褐衣男子7

 I went home with a feeling of exultation. My scheme had succeeded far better than I could possibly have hoped. Lord Nasby had been positively genial. It only now remained for me to “Make good,
” as he expressed it. Once locked in my own room, I took out my precious piece of paper and studied it attentively. Here was the clue to the mystery. ,To begin with, what did the figures represent? There were five of them, and a dot after the first two. “Seventeen—one hundred and twenty-two,” I murmured.,That did not seem to lead to anything.,Next I added them up. That is often done in works of fiction and leads to surprising deductions.,“One and seven make eight and one is nine and two are eleven and two are thirteen. ”,Thirteen! Fateful number! Was this a warning to me to leave the whole thing alone? Very possibly. Anyway, except as a warning, it seemed to be singularly useless. I declined to believe that any conspirator would take that way of writing thirteen in real life. If he meant thirteen, he would write thirteen. “13
”—like that.,Kilmorden Castle. That was something definite. A place. Probably the cradle of an aristocratic family. (Missing heir? Claimant to title?) Or possibly a picturesque ruin. (Buried treasure?),Yes, on the whole I inclined to the theory of buried treasure. Figures always go with buried treasure. One pace to the right, seven paces to the left, dig one foot, descend twenty-two steps. That sort of idea. I could work out that later. The thing was to get to Kilmorden Castle as quickly as possible.,I made a strategic sally from my room and returned laden with books of reference. Who’s Who, Whitaker, a Gazetteer, a History of Scotch Ancestral Homes, and Somebody or other’s British Isles.,Time passed. I searched diligently, but with growing annoyance. Finally, I shut the last book with a bang. There appeared to be no such place as Kilmorden Castle. Here was an unexpected check. There must be such a place. Why should any one invent a name like that and write it down on a piece of paper? Absurd!,Another idea occurred to me. Possibly it was a castellated abomination in the suburbs with a high-sounding name invented by its owner. But if so, it was going to be extraordinarily hard to find. I sat back gloomily on my heels (I always sit on the floor to do anything really important) and wondered how on earth I was to set about it.,