The cypher is cracked

The innkeeper is a young impressionable lad and I felt safe to partially trust him with my predicament. He brought me a copy of the Scotsman in the morning. There was further evidence of the murder and the 'milkman' who had travelled north. In another story, I read of the rising tensions in the Balkans and of the Greek Karolides, but there was no mention of his visit to London in June.

Before Scudder had been murdered, he managed to pass me his notebook hidden in my jacket pocket. It was encrypted in a numerical cypher, the decryption I was sure he had given me in his story. I spent the day trying to decipher the code. In the mid afternoon, I had a revelation and suddenly cracked it. In half an hour, I was reading with a whitish face and fingers that drummed on the table.

I glanced out the window and saw a big touring car coming up the glen towards the inn. Two occupants alighted and I I heard them speaking to the innkeeper downstairs. He knocked on my door and whispered that "There's two chaps below looking for you. They described you jolly well, down to your boots and shirt."

I thought quickly.

I grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote what I hoped would look like the scrap of a letter. I handed it to him and told him to "Take this down and say it was found in my bedroom, and ask them to return it to me if they overtake me."

I heard their car skid off down the road and then asked the innkeeper to cycle to the police station in Newton Stewart and tell the Chief Constable that he suspected the two men of the murder in London. He should tell the police to be at the inn bright and early. I was sure the men would come back, but not tonight.

This evening I have been at the infernal code trying to decipher it all. I almost have it but thought I should break to blip.



~Franklin P. Scudder arrives~
~The body in number 15~
~The inquest and darker dealings~
~Scudder has been murdered~
~The milkman sets out on his travels~
~The drunken shepherd~