The White Cipher

CHAPTER I
THE OPEN GATE

Swirled in the maze of a slow awakening, dropped through an abyss from zenith to nadir, the prisoner came out of his dreams and stared through the bars of his door to the pearl gray of the coming dawn.

C-45-better known in international underworld circles as Chester Fay, alias Edward Letchmere-was serving ten years at hard labor for the crime, committed against the peace and dignity of the country, of opening-by means unguessed by Scotland Yard-a jeweler's strong-box in Hatton Gardens; which is, aside from "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," the strictest patrolled district in the city of London.

Chester Fay, alias Edward Letchmere, studied the crack of dawn as it crept over the man-made barricade, through the slotted windows of the great gray cell block, and bathed the harsh walls of the prison with the rosy light of pearl changed into ruby and from ruby into gold.

And there was something prophetic in the mellow magic of the chromatic changes in the English sky!

A bell clanged at the front of the prison. A key grated in a lock. An iron door opened. Shuffling feet sounded, like an old woman's in a lane. C-45 lowered the edge of his shoddy blanket-stamped here and there with the broad arrow-and watched where the grated bars of the door formed tiny crosses against the dull gray of the wall.

The shuffling came nearer the cell. It stopped. A key clicked against another. The footfalls were resumed. A surly beef-and-beer face blotted out the light from the corridor as Chester Fay raised himself upon his hinged shelf.

"C-45?" inquired the turnkey.

"Y-es," breathed Fay.

The aged turnkey squinted at the paper he held in trembling fingers. He eyed the door number and blinked his matted lashes.

"C-45," he said, "get your clothes on. Y're going hout!"

Had the slaty roof of the stony coffin, which he had learned to call home, fallen down upon him, Fay would not have been more surprised. He twisted his lithe body, touched his bare toes to the cold stones of the flagging, and stood erect, the heart within his breast throbbing like an imprisoned bird.

The red, peering face beyond the bars, the tiny rimmed eyes with their matted lashes, the thick purple lips, the bulbous nose of the turnkey, represented British justice carried to the furthermost limit of caution and concern for His Majesty's prisoners.

Fay had hated this guard over the five years at Dartmoor as he had hated the gruel and molasses served in the morning, the stew at noon, or the gummy oakum piled in the cell to be picked strand by strand in an unending drudgery.

Now this "screw," so called by the inmates of Dartmoor, had delivered the sweetest words ever dropped into human ears. Fay never knew how he dressed on that morning. It was done. He waited and pressed his slender body against the latticed bars, with his ears straining to catch the iron music of the thrown bolt.

The great key turned. The door swung open. Fay glided out from his cell and stood at attention with his fingers touching against the seams of his dirt-gray prison trousers.

The guard locked the door. He peered at the paper he held. He squinted at the number upon the stone over the doorway, then he motioned Fay to follow him up the long corridor of the white-flagged cell block.

The prisoner followed the burly form of his keeper. He threw back his keen-cut face while his eyes lighted with a sanguine fire that burned clear through the gloom to the iron door of liberty.

This door swung open after a signal was passed between guard and keeper. Prisoners pressed white faces to the many bars of the place. A whisper ran from cell to cell. The American was going free! They watched Fay as he passed through the arch and sank back into their narrow coffins as the great door clanged.

Fay waited, breathed silently, compressed his lips, then followed the guard along a narrow hallway and into an open court, whose one high-barred gate was flanked by two castellated towers upon which sentries stood with rifles swung under their arms.

MacKeenon, of Scotland Yard, stood in the very center of the courtyard. At the inspector's feet a yellow kit-bag rested. Over the Scot's right arm a plaid overcoat hung. Within the detective's light-blue eyes there sparkled the dry twinkle of recognition.

Chester Fay moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. He hesitated, then advanced step by step. He had last seen Inspector MacKeenon on the witness dais of the September Assizes. It was the Scot's testimony concerning a certain finger-print which had carried the staid British jury. Such a trifle!

A sandy-colored hand crept up to MacKeenon's chin and covered his mouth. The eyes closed to narrow slits. It was like a sly old dog warning another, not so sly, not near so old. Chester Fay understood. He turned toward the turnkey who had brought him out.

"Follow me, sir," he heard him say.

The way led across the courtyard, through a low stone arch and into a Bertillon room, then to where a cold shower splashed upon well-scoured flags. The turnkey pointed to the descending water. Fay stripped, tossed the hated clothes away from him, lathed his lean, long-limbed body and mopped his silver-gray hair. It had been brown when he had entered the castellated gate, five long years before the unexpected coming of Inspector MacKeenon.

The clothes the turnkey brought had evidently come out of the yellow kit-bag. They fitted. They were of price and rich texture. There were also the little things which a gentleman carries-a flat, gold watch, a set of studs and cuff-links, a pearl pin and a neat cigarette case which contained six cigarettes.

Fay accepted all these things with the abstract air of one born lucky. He did not understand the meaning of it all. Discharged prisoners, or those released by order of the Home Secretary, were fitted with H.M.P. garments made of shoddy by piece-work convicts whose hearts were elsewhere when they worked.

"Hall ready, sir?" asked the red-faced guard with strange civility.

Fay lifted his slender shoulders slightly, adjusted his cuffs, touched his cravat and faced the light which streamed in through the Bertillon room. He did not answer the turnkey. The sovereign contempt of a caged eagle was in his glance.

He drew down his plaid cap which matched so well the suit of tweeds, lowered his chin and followed the turnkey out into the glad light of dawning day and across the stone-flagged yard to MacKeenon's side.

A prison clerk-one of those rat-eyed trusties whom nobody trusts-hurried out from the Principal Keeper's office with an oblong of printed paper. He passed this release to MacKeenon.

The inspector signed it with the butt of a badly chewed indelible pencil, glanced at Fay, then said distinctly-too distinctly:

"A receipt for C-45. Yea, he may b'back. Ye canna tell!"

To the man who had prowled the world like a tiger a jungle-to the third cracksman living who could open a modern cannon-ball safe or stop the four circular tumblers of a strong-box in their correct position-this sly aside of MacKeenon's was enlightening. The old gray dog, whose scent was keener than a Louisiana bloodhound's, was baying down the trail again for some wolf-pack of the underworld.

Chester Fay set his pale face and fingered his cravat. He dropped his hands to his side and followed the inspector out through a rising gate, where the two men stood facing the misted moorland and the spiring towers of Princetown beyond the causeway. As they stood there a clang sounded behind. It was the turnkey bringing down the shutter of iron.

A sleeve-valved motor, black, tired with steel-studded rubber, throbbing with life and a desire to roll up the road, stood close at hand. Into the tonneau of this car MacKeenon tossed the kit-bag and overcoat, then turned and assisted Fay to mount the running-board, where he had hesitated for the minutest fraction of a second.

Liberty was over that causeway. Freedom might be gained by a try at the marshes and moorland. The mist was almost thick enough to hide in. The world beyond was very wide indeed. The chance which offered might never come again. Fay had lost opportunity too often not to weigh well the one that came to him.

He felt the Inspector's fingers on his sleeve. They seemed gentle. There was that, however, in the gripping mystery of his release that savored of things to come. Perhaps, after all, the man from the Yard had other plans than the underworld. Perhaps the release had to do with the great war which had finally been brought to an end. It would be easy to escape, for Fay had the lithe, long limbs of the runner.

But he thought better of it and stepped through the tonneau door where MacKeenon had assisted him. The surge, as the car leaped forward and the driver glided through second, third and into fourth speed, was just sufficient to cause him to sit down upon the seat, where the inspector, with solicitude, offered one half of an auto robe whose woolen texture felt like silk to a man who had slept under shoddy for five years.

The mist-shrouded moors were crossed over rumbling bridges of planks or hollow arches of stone. The main highway, which swung from west to east upon the troubled isle, was reached. Into this broad road the driver turned the great car, stepped upon the governor-throttle and opened wide the triple-jetted carburetor.

A hissing of indrawn air sounded. The wind of their swift passage struck back and cut the cuticle of Fay's white cheeks. They flushed and reddened with the rush of warm blood up through his sagged veins. He felt then the sweet...