"Hugh," I said suddenly, "d'you happen to have with you the copy of that other verse of Lady Jane's?"
He produced it from his pocketbook, without speaking. We had read over the copy of the Instructions a score of time since our arrival at Chesby, but none of us had recurred to Lady Jane's whimsical effort.
I spread the copy before me:
Putte downe ye Anciount riddel
In Decente, Seemelie ordour.
Rouse, O ye mystick Sybil,
Vex Hymme who doth Endeavour,
Nor treate Hys effortte tendour.
And in the winking of an eyelid the cipher leaped out before me. I did not reason it out. It just came to me—when I saw the VE in the next to the last line, I think.
"I've got it!" I shouted, and I sprang up and danced across the hearth, waving the paper in my hand. "I've got it!"
Hugh and Nikka regarded me in astonishment.
"Got what, you silly ass?" asked Hugh.
"It—the secret! The key! The cipher! The treas—"
But even as I started to say that, I thought better of it.