While Professor Griffin had been so busily engaged deciphering the
concluding portion of the secret record, a strange scene was in progress
at Sir Felix Challas’s, in Berkeley Square.
First, Jim Jannaway had arrived and had held a short consultation in the
library with the red-faced Baronet, afterwards quickly leaving. Then,
from the Waldorf Hotel, summoned by telephone, came old Erich Haupt,
bustling and full of suppressed excitement.
Soon afterwards, the well-dressed Jim had returned, and had waited in
momentary expectancy, ready to dart out into the hall on hearing the
sound of cab wheels.
At last they were heard and the man-servant opened the door to Laura,
tall, dark-haired and rather good-looking parlour-maid at Pembridge
Gardens.
In the well-carpeted hall she recognised the man who had taken her out
to dinner and the theatre on several occasions, and advanced excitedly
to meet him.
“Oh! Laura!” he cried. “I’m so glad you’ve come. I had your ‘wire,’
and you got my message in reply, of course? You must see the gov’nor.
This is his house, and I want you to tell him how the Professor is
solving that puzzle.” Then, lowering his voice, he added. “There’s a
pot of money in it for both of us, dear, if you keep your wits about
you. You recollect what I promised you last Tuesday, don’t you?”
The girl sniggered and nodded. She was a giddy young person, whose head
had been turned by the admiration of that good-looking man who called
himself “Miller,” and who said he was a lawyer’s clerk. He had promised
to become engaged to her and to marry her, provided they could get only
a good round sum from “the gov’nor” for the information she could, with
such ease, supply.
This had placed the girl upon the constant alert, with the present
result.
Her nonchalant admirer led the way across the hall to the library,
pushed upon the door, and introduced her to the two men therein--
Challas, fat and prosperous, and Haupt, white-bearded and bespectacled.
Then, when the door was closed and she had seated herself, Challas--or
“Mr Murray,” as he had been introduced--asked:
“I believe you’re Laura, and you are parlour-maid at Professor
Griffin’s, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the girl, timidly, picking at her neat black skirt.
“Well, sir,” explained Jim, bearing out his part of lawyer’s clerk,
“some time ago I explained to my young lady here, what we particularly
wanted to know, and she’s kept both eyes and ears open. To-day she’s
learned something, it seems.”
“What is it?” inquired old Erich, in a deep tone, with his strong German
accent.
“Let the young lady explain herself,” urged the man introduced as
“Murray,” and they all sat silent.
“Well, sir,” the girl faltered, a moment later. “You see it was like
this. After luncheon to-day the Professor, who’d been very hard at work
as usual all the morning, took Miss Gwen up to the study to speak to her
privately; I listened, and I heard all their conversation. He told her
how he’d solved the problem of the cipher.”
“Solved it!” ejaculated the old German, staring at her through his
spectacles.
“Yes, sir,” the girl went on. “He told Miss Gwen that he’d tried and
tried, but always failed. But he had taken the--well, sir, I think he
called it the apoplectic number.”
The German laughed heartily.
“I know,” he said. “You mean the Apocalyptic Number, _fräulein_--the
number 666.”
“That’s it, sir,” she said, a little flurried, while Jim exchanged
significant glances with Challas. “He commences at the tenth chapter of
Ezekiel, eighth verse, and--and--” Then she fumbled in her pocket,
producing a piece of crumpled paper to which she referred. “He takes
the first sign of 6,” she went on, “then the eleventh letter, the
sixty-sixth letter, and the six hundred and sixty-sixth letter. After
this, the fiftieth letter, the two-hundredth letter, the sixth letter,
the fiftieth letter, the hundredth letter, the sixtieth letter, and the
two-hundredth letter--making six hundred and sixty-six in all. He
writes down each of the Hebrew letters, and then reads them off like a
book.”
“Wait--ah! wait!” urged the old German. “Let us have that again,
_fräulein_,” and crossing to Sir Felix’s big mahogany writing-table, he
opened the Hebrew text of Ezekiel upon it. “Where do you say the
Professor commences--at the tenth chapter, eighth verse--eh? Good!” and
he hastily found the reference. “Now?”
“Just tell this gentleman,” urged Jim, “tell him exactly what you
heard.”
“Well, starting with the eighth verse, he commences with what he termed
the first ‘wāw’ sign.”
“Zo! that’s the equivalent of the number 6,” Haupt remarked.
“Then the eleventh letter.”
The old professor counted and wrote down the letter in question in
Hebrew characters.
“The sixty-sixth,” said the girl.
The old man counted sixty-six, while Sir Felix and Jannaway watched with
intense, almost breathless interest. Here was the secret, snatched from
their dreaded opponent, Arminger Griffin!
“And now the six hundred and sixty-sixth,” the girl went on, apparently
thoroughly at home with the strangely assorted trio.
This took some time to count, but presently it was accomplished, and the
girl time after time gave the old professor directions--the fiftieth
letter, the two-hundredth letter, and so on.
“Well?” asked Challas, a few moments later, unable to repress his
excitement any longer. “Do you make anything out of it?”
The old man was silent. He was carefully studying the Hebrew characters
he had written down.
“Yes!” he gasped. “It is the secret--the great secret!” And he started
up, exclaiming, “At last! at last--thanks to _fräulein_ here--we have
the key!”
“And we can actually read the cipher?” cried Challas.
“Most certainly,” responded the old scholar. “The secret is ours!
Marvellous, how Griffin discovered it.”
“Confound Griffin!” exclaimed Jim Jannaway. “We have to thank Laura,
here, for our success! She ought to be well rewarded.”
“And so she shall,” declared the man, whom the girl knew as “Mr
Murray.”
“It’s late to-night, and we want Erich to get on at once with the
decipher. Besides, the young lady, no doubt, wishes to get back home.
Bring her to me to-morrow, or next day--and she shall be well rewarded.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” was the silly girl’s gratified reply, as she
looked triumphant into the face of the cunning man who had declared his
love for her.
The truth was that, having obtained that most valuable information, the
trio wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible. Therefore, with
excuses that the household at Pembridge Gardens would be suspicious if
she returned too late, they bundled her almost unceremoniously outside,
Jim hailing a hansom for her, paying the man, and telling him to drive
to Notting Hill Gate Station.
Then, when he re-entered, he exclaimed with a laugh to the Baronet,
“That was a cheap ‘quid’s’ worth of information, wasn’t it--eh?”
“Cheap, my dear boy? Why, it’s placed us absolutely on top. The
treasure, if it still remains there, is ours!”
“Ah! not too hasty! Not too hasty!” exclaimed the old German in his
deep guttural voice, and raising his head from the table. “Up to a
certain point, it is all right, but--”
“But what?” the others gasped, in the same breath.
“Well, there’s something wanting, alas! Or else the girl has made a
great mistake. After the addition of the numbers to 666, all goes
entirely wrong!”
“Goes wrong!” they echoed breathlessly, with one accord.
“Yes. The further reading is quite unintelligible,” he declared,
speaking with his strong Teutonic accent.
“The girl seemed quite certain about it!” exclaimed Jim, exchanging
glances with Challas.
“Quite,” the other remarked, blandly.
“Well, my dear sirs!” exclaimed Haupt, pointing to his lines of
hastily-written Hebrew. “The commencement of the record is here, plain
enough. It commences, ‘Remember and forget not, O Israel. Not for thy
righteousness--’ But after taking the two-hundredth letter I can
discover nothing. Commencing again at six only results in nothing,
while a repetition of the fiftieth and the consequent addition is
equally futile. No! The confounded girl has made some mistake--and we
are once more at a standstill. You see that one false number throws out
the whole. The cipher is one of the most ingenious ever conceived.”
“But, my dear Haupt, you know the basis, and where it commences! You
will surely succeed!” Challas cried, frantically.
The old man shook his head very dubiously.
“As I have already told you,” he responded in his deep voice, “a single
misplaced number throws it all out. We are again at an absolute
deadlock--and must remain as ignorant as we were before.”
“But have you made every possible effort?” asked Jim Jannaway, with
eager face, as he bent over the old man’s shoulders.
“I have tried all the combinations of the Apocalyptic Number, but they
are futile!” replied the old German, laying down his pen, and blinking
through his glasses.
“Then the girl has failed us after all,” remarked Challas in a low, hard
voice. “Griffin has deciphered the record and we’re absolutely ‘in the
cart.’”
“I won’t give up!” declared Jannaway. “I’m hanged if I will! This may
be one of Charlie’s tricks, remember! He may have learnt the truth and
got hold of Laura to put us on the wrong scent.”
“He may--curse him!” muttered Sir Felix. “Why didn’t he take my warning
and get away abroad?”
“Because he’s quite as cute as we are. He knows full well that while he
remains in England circumstances will continue to be propitious. So he
lives quietly down in Kent, with both eyes very much open.”
Already Jim Jannaway’s ingenious mind was active; already he was
devising a way out of the awkward _cul-de-sac_ in which they now found
themselves.
“What are we to do?” inquired Sir Felix, with his dark brows knitted at
this sudden failure of all his elaborate plans.
“Leave it to me,” replied the good-looking scoundrel, with the utmost
confidence. “Let Erich remain quietly within reach--not, however, at
the Waldorf--and allow me to carry out the scheme in my own way.”
“I cannot think why the girl made such a mistake,” Challas remarked very
disappointedly. “I admit the solution was complicated, but you saw that
she was clever enough to write it down.”
“She listened behind a closed door. She may have misunderstood,” Jim
remarked.
“Or, what is much more likely,” remarked the German, “Griffin, who has
the reputation of being a very shrewd man, does not trust his daughter,
and purposely misled her in explaining his secret.”
“No, I don’t think that,” said Jannaway. “Griffin trusts the girl, even
though she’s quite young, absolutely and implicitly.”
And thus the three desperate schemers agreed to leave matters in the
hands of the most daring and unscrupulous of men, Jim Jannaway,
unconscious that the exterior of the mansion was being watched
independently by two persons, Doctor Diamond, and a thin-faced, ill-clad
woman, who, noticing the Doctor’s keen interest in the place, glanced at
him full of surprise and wonder.