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