"Certainly a most curious-looking sentence," said Juanita. "And have
you no clue at all?"
"None whatever. I thought I had. I made sure I had, but when I tried
to work it out in the cipher it proved useless."
"What was it?"
"Well, I had never told anyone. Your father said I was to burn the
letter as soon as I received it, and I did so; but now that things have
altogether changed, there can be no harm in telling you all about it.
In the letter I received at Salamanca, Don Fernan said that I was to
remember the phrase, 'Palafox the Man, Palafox the Name'. It occurred
to me, of course, that the clue to the cipher might be found in that
phrase; but, try it as I might, I couldn't make anything of it. You
see, the cipher message contains all the letters of the word Palafox,
but there are a number of J's and other letters that have nothing to do
with it."
"And you gave it up!" exclaimed Juanita, with some scorn. "Just like a
boy!"
"Really, Juanita--" began Jack, but she interrupted him.
"Don't talk. Let me see if I've a little more perseverance. I count six
P's, three A'S, one L, three F's, two O's, and one X; that accounts for
PALAFOX. Why are there so many P's? Besides, there are four E'S, six
J's, and three S's. What can EJS stand for? EJS, ESJ, JES, JSE--I see
it! Take an O out of PALAFOX and you have JOSE. That is the name of our
old servant, and of the Captain-General too. Now, do you see, Senor Don
Juan?--the key to the cipher is JOSE PALAFOX."
"What an ass I am!" said Jack. "It never struck me that Palafox's
Christian name might be included. But what then? The only ciphering I
ever did was in money sums, and weights and measures. How do you work
out the thing now?"
"Why, it's clear that my father's message is made up of the words JOSE
PALAFOX, which have only nine different letters. It's not likely that
the message contains only nine letters; therefore one letter of the
cipher probably stands for several, and I shouldn't wonder if all the
letters of the alphabet were represented by those nine. Suppose we put
down the letters of the alphabet and the other letters underneath, and
see what can be made of it then."
"We don't know what language it is in."
"Probably Spanish, like the letter itself. Let us try."
She wrote down the twenty-seven letters of the Spanish alphabet, and
under each the corresponding letter of the key words:--
a b c ch d e f g h i j l ll m n n o p q r s t u v x y z
J O S E P A L A F O X J O S E P A L A F O X J O S E P
"There you are, Jack. Now look. The first letter of the cipher, s, may
stand for either _c_ or _m_ or _x_; we can't tell which of the three
until we get a little further."
"It's a pretty puzzle," said Jack. "The next letter is E; that may be
either _ch_ or _n_ or _y_, and if we put either of them after _c_, _m_,
or _x_, we sha'n't begin to make any Spanish word that I know of."
"No," agreed Juanita, putting her pencil to her lips. "It looks as if
the sentence can't be Spanish."
"Don Fernan wrote to me in English. Let us try that. I'll do it this
time."
Jack wrote down the letters of the English alphabet, placing the
key-words below as before:--
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
J O S E P A L A F O X J O S E P A L A F O X J O S E
"S is either _c_, _n_, or _y_ this time, and E is either _d_, _o_, or
_a_. We can drop _d_ and _e_, because they can't follow any of the first
three; that leaves _co_, _no_, and _yo_. This is getting interesting,
Juanita."
"Yes, I am getting quite excited. Now for the next letter, O. That can
stand for _b_, _j_, _m_, _u_, _x_. I'll write down all the
combinations, and see how they look."