Chapter Fourteen
Gives an Expert Opinion
Upon the carpet at our feet lay scattered a pack of very small, rather dirty cards which had fallen from the little sachet, and which both of us stood regarding with surprise and disappointment.
For my own part I expected to find within that treasured bag of wash-leather something of more value than those thumbed and half worn-out pieces of pasteboard, but our curiosity was instantly aroused when, on stooping, I picked up one of them and discovered certain letters written in brown faded ink upon it, similar to those upon the card already in my possession.
It chanced to be the ten of diamonds, and in order that you may be able to the more clearly understand the arrangement of the letters upon them, I reproduce it here: —
“How strange!” cried Mabel, taking the card and examining it closely. “It surely must be some cipher, the same as the other card which I found sealed up in the safe.”
“No doubt,” I exclaimed, as, stooping and gathering up the remainder of the pack, I noticed that upon each of them, either upon the front or upon the back, were scrawled either fourteen or fifteen letters in a treble column, all, of course, utterly unintelligible.
I counted them. It was a piquet pack of thirty-one, the missing card being the ace of hearts which we had already discovered. By the friction of having been carried on the person for so long the corners and edges were worn, while the gloss of the surface had long ago disappeared.
Aided by Mabel I spread them all upon the table, utterly bewildered by the columns of letters which showed that some deep secret was written upon them, yet what it was we were utterly unable to decipher.
Upon the front of the ace of clubs was scrawled in three parallel columns of five letters each, thus: —
E H N
W E D
T O L
I E H
W H R
Again, I turned up the king of spades and found on the reverse only fourteen letters: —
Q W F
T S W
T H U
O F E
Y E
“I wonder what it all means?” I exclaimed, carefully examining the written characters in the light. The letters were in capitals just as rudely and unevenly drawn as those upon the ace of hearts, evidently by an uneducated hand. Indeed the A’s betrayed a foreign form rather than English, and the fact that some of the cards were inscribed on the obverse and others on the reverse seemed to convey some hidden meaning. What it was, however, was both tantalising and puzzling.
“It certainly is very curious,” Mabel remarked after she had vainly striven to construct intelligible words from the columns of letters by the easy methods of calculation. “I had no idea that my father carried his secret concealed in this manner.”
“Yes,” I said, “it really is amazing. No doubt his secret is really written here, if we only knew the key. But in all probability his enemies are aware of its existence, or he would not have left it secreted here when he set forth on his journey to Manchester. That man Dawson may know it.”
“Most probably,” was her reply. “He was my father’s intimate acquaintance.”
“His friend – he says he was.”
“Friend!” she cried resentfully. “No, his enemy.”
“And therefore your father held him in fear? It was that reason which induced him to insert that very injudicious clause in his will.”
And then I described to her the visit of the man Dawson on the previous night, telling her what he had said, and his impudent, defiant attitude towards us.
She sighed, but uttered no reply. I noticed that as I spoke her countenance went a trifle paler, but she remained silent, as though she feared to speak lest she should inadvertently expose what she intended should remain a secret.
My chief thought at that moment, however, was the elucidation of the problem presented by those thirty-two well-thumbed cards. The secret of Burton Blair, the knowledge of which had brought him his millions, was hidden there, and as it had been bequeathed to me it was surely to my interest to exert every effort to gain exact knowledge of it. I recollected how very careful he had been over that little bag which now lay empty upon the table, and with what careless confidence he had shown it to me on that night when he was but a homeless wanderer tramping the muddy turnpike roads.
As he had held it in his hand, his eyes had brightened with keen anticipation. He would be a rich man some day, he had prophesied, and I, in my ignorance, had then believed him to be romancing. But when I looked around that room in which I now stood and saw that Murillo and that Tintoretto, each of them worth a small fortune in themselves, I was bound to confess that I had wrongly mistrusted him.
And the secret written upon that insignificant-looking little pack of cards 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 gracious recognition, the secret of the source of his enormous income, yet so well concealed was it that neither Mabel nor myself could decipher it.
“What shall you do?” she inquired presently, after poring over the cards in silence for quite ten minutes. “Is there no expert in London who might find out the key? Surely those people who do cryptograms and things could help us?”
“Certainly,” was my answer, “but in that case, if they were successful they 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 much benefit,” she argued. “Could you not consult somebody, and ascertain by what means such records are deciphered?”
“I might make inquiries in a general way,” I answered, “but to place the pack of cards blindly in the hands of an expert would, I fear, simply be giving away your father’s most confidential possession. There may be written here some fact which it is not desirable that the world shall know.”
“Ah!” she said, glancing quickly up at me. “Some facts regarding his past, you mean. Yes. You are quite right, Mr Greenwood. We must be very careful to guard the secret of these cards well, especially if, as you suggest, the man Dawson really knows the means by which the record may be rendered intelligible.”
“The secret has been bequeathed to me, therefore I will take possession of them,” I said. “I will also make inquiries, and ascertain by what means such ciphers are rendered into plain English.”
I had at that moment thought of a man named Boyle, a professor at a training-college in Leicester who was an expert at anagrams, ciphers, and such things, and I intended to lose no time in running up there to see him and ascertain his opinion.
Therefore at noon I took train at St. Pancras, and about half-past two was sitting with him in his private room at the college. He was a middle-aged, clean-shaven man of quick intelligence, who had frequently won prizes in various competitions offered by different journals; a man who seemed to have committed Bartlett’s Dictionary of Familiar Quotations to memory, and whose ingenuity in deciphering puzzles was unequalled.
While smoking a cigarette with him, I explained the point upon which I desired his opinion.
“May I see the cards?” he inquired, removing his briar from his mouth and looking at me with some surprise, I thought.
My first impulse was to refuse him sight of them, but on second thoughts I recollected that of all men he was one of the greatest experts in such matters, therefore I drew the little pack from the envelope in which I had placed them.
“Ah!” he exclaimed the moment he took them in his hand and ran quickly through them. “This, Mr Greenwood, is the most complicated and most difficult of all ciphers. It was in vogue in Italy and Spain in the seventeenth century, and afterwards in England, but seems to have dropped into disuse during the past hundred years or so, probably on account of its great difficulty.”
Carefully he spread the cards out in suits upon the table, and seemed to make long and elaborate calculations between the heavy puffs at his pipe.
“No!” he exclaimed. “It isn’t what I expected. Guess-work will never help you in this solution. You might try for a hundred years to decipher it, but will fail, if you do not discover the key. Indeed, so much ingenuity is shown in it that a writer in the last century estimated that in such a pack of cards as this, with such a cipher upon them, there are at least fully fifty-two millions of possible arrangements.”
“But how is the cipher written?” I inquired much interested, yet with heart-sinking at his inability to assist me.
“It is done in this way,” he said. “The writer of the secret settles what he wishes to record and he then arranges the thirty-two cards in what order he wishes. He then writes the first thirty-two letters of his message record, or whatever it may be, on the face or on the back of the thirty-two cards, one letter upon each card consecutively, commencing with the first column, and going on with columns two and three, working down each column, until he has written the last letter of the cipher. In the writing, however, certain prearranged letters are used in place of spaces, and sometimes the cipher is made still more difficult or a chance finder of the cards to decipher by the introduction of a specially arranged shuffle of the cards half-way through the writing of the record.”
“Very ingenious!” I remarked, utterly bewildered by the extraordinary complication of Burton Blair’s secret. “And yet the letters are so plainly written!”
“That’s just it,” he laughed. “To the eye it is the plainest of all ciphers, and yet one that is utterly unintelligible unless the exact formula in its writing be known. When that is ascertained the solution becomes easy. The cards are rearranged in the order in which they were written upon, and the record or message spelt off, one letter on each card in succession, reading down one column after another and omitting the 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 my hands, and one which I am bound to solve.”
“I fear you will never do so unless the key is in existence,” was his answer. “It is far too difficult for me to attempt. The complications which are so simply effected in the writing, shield it effectually from any chance solution. Therefore, all endeavours to decipher it without knowledge of the pre-arrangement of the pack must necessarily prove futile.”
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 you would be no nearer the truth. It is too well protected for chance discovery, and is, indeed, the safest and most ingenious cipher ever devised by man’s ingenuity.”
I remained and took a cup of tea with him, then at half-past four entered the express and returned to London, disappointed at my utterly fruitless errand. What he had explained to me rendered the secret more impenetrable and inscrutable than ever.
Chapter Fifteen
Certain Things we Found at Mayvill
“Miss Blair, sir,” announced Glave next day just before noon, while I was sitting alone in my room in Great Russell Street, smoking vigorously, and utterly bewildered over the problem of the dead man’s pack of cards.
I sprang to my feet to welcome Mabel, who in her rich warm furs was looking very dainty and charming.
“I suppose if Mrs Percival knew I had come here alone, she’d give me a sound lecture against visiting a man’s rooms,” she said, laughing after I had greeted her and closed the door.
“Well,” I said, “it’s scarcely the first time you’ve honoured me with a visit, is it? And surely you need not trouble very much about Mrs Percival.”
“Oh, she really grows more straight-backed every day,” Mabel pouted. “I mustn’t go here, and I mustn’t go there, and she’s afraid of me speaking with this man, and the other man is not to be known, and so on. I’m really growing rather sick of it, I can tell you,” she declared, seating herself in the chair 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 I can see, she’s been the most easy-going of chaperons.”
“The perfect chaperon is the one who can utterly and effectually efface herself five minutes after entering the room,” Mabel declared. “And I will 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 it a point to have an urgent call in an opposite direction. Yes,” she sighed, “I suppose I oughtn’t to grumble when I recollect the snappy old tabbies in whose hands some girls are. There’s Lady Anetta Gordon, for instance, and Vi Drummond, both pretty girls out last season, but whose lives are rendered perfect tortures by those two ugly old hags who cart them about. Why, they’ve both told me they dare not raise their eyes to a man without a snappy lecture next day on polite manners and maiden modesty.”
“Well,” I said frankly, standing on the hearthrug, and looking down at her handsome figure: “I really don’t think you have had much to complain about up to the present. Your poor father was most indulgent, and I’m sure Mrs Percival, although she may seem rather harsh at times, is only speaking for your own benefit.”
“Oh, I know I’m a very wilful girl in your eyes,” she exclaimed, with a smile. “You always used to say so when I was at school.”
“Well, to tell the truth, you were,” I answered quite openly.
“Of course. You men never make allowance for a girl. You assume your freedom with your first long trousers, while we unfortunate girls are not allowed a single moment alone, either inside the house or out of it. No matter whether we be as ugly as Mother Shipton or as beautiful as Venus, we must all of us be tied up to some elder woman, who very often is just as fond of a mild flirtation as the simpering young miss in her charge. Forgive me for speaking so candidly, won’t you, Mr Greenwood, but my opinion is that the modern methods of society are all sham and humbug.”
“You’re not in a very polite mood to-day, it seems,” I remarked, being unable to restrain a smile.
“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “Mrs Percival is so very aggravating. I want to go down to Mayvill this afternoon, and she won’t let me go alone.”
“Why do you so particularly wish to go there alone?”
She flushed slightly, and appeared for a moment to be confused.
“Oh, well, I don’t want to go alone very particularly, you know,” she tried to assure me. “It is the foolishness of not allowing me to travel down there like any other girl that I object to. If a maid can take a railway journey alone, why can’t I?”
“Because you have the convenances of society to respect – the domestic servant need not.”
“Then I prefer the lot of the domestic,” she declared in a manner which told me that something had annoyed her. For my own part I should have regretted very much if Mrs Percival had consented to her going down to Herefordshire alone, while it also seemed apparent that she had some secret reason of her own for not taking her elder companion with her.
What, I wondered, could it be?
I inquired the reason why she wished to go to Mayvill without even a maid, but she made an excuse that she wanted to see the other four hunters were being properly treated by the studs-man, and also to make a search through her father’s study to ascertain whether any important or confidential papers remained there. She had the keys, and intended to do this before that odious person, Dawson, assumed his office.
This suggestion, evidently made as an excuse, struck me as one that really should be acted upon without delay, yet it was so very plain that she desired to go alone that at first I hesitated to offer to accompany her. Our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that I could of course offer to do so without overstepping the bounds of propriety, nevertheless I resolved to first endeavour to learn the reason of her strong desire to travel alone.
She was a clever woman, however, and had no intention of telling me. She had a strong and secret desire to go down alone to that fine old country house that was now her own, and did not desire that Mrs Percival should accompany her.
“If you are really going to search the library, Mabel, had I not better accompany and help you?” I suggested presently. “That is, of course, if you will permit me,” I added apologetically.
For a moment she was silent, as though devising some means out of a dilemma, then she answered —
“If you’ll come, I’ll of course be only too delighted. Indeed, you really ought to assist me, for we might discover some key to the cipher on the cards. My father was down there for three days about a fortnight before his death.”
“When shall we start?”
“At three-thirty from Paddington. Will that suit you? You shall come and be my guest.” And she laughed mischievously at such utter break-up of the convenances and the probable chagrin of the long-suffering Mrs Percival.
“Very well,” I agreed; and ten minutes later I went down with her and put her, smiling sweetly, into her smart victoria, the servants of which were now in mourning.
You perceive that I was playing a very dangerous game? And so I was; as you will afterwards see.
At the hour appointed I met her at Paddington, and putting aside her sad thoughtfulness at her bereavement we travelled together down to Dunmore Station, beyond Hereford. Here we entered the brougham awaiting us, and after a drive of nearly three miles, descended before the splendid old mansion which Burton Blair had bought two years before for the sake of the shooting and fishing surrounding it.
Standing in its fine park half-way between King’s Pyon and Dilwyn, Mayvill Court was, and is still, one of the show places of the county. It was an ideal ancestral hall. The grand old gabled house with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean entrance, gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possessed a delightful charm which few other ancient mansions could boast, and a still further interesting feature lay in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even to the minutest detail. For close on three hundred years it had been held by its original owners, the Baddesleys, until Blair had purchased it – furniture, pictures, armour, everything just as it stood.
It was nearly nine o’clock when Mrs Gibbons, the elderly housekeeper, welcomed us, in tears at the death of her master, and we passed into the great oak-panelled hall in which hung the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier. Captain Harry Baddesley, of whom there still was told a romantic story. Narrowly escaping from the battle-field, the captain spurred homewards, with some of Cromwell’s soldiers close at his heels; and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the house. Little daunted, the lady assisted them and personally conducted them over the mansion. As in so many instances, the secret room was entered from the principal bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the Roundheads had their suspicions aroused. So they decided to stay the night.
The hunted man’s wife sent them an ample supper and some wine which had been carefully drugged, with the result that the unwelcome visitors were very soon soundly asleep, and the gallant captain, before the effects of the wine had worn off, were far beyond their reach.
Since that day the old place had remained absolutely unchanged, with its rows of dark, time-mellowed family portraits in the big hall, its Jacobean furniture and its old helmets and pikes that had borne the brunt of Naseby. The night was bitterly cold. In the great open hearth huge logs were blazing, and as we stood there to warm ourselves after our journey, Mrs Gibbons, who had been apprised of our advent by telegraph, announced that she had prepared supper for us as she knew we could not arrive in time for dinner.
Both she and her husband expressed the deepest sympathy with Mabel in her bereavement, and then having removed our coats we went on into the small dining-room, where supper was served by Gibbons and the footman with that old-fashioned stateliness characteristic of all in that fine old-world mansion.
Gibbons and his wife, old retainers of the former owners, were, I think, somewhat surprised that I had accompanied their young mistress alone, nevertheless Mabel had explained to them how she wished to make a search of her father’s effects in the library, and that for that reason she had invited me to accompany her. Yet I must confess that I, on my part, had not yet formed any conclusion as to the real reason of her visit. That there was some ulterior motive in it I felt certain, but what it was I could not even guess.
After supper Mrs Gibbons took my pretty companion to her room, while Gibbons showed me the one prepared for me, a long big chamber on the first floor, from the windows of which I had a wide view over the undulating lawns to Wormsley Hill and Sarnesfield. I had occupied the room on several occasions, and knew it well, with its great old carved four-poster bed, antique hangings, Jacobean chests and polished oaken ceiling.
After a wash I rejoined my dainty little hostess in the library – a big, long, old room, where a fire burned brightly and the lamps were softly shaded with yellow silk. Over the fireplace were craved in stone the three water-bougets of the Baddesleys, with the date 1601, while the whole room from end to end was lined with brown-backed books that had probably not been disturbed for half-a-century.
After Mabel had allowed me a cigarette and told Gibbons that she did not wish to be disturbed for an hour or so, she rose and turned the key behind the servants, so that we might carry out the work of investigation without interruption.
“Now,” she said, turning her fine eyes upon me with an excitement she could not suppress as she walked to the big writing-table and took her father’s keys from her pocket, “I wonder whether we shall discover anything of interest. I suppose,” she added, “it is really Mr Leighton’s duty to do this. But I prefer that you and I should look into my father’s affairs prior to the inquisitive lawyer’s arrival.”
It almost seemed as if she half-expected to discover something which she desired to conceal from the solicitor.
The dead man’s writing-table was a ponderous old-fashioned one of carved oak, and as she unlocked the first drawer and turned out its contents, I drew up chairs and settled with her in order to make a methodical and thorough examination. The papers, we found, were mostly letters from friends, and correspondence from solicitors and brokers regarding his investments in various quarters. From some which I read I gathered what enormous profits he had made over certain deals in Kaffirs, while in certain other correspondence were allusions to matters which, to me, were very puzzling.
Mabel’s eager attitude was that of one in search of some document or other which she believed to be there. She scarcely troubled to read any of the letters, merely scanning them swiftly and casting them aside. Thus we examined the contents of one drawer after another until I saw beneath her hand a blue foolscap envelope sealed with black wax, and bearing the superscription in her father’s handwriting: —
“To be opened by Mabel after my death. – Burton Blair.”
“Ah!” she gasped in breathless haste. “I wonder what this contains?” And she eagerly broke the seals, and drew forth a sheet of foolscap closely written, to which some other papers were attached by means of a brass fastener.
From the envelope, too, something fell, and I picked it up, finding to my surprise that it was a snap-shot photograph much worn and tattered, but preserved by being mounted upon a piece of linen. It was a half-faded view of a country crossroads in a flat and rather dismal country, with a small lonely house, probably once an old toll-house, with high chimneys standing on the edge of the highway, a small strip of flower-garden railed off at the side. Before the door was a rustic porch covered by climbing roses, and out on the roadside an old Windsor armchair that had apparently just been vacated.
While I was examining the view beneath the lamplight, the dead man’s daughter was reading swiftly through those close lines her father had penned.
Suddenly she uttered a loud cry as though horrified by some discovery, and, startled, I turned to glance at her. Her countenance had changed; she was blanched to the lips.
“No!” she gasped hoarsely. “I – I can’t believe it – I won’t!”
Again she glanced at the paper to re-read those fateful lines.
“What is it?” I inquired anxiously. “May I not know?” And I crossed to where she stood.
“No,” she answered firmly, placing the paper behind her. “No! Not even you may know this!” And with a sudden movement she tore the paper to pieces in her hands, and ere I could rescue it, she had cast the fragments into the fire.
The flames leapt up, and next instant the dead man’s confession – if such it were – was consumed and lost for ever, while his daughter stood, haggard, rigid and white as death.