CHAPTER XI
THE CIPHER
"Locked!" exclaimed Betty, laconically, when she had tried the cover ofthe box.
"Oh, dear!" came petulantly from Grace. "Isn't that horrid!"
"Well, I suppose the men have a right to lock up their treasure," coollyremarked Betty, again vainly trying to raise the cover.
"You will have it that those men hid the box," said Amy, with a smile."Also that it is treasure."
"I'm getting romantic--like Grace," commented the Little Captain.
Then, as they found that their efforts to open the box were vain, thegirls looked at it more closely.
It was a black japanned box of tin, or, rather, light sheet iron, ratherheavier than the usual box made for holding legal papers. It was such areceptacle as would be described, in England, as a "dispatch box." Andin fact, the box did seem to be of some foreign make. It was not likethe light tin affairs used locally to hold deeds, insurance policies andthe like.
The cover fitted on tightly. This much was seen at a glance, and so welldid it fit that it needed a second look to make sure which was thebottom and which the top, for there was no bulge or "shoulder" of themetal to indicate where the lid rested.
"It's water-tight, I'm sure," Mollie said, when the box had again beenset upright. They decided that the top was that place where the initials"B. B. B." showed, half-obliterated, in white paint.
"Then it might have been washed ashore from some wreck," Amy said.
"Too heavy to float," was the answer of Mollie, as she again lifted it.
"But it could work up in a heavy wind or sea; that is, if it didn't godown too far from shore," Grace remarked. "But can't we get it open someway?"
"We might break it," Mollie observed. "Otherwise, I don't see how wecan. It is a complicated lock, if I am any judge," and she looked at thefront of the box. "Let me take that stake, Amy."
"Oh, no! Don't break it open!" expostulated Betty. "We must try and seeif we can't slip the lock, after we get it home. Papa has a lot of oddkeys."
"But I don't see any lock!" exclaimed Grace.
"There it is," and Betty pushed to one side a round disk of metal thatfitted over the keyhole.
Whether this was to keep out sand or water, the girls could notdetermine. It might even have been designed to hide the keyhole, butformer use, or the battering which the box had received, had loosenedand disclosed the metal slide, and Betty's quick eyes had discerned theobject of it.
"It would take a peculiar key to open that," decided Mollie. "Mamma hasa historic French jewel case home, and it has a lock something likethat."
"Oh, suppose this contains--jewels!" cried Grace. "Wouldn't it bejust--"
"Nonsense!" broke in Betty. "If the box contains anything at all it isprobably papers of no value. My own opinion is that there's nothing init, for it's too light. However, we'll take it home, and see what theboys say."
"You seem to have a great deal of faith in their opinion," laughedMollie. "Ah, my dear!" and she put a finger on Betty's blushing cheek."Methinks it is the opinion of _one_ certain boy you want."
"Silly!" murmured Betty.
"Oh, don't mind us. A legal opinion would be most excellent to have,"mocked Grace. "Now who is eating the chocolates?" she wanted to know.
Betty did not answer. She bent over the black box, with its indefinableair of mystery, and the three queer letters on the top. She was,seemingly, trying to find a way to open it.
Finally she straightened up, looked once more across the bay and said:
"Well, let's take it to Edgemere."
"And let's hurry, too!" urged Amy.
"Hurry? Why?" asked Grace. "There's no more danger from the storm."
"No, but those men might come back, and, finding their treasuregone--oh, well, let's hurry," she finished.
"Don't make me nervous," begged Grace, with a glance over her shoulder."Come along, Betty. I'm just dying to see what is in it. But I'm not sosure those men in the boat left it, and if they demand it don't you giveit up to them."
"Oh, I should say not!" cried Mollie, bristling a bit. "_We_ found thebox. They'll have to prove ownership."
Betty tucked the box under her arm. No one disputed her right to carryit, for the other girls deferred to the Little Captain in matters ofthis sort.
"Won't the boys be surprised when they see it!" commented Amy.
"But listen!" cautioned Betty. "We mustn't pretend that we think thereis anything in it. If we do, and there isn't, they'd have the laugh onus."
"Oh, of course," assented Grace. "We'll just say we found the box on thebeach, and couldn't open it. The boys will be anxious enough to dothat."
And, sure enough, when the girls reached the cottage, the boys being notfar behind them, the latter were even more eager than Betty and herchums to have a look inside the mysterious iron case.
"Pry the cover off!" cried Will, when he and the others had brieflyrelated their experience in saving their motor boat and sailing back inthe other craft, while the girls gave their story bit by bit, from thesighting of the men in the boat, to the finding of the box. Only Bettysaid nothing about the faces at the window of the fisherman's hut.
"Pry the cover off!" cried Will. "An axe is the best thing to use!"
"Indeed not!" exclaimed Betty. "Let's see if we can't open it with akey. You have some odd ones; haven't you, Daddy?"
"Yes," assented Mr. Nelson, who was down at the shore for the week-end."Betty, get them. You'll find them in that desk in the living room."
Betty's father had looked at the box on all sides, had shaken it, andhad examined the lock through a reading glass.
"It sure is a find, all right!" declared Roy Anderson. "I wish I hadbeen with you."
"Oh, if it's a treasure-trove, we'll all share, as they did in TreasureIsland," declared Betty, who was almost a boy in her liking foradventure stories.
"Ahem!" exclaimed Allen Washburn, with an elaborate assumption ofdignity. "Treasure, you know, is subject to the claim of thecommonwealth, if the lawful heirs cannot be located. I must look up thelaw on that subject."
"More likely it's the spoil of pirates, and fair booty for whoever findsit!" declared Will. "I think I'm the proper one to take charge of this,representing as I do the United States Government, which takesprecedence over any State commonwealth."
"Go on!" laughed Henry Blackford. "You'll be saying next that it'ssmugglers' booty, and you'll be asking us to pay a duty on it. Let'sopen the box and see what it is--maybe nothing but seaweed. I've heardof jokes being played before," and he looked at the girls meaningly.
"Oh, _we_ didn't hide it and then find it again," Amy assured him, soearnestly that the others laughed.
"Well, here goes for a try, anyhow," said Mr. Nelson.
With a bunch of assorted keys he tried one after another in the strangelock. Some keys would not even enter the aperture, while others turneduselessly around in it.
Betty's father used all he had without success, and then the boys werecalled on. They were not able to produce the Sesame to the japanned box,and Will's plan of using an axe was finding more favor when Allenproduced a small key of peculiar make.
"Try this," he said. "It locks the switch on the motor boat, but it mayfit. It looks as though it would."
And, to the surprise of them all, it did. As though it had been made forthat lock, the little switch key slipped in. There was a click, agrinding sound, as the cover slipped on the sand-encrusted hinges, andthe lid went back.
"Stung!" cried Roy, as nothing was seen but a slip of paper within theblack interior.
Mr. Nelson lifted it out.
"I can't make anything of this," he said. "It's some sort of a note,written in cipher, I should judge. It is signed 'B. B. B.'"
"The same letters that are on top of the box," said Allen.
"Was there ever a pirate who had those initials?" asked Mollie, and theothers laughed. "Well, there might have been," she went on. "I don'tthink it's so funny."
; "Of course it isn't, dear," declared Betty. "I guess we're all a bitnervous. Is that all there is, Daddy?"
"Everything, my dear. The box is empty save for this bit of paper thatdoesn't make any sense."
"We must translate that at once, sir," said Allen. "If it is in cipherthat's all the more evidence that it means something. I might have a tryat that secret message, or whatever it is."
"Well, you're welcome to have a go at it," assented Mr. Nelson. "It mayall be a joke, so don't take it too seriously."
"I'll not," agreed Allen.
He took the paper from Mr. Nelson's hand. The others looked over hisshoulder at it.
"Oh, what do you suppose it means?" marveled Grace. "Do hurry andtranslate it, Allen."