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PIECING IT TOGETHER
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Reeves, "that with a book cipher you can't possibly guess the message unless you've got the book. I think we shall have to establish the identity before we get any further on that tack. Let's have a look at the letter now."

The letter was a curt official communication from the Railway Company, only the details being filled in in ink, the rest a mere printed form:

London Midland and Scottish Railway.

10. 10. 19XY.

Dear Sir,
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 9th instant and have given orders for a berth to be reserved in the sleeping car attached to the 7.30 train on Thursday (corrected to Wednesday) the 18th (corrected to 17th) of October to Glasgow. I note that you will join the train at Crewe.
S. Brotherhood Esq.

"These corrections are rummy," said Reeves. "I wonder if perhaps Brotherhood's letter corrected itself in a postscript? You see, assuming that Brotherhood was skipping, it's all right for him to go to Glasgow⁠—rather ingenious, in fact⁠—but why shouldn't he travel to-night, the sixteenth, instead of to-morrow night?"

"He couldn't get away early enough. Or could he? Got a Bradshaw?" Gordon proceeded to look up the trains with an irritating thoroughness, while Reeves danced with impatience⁠—there is no im-

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