the British Isles, and the United States are dotted all over with similar and feminine groups attempting haystacks. The sum-total of physical energy thus expended must be enormous – like the horsepower represented by Niagara. But it creates no ripple upon the intellectual serenity of the thinking world. God alone knows why women paint haystacks. I do my best to switch them toward other phenomena."
The rural postman on his bicycle, wearing képi and blue blouse, came pedaling along the highway. When he saw Warner he saluted and got off his wheel.
"Letters, Grandin?"
"Two, Monsieur Warner."
Warner took them.
"Eh, bien?" he inquired, lowering his voice; "et la guerre?"
"Monsieur Warner, the affair is becoming very serious."
"What is the talk in Ausone?"
"People are calm – too calm. A little noise, now, a little gesticulation, and the affair would seem less ominous to me – like the Algeciras matter and the Schnaeble incident before that – Monsieur may remember?"
"I know. It is like the hush before a tempest. The world is too still, the sunlight too perfect."
"There seems to me," said the little postman, "a curious unreality about yesterday and today – something in the cloudless peace overhead that troubles men."
Being no more and no less poet than are all French peasants, this analysis sufficed him. He touched his képi; the young men lifted their hats, and the postman pedaled away down the spotless military road.
Warner glanced at the envelope in his hand; Halkett looked at it, too. It was addressed in red ink.
"It's for me, old chap," said the Englishman.
The other glanced up, surprised.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite – if you don't mind trusting me."
Warner laughed and handed him the letter.
"It's addressed very plainly to me," he said. "You've got your nerve with you, Halkett."
"I have to keep it about me, old chap."
"No doubt. And still I don't see – "
"It's very simple. I sent two telephone messages last night. One letter should have arrived. It has not! The man who wrote this letter must have gone miles last night on a motor cycle to mail it so that your little postman should hand it to me this morning – "
"Intriguer!" interrupted Warner, still laughing. "He handed it to me! I see you're going to get me in Dutch before I'm rid of you."
"I don't comprehend your Yankee slang," retorted Halkett with a slight grin, "so if you don't mind I'll sit here on the grass and read my letter. Go on and criticize your Harem. But before you go, lend me a pencil. They stole even my pencil in the Cabaret de Biribi."
Warner, amused, handed him a pencil and a pad, and strolled away toward the industrious Harem to see what they might be perpetrating.
Halkett seated himself on the grass where, if he chose to glance up, he had a clear view all about him. Then he opened his letter.
It was rather an odd sort of letter. It began:
DEAR GREEN:
A red wagon, red seat, orange rumble, red mudguards, blue steering-wheel, red bumpers, blue wheels, red engines, red varnish, red open body, red machinery, red all over, in fact, except where it isn't – is for sale.
So much of this somewhat extraordinary letter Halkett very carefully and slowly perused; then, still studying this first paragraph intently, he wrote down on his pad the following letters in the following sequence, numbering each letter underneath:
R O Y G B I V S W A1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
The letters represented, up to and including the letter V, the colors of the solar spectrum in their proper sequence: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The letter S, which followed the letter V, stood for schwarz, which in German means black. The letter W stood for weiss, white; the letter A for argent. Every letter, therefore, represented some color or metallic luster; and these, in turn, represented numbers.
And now Halkett took the opening salutation in the first paragraph of his letter – "Dear Green." The color green being numbered 4, he found that the fourth letter in the word "dear" was the letter R. This he wrote down on his pad.
Then he took the next few words: "A red wagon, red seat, orange rumble, red – " etc.
The first and only letter in the word "A" he wrote down. The next word after "wagon" was "red." The color red indicated the figure 1. So he next wrote down the first letter of the word "wagon," which is W.
Then came the word "seat." The word "orange" followed it. The color orange indicated number 2 in the spectrum sequence. So he found that in the word "seat" the letter E was the second letter. This he wrote.
Very carefully and methodically he proceeded in this manner with the first paragraph of the letter, as far as the words "all over," but not including them or any of the words in the first paragraph which followed them.
He had, therefore, for his first paragraph, this sequence of letters:
RAWERUSEWEVOM.
Beginning with the last letter, M, he wrote the letters again, reversing their sequence; and he had:
MOVEWESUREWAR.
These, with commas, he easily separated into four words: "Move," "we," "sure," and "war." Then, again reversing the sequence of the words, he had two distinct sentences of two words each before him:
WAR SURE! WE MOVE!
Always working with the numbered color key before him, taking his letter paragraph by paragraph, he had as a final remainder the following series of letters:
EDIHUOYERADELIARTTIAWDROWOTDEECORPSIALAC.
Reversing these, checking off the separate words, and then reversing the entire sequence of words, he had as the complete translation of his letter, including the first paragraph, the following information and admonition:
"War sure. We move. Hide. You are trailed. Wait word to proceed Calais."
"War sure!" That was easily understood. "We move." That meant England was already mobilizing on land and sea. And the remainder became plain enough; he must stay very quietly where he was until further instructions arrived.
He read through his notes and his letter once more, then twisted letter, envelope, and penciled memoranda into a paper spiral, set fire to it with a match, and leisurely lighted his pipe with it.
When the flame of the burning paper scorched his fingers, he laid it carefully