The dull, heavy sleep into which Richard Duvall had fallen, after Dr.
Hartmann had left him, was suddenly disturbed by the realization that
someone had seized him roughly by the arms. He attempted to rise,
struggling instinctively against the two men who, he dimly saw, were
bending over him, but his resistance was useless. In a moment the
leather straps which encircled his wrists and ankles had been drawn
tight, and he felt himself being lifted bodily and deposited on the
floor in the center of the room. At first he cried out, cursing his
captors loudly, but an instant's reflection showed him how profitless
his remonstrances were, and he allowed himself to be bound to the floor
in silence. In a moment, Dr. Hartmann--the detective saw that it was he,
with Mayer--had switched on the violet light, and he once more felt its
blinding radiance upon his face.
Hartmann opened the door. "I shall be back again in a few hours," he
said, as he left the room. "I hope that by that time you will have quite
recovered your senses."
The detective made no reply. He had definitely made up his mind upon one
point: he was not going to purchase his freedom at the expense of his
duty. The unfortunate situation in which he now found himself was, he
knew very well, entirely his own fault, and his desire to atone for his
momentary carelessness made him determined not to accede to Dr.
Hartmann's demands. He hoped that his friends outside--Lablanche,
Dufrenne, even Grace--might be able to come to his assistance. If he
could only know that the snuff box was safe in Monsieur Lefevre's hands,
the rest did not matter much.
These thoughts passed through his mind as he lay with closed eyes, his
face quivering under the dazzling light which fell upon it. Its
intensity was, he thought, greater, if anything, than it had been
before, and the irritating effect upon his eyes more pronounced. He did
not open his eyes at all, on this occasion, for fear even a momentary
exposure would increase their sensitiveness.
Slowly the day passed. He concluded that it was afternoon, when he heard
far off a bell striking the hour of two, although it might equally well
have been two o'clock in the morning, for all he could tell. There was a
faint hum of conversation in the laboratory above him, which convinced
him that it was still day.
Presently his ear, acutely sensitive to the slightest noise which might
disturb the stillness about him, became aware of a faint sound of music,
which seemed to come to him from a long distance off. It was a popular
French march, and from a certain quality of the notes he concluded that
it was being played upon a phonograph. The strains of the music
distracted him, took his mind from the things about him, and as he
listened to it, it seemed that the effort of keeping his eyes tightly
closed grew sensibly less, the blinding pressure of the unwavering light
cone upon his face appreciably easier to bear. He knew that this was but
a momentary relief, but he welcomed it eagerly. Lying in this terrifying
silence, under the cruel glare of light, had become frightful--he
wondered if, after all, his nerves, his mind, could long stand the
strain.
The music stopped suddenly. He found himself eagerly hoping that there
would be more. In a few moments it began again, and he was listening to
the familiar strains of _The Rosary_. He had always liked the
song--Grace, too, had been fond of it. He wondered if she could be
playing to him, trying to soothe his fast-shattering nerves with music.
It pleased him to think that it might be so, although he had no reason
to suppose that Grace knew of the torture to which Dr. Hartmann was
subjecting him.
After a time, the final strains of _The Rosary_ died away, to be
followed by a German march, played by some military band. This, too, he
was glad to hear, although he found himself thinking that he preferred
_The Rosary_. As if in answer to his thoughts, it began again--he found
himself repeating the words to himself mechanically, and thinking of
Grace.
The music continued for long over an hour. Duvall noted with surprise
that while there were many other selections, _The Rosary_ was played
almost every other time. So often, in fact, did its strains break the
stillness, that he became annoyed--in his nervous state this constant
repetition of the song worried him. After a time he shuddered when he
heard it, hoping that each time would be the last. No one but an
imbecile, he muttered to himself, could enjoy playing a piece over and
over in that aimless fashion. When at last the impromptu concert had
ceased, and the silence about him was once more unbroken, he found
himself puzzling in vain over the matter, as though it had become of
vast importance to him.
After the music ceased, he realized how much it had helped him to endure
the two or more hours which had elapsed since Hartmann left him. His
real tortures were only just beginning. The constant blaze of light on
his face, the ceaseless effort to keep his eyes closed, to turn his head
away, in spite of the bonds which prevented it, once more almost
frenzied him. He fell to wondering whether Hartmann had been in earnest,
when he told him of the qualities of the violet rays. Could they in any
way affect his mind? The mere thought stimulated his imagination to such
an extent that already he was convinced that his senses were
wandering--that his mind was becoming sluggish and dull.
As hour after hour passed, this thought became almost a certainty. His
head began again to ache terribly, his eyes seemed to swim in pools of
liquid fire. Bright flashes of light darted through his brain, and at
times it seemed almost on fire. The pain which the constant effort to
turn his head caused, was becoming more acute as each minute passed--he
felt constantly on the point of screaming out in terror--begging for
release--agreeing to do anything they asked of him. Then with a mighty
effort of the will he would calm himself, and closing his eyes tightly
once more, determine to endure until the end.
After an interminable period, the sound of the music once more fell upon
his troubled brain. This time the strains sounded more distinct and
clear. Three times in rapid succession _The Rosary_ was played, then
sudden silence. He waited in vain for more--dreading the recurrence of
the song, yet expecting it, as one expects the continuance of any
oft-repeated sound. There was nothing further, however, and once more
the silence became like the darkness about him, a grim and positive
thing.
Hours later, when his brain reeled endlessly in a blazing redness, and
his tortured eyes seemed bursting from their sockets, the cone of violet
light vanished as though some silent hand had brushed it aside, and in
the reaction he fainted.
He awoke again to find himself lying on the floor, with Hartmann bending
over him, feeling his pulse. In a fit of rage, he struck out with his
clenched hand, and missing, scrambled to his feet. The room was faintly
lit by the single electric globe, and he saw Mayer and Dr. Hartmann
confronting him, the latter with a revolver in his hand. Once more he
realized the futility of resistance, and sank against a packing box, his
hand covering his burning eyes.
The latter appeared to be no longer in his former state of sardonic good
nature. "Are you ready to tell us what you have done with the box?" he
snarled.
Duvall made no reply, and this angered the doctor still further. "I'll
give you an hour to think the matter over," he said, furiously. "And if
you don't come to terms by that time, you shall stay under the influence
of the light until you do." He turned toward the door, followed by
Mayer, and in a moment they had left the room.
Duvall, in his pain and distress, realized that something would have to
be done at once, within the next hour, in fact, or he would be obliged
to give up. Physical torture he could stand, but to lie here silently,
under that cruel radiance, and realize that his brain was slowly giving
way, he felt he could not endure.
Yet what was there that he could do? The walls of the room, of solid
brick, he could not hope to penetrate. The door, of iron, a dozen men
could not break through. He forced his shoulder against it, and laughed
bitterly as he realized that with all his strength he could not even
cause it to give the fraction of an inch. He determined to get the snuff
box--to examine it--reckless of his fear of being observed. In a moment
he had snatched the opera hat from the corner, torn out the lining, and
held the box in his hand.
He paused for a moment, listening intently. Everything about him was
still. There were no sounds from the laboratory above. He remembered now
that he had not heard Hartmann and his companion ascend the iron
stairway. Doubtless they had returned to the main building by means of
the lower corridor.
In a moment he had hung the torn opera hat over the knob of the door, to
prevent anyone from observing him through the keyhole, and going
directly beneath the bracket which held the electric globe, proceeded to
examine the box carefully.
The first thought that came to his mind, filled him with a strange
feeling of hope. He had no more than glanced at the top of the box when
he saw what he had previously failed to observe, that the circle of
pearls upon its top formed a rosary, which was completed by the ivory
cross in the center. The Rosary! Why had this song been so persistently
and continuously played? Was it for him, some message, indeed, intended
to show him a way out of his difficulties? Yet if so, to what did it
lead? There was a rosary upon the top of the box, it is true, but what
of it? Absently he began to count the pearls, hardly realizing what he
was doing. One of them, he noted, the one at the very top of the cross,
was larger than the others, and he started here, slowly counting around
the circumference of the box. His eyes pained him frightfully and twice
he lost count and had to begin all over again, but on the third attempt
he discovered that the pearls numbered twenty-six. Even yet, the
significance of this fact did not occur to him--he began to count the
pearls again, mechanically.
Then suddenly, in a flash, the thing came to him. Twenty-six
pearls--twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Evidently the box, in some
way, formed a cipher, a secret alphabet, which might be used in
correspondence, or in the preparation of important documents, yet
how--how?
With repressed eagerness he held the box more closely to the light,
searching its surface for some further clue. At once he noticed the
arrangement of the concentric circles of letters which made up the Latin
prayer. The words were so written that each letter stood opposite a
pearl, and reading inward from each pearl, there was a row of letters
six deep reaching almost to the center of the box. Clearly here were six
different ciphers, that is, six circles of twenty-six letters each, any
one of which might constitute a working cipher. It was only necessary to
call the big pearl at the top "_A_," and here were six different letters
opposite it, any one of which, in a system of cipher writing, might be
used as the letter _A_.
Duvall, however, knew enough about ciphers to know that such an
arrangement constituted no cipher at all, in other words, that ciphers
so simple, so readily solved, as this, would never be employed in any
case where absolute secrecy was imperative. He felt that there was
something more to the matter than he had so far discovered.
Suddenly he saw that, just beyond each pearl, was engraved on the ivory
rim of the box a number--starting with the large pearl at the top as
number one, the circle of numbers ran around the edge of the box until
it returned to its starting point, at number twenty-six. In his efforts
to see these numbers, which were very small, he gripped the box tightly
in his hands to hold it the more steadily toward the rather dim light.
In doing so, he suddenly became aware of the fact that the rim or edge
of the box, containing the numbers and the circle of pearls, was
movable. It fitted so cunningly into the top of the box, that the joint
appeared not as a crack or perceptible space, but merely as a fine thin
line, apparently a part of the engraving on its surface. Holding the
lower part of the box firmly in his left hand, he turned the rim of the
top slowly about. At once the purpose of this became apparent. Not only
had each pearl, representing a letter of the alphabet, six corresponding
values from rim to center, in any one position, but by turning the rim
around, twenty-six such positions could be secured, making a total of
one hundred and fifty-six different alphabets from which a person
desiring to use a cipher might choose.
Again, however, Duvall was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. One
hundred and fifty-six different ciphers were no better than a single
one, if only one were used. Evidently he had not yet reached the
solution of the problem. In employing such a system of ciphers, some
combination, precisely similar to the combinations used on the locks of
safes, would have to be used. It was absolutely necessary, in order to
insure safety, to use not one cipher, but a large number, changing the
arrangement of the letters with each line written--even with each word,
in order to defy solution. Yet such an arrangement being purely
arbitrary, could not well be trusted to memory, for, once forgotten, the
translation of the document written, even by the writer himself, would
be absolutely impossible. It occurred to him that as there were six
different concentric lines of lettering, each constituting in itself a
complete cipher, the obvious way to use the box would be to place the
pearls in a given position, write six words, using a different alphabet
for each word, and then shift the ring of pearls to a new position, and
repeat the operation. This, of course, could be done indefinitely,
although half a dozen changes would be sufficient to insure a cipher
that would absolutely defy solution. Where, however, was the key? That,
after all, was the important matter; without it, the snuff box would be
as useless to Monsieur de Grissac as it would be to his enemies
themselves.
For many minutes Duvall puzzled over the matter, unable to reach any
satisfactory conclusion. Then he began to think of the song which had so
clearly been repeated, over and over, as a message to him from outside.
The words of the refrain began to run aimlessly through his mind, his
eyes upon the box. Suddenly he realized that the word cross, in its
repetitions, its position as the final word of the song, must have a
definite meaning. Before his eyes he saw the cross, so delicately carved
as to project scarcely an eighth of an inch above the thin and fragile
ivory surface. Instinctively he began to push at it, pressing it this
way and that, to discover, if possible, any spring or other means
whereby it might be made to turn or lift up. As he did so, his fingers
unconsciously pressed upon the large pearl at the top. In a moment the
upper surface of the cross slid to one side, disclosing a tiny shallow
cavity beneath it, some quarter of an inch in either direction, and no
deeper than the thickness of a piece of cardboard. Within this lay a bit
of tissue paper, tightly folded.
Duvall drew it carefully out and examined it. Upon it were written six
numbers: 12-16-2-8-20-4. There was nothing else upon the paper, but
Duvall realized that he held in his hand the key of the cipher.
At once Monsieur de Grissac's agitation, the servant Noel's death,
Hartmann's persecution of him, became clear. Evidently there were
documents, somewhere, of some nature, which this cipher made
intelligible and which, without it, were proof against all attempts to
read them. What were these documents? Were they in Hartmann's hands?
These questions, he knew, could not be answered now.
Immediately the question rose in his mind: What should he do next? By
destroying the tiny slip of paper, he could render the snuff box
valueless. Without the key, no one could use it with success. But, the
key once destroyed, how could Monsieur de Grissac himself read the
documents, for the preparing of which it had been utilized? Possibly, if
Hartmann had such documents, they were but copies, obtained through the
corruption of some clerk, while the originals remained in De Grissac's
possession. For these reasons he dared not destroy the cipher, at least
until all other means of escape had been exhausted. Then he realized, in
a flash, that if he proposed to utilize the return of the snuff box as a
means of obtaining his freedom, he could not hope to do so, if the key
was removed. Doubtless Hartmann knew of its existence. In some way he
had learned, possibly through the murdered man Noel, that the box
contained such a key, and would examine it, and satisfy himself that it
had not been removed, before he would allow him to leave the place. This
would inevitably result in his being searched, and the key, concealed
about his person, found. He stood in an agony of doubt, wondering which
alternative he should take.
His reflections were rudely disturbed by the sound of footsteps in the
corridor outside the door. In a moment he had replaced the tiny bit of
paper in the recess beneath the cross, slid the latter back into place,
and thrust the box beneath a mass of straw which lay on top of the
packing case against which he had been leaning. Then he turned toward
the door and had barely time to hurl the opera hat into a dark corner,
when the door opened, and Hartmann appeared on the threshold.