washidden there, and as it had been bequeathed to me it was surely to myinterest to exert every effort to gain exact knowledge of it. Irecollected how very careful he had been over that little bag which nowlay empty upon the table, and with what careless confidence he had shownit to me on that night when he was but a homeless wanderer tramping themuddy turnpike roads.
As he had held it in his hand, his eyes had brightened with keenanticipation. He would be a rich man some day, he had prophesied, andI, in my ignorance, had then believed him to be romancing. But when Ilooked around that room in which I now stood and saw that Murillo andthat Tintoretto, each of them worth a small fortune in themselves, I wasbound to confess that I had wrongly mistrusted him.
And the secret written upon that insignificant-looking little pack ofcards was mine--if only I could decipher it!
Surely no situation could be more tantalising to a poor man like myself.The man whom I had been able to befriend had left me, in graciousrecognition, the secret of the source of his enormous income, yet sowell concealed was it that neither Mabel nor myself could decipher it.
"What shall you do?" she inquired presently, after poring over the cardsin silence for quite ten minutes. "Is there no expert in London whomight find out the key? Surely those people who do cryptograms andthings could help us?"
"Certainly," was my answer, "but in that case, if they were successfulthey would discover the secret for themselves."
"Ah, I never thought of that!"
"Your father's directions in his will as to secrecy are very explicit."
"But possession of these cards without the key is surely not of muchbenefit," she argued. "Could you not consult somebody, and ascertain bywhat means such records are deciphered?"
"I might make inquiries in a general way," I answered, "but to place thepack of cards blindly in the hands of an expert would, I fear, simply begiving away your father's most confidential possession. There may bewritten here some fact which it is not desirable that the world shallknow."
"Ah!" she said, glancing quickly up at me. "Some facts regarding hispast, you mean. Yes. You are quite right, Mr. Greenwood. We must bevery careful to guard the secret of these cards well, especially if, asyou suggest, the man Dawson really knows the means by which the recordmay be rendered intelligible."
"The secret has been bequeathed to me, therefore I will take possessionof them," I said. "I will also make inquiries, and ascertain by whatmeans such ciphers are rendered into plain English."
I had at that moment thought of a man named Boyle, a professor at atraining-college in Leicester who was an expert at anagrams, ciphers,and such things, and I intended to lose no time in running up there tosee him and ascertain his opinion.
Therefore at noon I took train at St. Pancras, and about half-past twowas sitting with him in his private room at the college. He was amiddle-aged, clean-shaven man of quick intelligence, who had frequentlywon prizes in various competitions offered by different journals; a manwho seemed to have committed Bartlett's _Dictionary of FamiliarQuotations_ to memory, and whose ingenuity in deciphering puzzles wasunequalled.
While smoking a cigarette with him, I explained the point upon which Idesired his opinion.
"May I see the cards?" he inquired, removing his briar from his mouthand looking at me with some surprise, I thought.
My first impulse was to refuse him sight of them, but on second thoughtsI recollected that of all men he was one of the greatest experts in suchmatters, therefore I drew the little pack from the envelope in which Ihad placed them.
"Ah!" he exclaimed the moment he took them in his hand and ran quicklythrough them. "This, Mr. Greenwood, is the most complicated and mostdifficult of all ciphers. It was in vogue in Italy and Spain in theseventeenth century, and afterwards in England, but seems to havedropped into disuse during the past hundred years or so, probably onaccount of its great difficulty."
Carefully he spread the cards out in suits upon the table, and seemed tomake long and elaborate calculations between the heavy puffs at hispipe.
"No!" he exclaimed. "It isn't what I expected. Guess-work will neverhelp you in this solution. You might try for a hundred years todecipher it, but will fail, if you do not discover the key. Indeed, somuch ingenuity is shown in it that a writer in the last centuryestimated that in such a pack of cards as this, with such a cipher uponthem, there are at least fully fifty-two millions of possiblearrangements."
"But how is the cipher written?" I inquired much interested, yet withheart-sinking at his inability to assist me.
"It is done in this way," he said. "The writer of the secret settleswhat he wishes to record and he then arranges the thirty-two cards inwhat order he wishes. He then writes the first thirty-two letters ofhis message record, or whatever it may be, on the face or on the back ofthe thirty-two cards, one letter upon each card consecutively,commencing with the first column, and going on with columns two andthree, working down each column, until he has written the last letter ofthe cipher. In the writing, however, certain prearranged letters areused in place of spaces, and sometimes the cipher is made still moredifficult or a chance finder of the cards to decipher by theintroduction of a specially arranged shuffle of the cards half waythrough the writing of the record."
"Very ingenious!" I remarked, utterly bewildered by the extraordinarycomplication of Burton Blair's secret. "And yet the letters are soplainly written!"
"That's just it," he laughed. "To the eye it is the plainest of allciphers, and yet one that is utterly unintelligible unless the exactformula in its writing be known. When that is ascertained the solutionbecomes easy. The cards are rearranged in the order in which they werewritten upon, and the record or message spelt off, one letter on eachcard in succession, reading down one column after another and omittingthe letter arranged as spaces."
"Ah!" I exclaimed fervently. "How I wish I knew the key."
"Is this a very important secret, then?" asked Boyle.
"Very," I replied. "A confidential matter which has been placed in myhands, and one which I am bound to solve."
"I fear you will never do so unless the key is in existence," was hisanswer. "It is far too difficult for me to attempt. The complicationswhich are so simply effected in the writing, shield it effectually fromany chance solution. Therefore, all endeavours to decipher it withoutknowledge of the pre-arrangement of the pack must necessarily provefutile."
He replaced the cards in the envelope and handed them back to me,regretting that he could not render me assistance.
"You might try every day for years and years," he declared, "and youwould be no nearer the truth. It is too well protected for chancediscovery, and is, indeed, the safest and most ingenious cipher everdevised by man's ingenuity."
I remained and took a cup of tea with him, then at half-past fourentered the express and returned to London, disappointed at my utterlyfruitless errand. What he had explained to me rendered the secret moreimpenetrable and inscrutable than ever.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
CERTAIN THINGS WE FOUND AT MAYVILL.
"Miss Blair, sir," announced Glave next day just before noon, while Iwas sitting alone in my room in Great Russell Street, smokingvigorously, and utterly bewildered over the problem of the dead man'spack of cards.
I sprang to my feet to welcome Mabel, who in her rich warm furs waslooking very dainty and charming.
"I suppose if Mrs. Percival knew I had come here alone, she'd give me asound lecture against visiting a man's rooms," she said, laughing afterI had greeted her and closed the door.
"Well," I said, "it's scarcely the first time you've honoured me with avisit, is it? And surely you need not trouble very much about Mrs.Percival."
"Oh, she really grows more straight-backed every day," Mabel pouted. "Imustn't go here, and I mustn't go there, and she's afraid of me speakingwith this man, and the other man is not to be known, and so on. I'mreally growing rather sick of it, I can tell you," she declared, seatingherself in the chai
r I had just vacated, unloosing her heavy sable cape,and stretching a neat ankle to the fire.
"But she's been an awfully good friend to you," I argued. "As far as Ican see, she's been the most easy-going of chaperons."
"The perfect chaperon is the one who can utterly and effectually effaceherself five minutes after entering the room," Mabel declared. "And Iwill give Mrs. Percival her due, she's never clung on to me at dances,and if she's found me sitting out in a dim corner she has always made ita point to have an urgent call in an opposite direction. Yes," shesighed, "I suppose I oughtn't to grumble when I recollect the