The sheriff had finished his investigations by noon of the following
day, and after lunch I was free to work upon the problem that I felt was
the key to the whole mystery--the cryptogram beside Florey's body.
Lately I had been thinking that in all probability to procure the script
had been the direct motive of the murder; and the fact of its theft from
my room seemed to bear me out.
Why wasn't it reasonable to presume that in the last instant of Florey's
life, just before the attack was made, he had attempted to conceal the
script. He had thrown it from him; his death-cry had aroused the
household so that the murderer had no time to seek and procure it. Then
from a hiding place, or even from among a group of the guests, he had
seen me pick it up.
To work out that cryptogram, to read its hidden meaning was the first
and the best thing I could do in the way to solve the mystery of Kastle
Krags. Written originally on parchment, sixty or seventy years before,
it doubtless referred and was in explanation of the secret of the old
manor house--the legend of the treasure, supposedly hidden by Godfrey
Jason in the long ago. I had just toyed with it before. Perhaps I had
had little faith that it was of any real importance. But now, other
avenues had failed, and I was resolved to know the truth if it was
humanly possible to do so. I copied the script again, with great care:
aned
dqbo
aqcd
trkm
fipj
dqbo
seho
ohuy
wvyn
dljn
dtht
Then I began to make a systematic analysis. I noticed first that the
second and the sixth words were identical, indicating--considering the
brevity of the entire message--that it must represent a word of most
frequent use. Of course the articles "a" and "the" occur most often in
any English writing, yet I found it hard to believe that "dqbo"
represented either. In the first place, in a message of that length it
is reasonable to assume that all articles and words not absolutely
necessary to the meaning had been omitted.
Weeks that seemed years before Nealman had told me that, after careful
study, he had been convinced that there was some truth in the legend of
buried treasure. Was it not within the bounds of reason to assume that
this cryptic message revealed the hiding place of the treasure? Working
on this assumption, I made up an imaginary description of some hiding
place, just to see what words occurred with the greatest frequency. I
found at once that the word that would be most likely to be used twice
in a description of that kind would be some measurement--either feet,
yards, meters, rods, or something of the kind. If I could convince
myself that "dqbo" represented some English measurement I might find the
key and system of the code.
Either "feet," "yard" or "rods" were words of four letters--either one
of which might be represented by "dqbo." Then I tested each one to see
if I could establish a pattern.
I tried first the old code-system of having each letter in the word
represent some other letter a certain number of spaces backward or
forward in the alphabet. Suppose a man wanted to disguise the word
"cab." He might do so, very easily, by spelling it "dbc"--using, instead
of the right letter, the letter immediately following it in the
alphabet, "d" for "c," "b" for "a," etc. Testing for "feet" as a
possible interpretation of "dqbo" I saw that "f" was the second
letter in the alphabet beyond the letter "d"--first letter in the
script-word--but I found that such a relation could not possibly hold
with "e" and "q" respectively, the second letters. "Yard" or "rods"
failed the same test. Nor by any juggling of this simple code, counting
so many spaces backwards or forwards, could I make it come out true.
Some time before I had decided that it was unlikely to the verge of
impossibility that any message could be made up completely of four
letter words. It seemed likely, at first, that letters had been cut
from each word in order to make them of four letters. Working on this
hypothesis I tested for "meters" but the word "dqbo" could not be made
to conform.
At that point it was necessary to begin on another tack. I smoked a
while in silence, hoping that some idea, some little inspiration that
so often furnished the key for such a mystery as this, would come to me.
I had a dim thought that, since the words were all of four letters and
could not be made intelligible by any shifting of the alphabet, that
perhaps it had undergone some double transformation--changed first from
words into some other symbol form, and then back into words. But I
couldn't seem to get hold.
If I could only see the key! Possibly it was extremely simple, just
before my eyes if I could only grasp it. It wasn't reasonable, I
thought, for a lone man to leave a hidden message without giving some
key, however adroit, for the reader to translate it. Jason hadn't
written that message for his own amusement. He had inscribed it to be
read by some one who came after--perhaps by himself when old age had
dulled his memory.
Working from this point of view I set myself to remember what had been
written on the parchment beside the column of figures. Perhaps the key
had been there also; I had simply failed to observe it. At the bottom of
the message had appeared the words "At F. T." And at first this seemed
to offer the most interesting possibilities.
Certainly the word and letters had some meaning. In the first place
this, and the sentence above the script, indicated that the writer did
his thinking in English--not in Spanish or Portuguese or any other
language. But "F. T." did not convey any meaning to my mind. I simply
couldn't catch it.
I tried to make the letters "F" and "T" a starting point in the alphabet
for rearranging the letters in the column of words, on the same theory
that I had worked at first, but nothing came of it. And at that point my
hopes and confidence, falling steadily for the past hour, was at its
lowest ebb. I didn't see but that I would have to give up the venture
after all.
My mind slipped easily to the message in English above the
column--"Sworn by the Book," or something after that nature. Taking
these words simply as they seemed, an oath on the part of the writer
that the ensuing message was true, I hadn't taken the trouble to copy
them from the original parchment. Fortunately I remembered them,
approximately at least. And I felt a little quickening of hope as I
contemplated them.
The more I looked at them the more they seemed to be "dragged in by the
heels." I didn't think that one with knowledge of hidden treasure,
conveying its hiding place to some one else, would have taken the
trouble to declare the truth of his statement by oath. Nor was such
a pious beginning, on the part of that iniquitous murderer and
cut-throat, Jason, quite in character. He would have been more likely to
have begun with a sentence of piratical profanity. He had some reason
for bringing in the "Book"--and when I knew what it was, I believed I
would know the key to the cryptogram.
The "Book" was the Bible of course--a name still in wide use. And the
whole volume of my blood seemed to spurt through the veins when I
remembered what an important place the Bible had taken in the events of
the past few days!
Nealman had had a Bible, wide open, in his room. Edith had been seen to
carry it to him through the corridor--and this business with it had been
of such a character that he had ordered Edith's silence in regard to the
errand. Whether or not Florey had possessed a copy I wasn't able to
remember for certain.
It must have been a grim old joke to Jason--to use the Holy Word to
transmit the record of his iniquity! In an instant I was burrowing, not
a little excited, into the bottom of my bag for a small copy of the
Bible that I carried with me on every journey.
Apart from religious reasons, there is no better traveling companion
for a knowledge-loving man than King James' Bible. The font of all
literature, the mighty well of inspiration, the record of the ages--it
was beloved not only of the scientist and historian, but the literati
and the esthete. Hardly a week had passed that I hadn't referred to it,
in one capacity or another. And now I felt that I was on the right track
at last.
There is no book in such common usage, published with such fidelity as
to the position of every word, so easily procured in any place or time,
as the Holy Bible. It would be the perfect code-book. Certainly it could
be used to the greatest advantage as the key to a cryptogram.
But what had been the method of its use? In what way could these
four-letter words, none of which were intelligible, be made through the
agency of the Bible to present an intelligent meaning? Again I found
myself relying on inductive reasoning. I worked backward, just as I had
done before, trying to see some way to convey a secret meaning through
the agency of this universally read book.
All at once I saw the way. The Bible contained almost every word in the
present English vocabulary. In all probability each one of the words in
the column represented some English word to be found somewhere in the
Bible, and the column of them, written out, would be the message in
full.
How to find that word was the only problem that remained. True, it
looked formidable enough at first. Yet I saw in a moment that the
four-letter words could not represent the words of the message
themselves, but only their _position_ in the Bible.
My mind was working clearly now, leaping from one conclusion to another;
and reasoning deductively I tried to work out some method of secret
writing whereby I could reveal to another person the position of a
certain word I wanted him to know. Suppose, for instance, that Jason
wished to use the word "feet" in his message. Looking through the Bible
he found the word--say on page 86, third line, fourth word. It was
conceivable that he might send the numbers "86-3-4" to some other
person; and the latter, aware that the Bible acted as the key, looked
up the place in the Book and learned what the word was.
The number of pages vary, however, in Bibles of different size. It was
natural that the location must be a constant in order that the recipient
of the note could always find it. So I began again:
Suppose Jason, looking through his Bible, found the word "feet" in the
book of Genesis, the first chapter, the third verse, and the fourth word
of the verse. If he should send the symbols "Gen. 1, 3, 4" to his
friend, the man could easily look up the place and see what he meant.
And in this case he wouldn't have to have any certain edition of the
Bible. The fourth word of the third verse of the first chapter of
Genesis is the same in all copies of King James' Bible over all the
world.
Now I was working on sure ground. I had no doubt but that "dqbo"
represented a certain point in the Bible--the letter "d" probably
representing the book, "q" the chapter, "b" the verse and "o" the word.
Once more my attention was called, with particular vividness, to the
fact that all the words in the column were of four letters, proving in
my mind that this last contention was true.
My heart was racing as I moved to the next step in working out the
cryptogram. It was simply that of finding what method had been used to
transform such a symbol as "Gen. 1, 3, 4" into such a sign as "dqbo." If
instead of four-letter words I was working with sequences of numbers
such as "1, 1, 3, 4" I would have felt that the problem was solved. "1,
1, 3, 4" would have plainly meant the first book, the first chapter,
the third verse, and the fourth word.
To transform letters into numbers--that was all that remained. Again I
went back to "dqbo" and took the simplest method of transformation. "D"
was the fourth letter in the alphabet. "Q" was the seventeenth letter in
the alphabet. "B" was the second letter in the alphabet. "O" was the
fifteenth letter in the alphabet. I wrote down the numbers:
4-17-2-15
And I felt sure that they meant the fourth book, the seventeenth
chapter, the second verse and the fifteenth word in the Holy Bible.
Shaken, so nervous I could hardly hold my hands still, I stopped a
moment to rest. This was the crisis. I was either at the verge of
absolute success or hopeless failure. If when I looked up the place I
found some word that couldn't possibly be used in such a message I
wouldn't have the spirit to seek further. And it would be a real blow to
all my hopes.
I opened the Bible. The fourth book proved to be "Numbers." I turned to
the seventeenth chapter, the second verse. And there I read as follows:
Speak unto the children of Israel and take one of them a
_rod_ according to the house of their fathers.
The fifteenth word was _rod_--used as a staff in this case but
undoubtedly used as a term of measurement in the script.
From then on my fingers flew through the pages of the Book. "Aned," the
very first word in the column, represented--finding the alphabetical
position of each letter--the numbers 1-14-5-4. It was a simple matter to
look up the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the fourteenth chapter,
the fifth verse, and the fourth word. The verse in this case began:
"And in the _fourteenth_ year came Chedorlaomer, and the
kings that were with him."
The fourth word of the verse was _fourteenth_--and the first word of the
finished script.
It was easy to find the other words. I worked them all out in fifteen
minutes. "Aqcd," the third in the column, proved to be the first,
seventeenth, third, and fourth letters of the alphabet, respectively,
and 1-17-3-4 meant first book, seventeenth chapter, third verse, fourth
word, as plain as could be. The word proved to be "on." Swiftly I went
down the list. And at last I had the whole column translated:
fourteen
rod
on
wall
three
rod
straight
right
fastened
white
rock
Writing it out, I had:
Fourteen rod on wall three rod straight right fastened white
rock.
In clearer language, it meant simply and unmistakably, that to find the
missing object--unquestionably Jason's treasure--go fourteen rods out on
the natural rock wall, turn straight right into the lagoon for three
rods, and there I would find it--fastened to a white rock.
The thing was done. I came to myself to find my fingers toying with the
pencil, and my thoughts soaring far away. In spite of the grim record of
death already made, the deadly precedent that had been set, in spite of
all the dictates of ordinary intelligence, I knew what my future course
would be. The lure of gold had hold of me. As soon as the opportunity
offered, I was going to follow the thing through to its end, and see
with my own eyes that which lay hidden in the depths of the lagoon.