“You can make a perfectly good sympathetic ink from linseed oil, liquor of ammonia, and any of several other ingredients,” he said, watching with me. “When writing with it dries it is invisible. Only water will bring it out. Then when it dries it is invisible again. Look.”
I did, but could not yet make out what it was, except that it seemed to be a hodge-podge of figures:
251533331514543245434412152515354433331552
543442254533442431521521243324432323154215
“It’s a cipher!” I exclaimed with that usual acumen that made Kennedy smile indulgently.
“Quite right,” he agreed, studying the peculiar scrawl of the figures. “But if we are going to get to New York at anything like the time she does, we must get that train. I can’t stop to decipher it now. We’ll have plenty of time later in the morning. There’s no use staying here, with the bird flown from the cage. I wonder whether Hastings is up yet.”
The lawyer, who was not as young as he used to be, was not awake, and it took some pounding on his door to wake him. As he opened it sleepily he was prepared to give some one a piece of his mind, until he saw that it was Kennedy and myself.
“Hello!” he suppressed a surly growl. “What’s the trouble?”
Quickly Craig told him of the strange departure of Paquita.
“Up to something again,” muttered Hastings, finding some one at least on whom he could vent his spleen, although by this time he was fully awake. “But, man, I can’t get away for that early train!”
“Oh, that’s all right,” reassured Kennedy. “I think it will be enough if you come down on the express. But I wanted to tell you that when Riley called up and said he was off after Paquita, I couldn’t think of a place in the city that was more central than your office and I took the liberty of telling him to call me up there, without thinking how early it would be.”