“I am so anxious to see the general average of play improved before we meet the Sanatarem Club.
“Yours sincerely,
“Manoel Dagara.”
Feeling very much like a man who has most ridiculously hoaxed himself, I refolded the letter, put it back carefully into the envelope, and was about to fasten it when a thought struck me.
Vasco a chess player! The most unlikely man in all Christendom to have that profoundly staid disease. And why should this Henriques be chosen to carry such a letter and have it on him in the dead of night when he had come on such a grim mission as had brought him here?
Then a reason suggested itself. He must have had instructions to deliver it in person to Vasco; and as the latter had been on the Stella from the previous night, the note could not be delivered. The man in such a case, being afraid to leave it about, might well prefer to have it on him.
This meant that it was of much more importance than its contents suggested; and my thoughts flew to the cipher.
I was glad now that I had taken all the trouble and I took some more. I made an exact copy of the letter, laying a sheet of very thin paper over it and using the utmost pains to space every word and letter exactly as it was written.
Then I fastened it up and made up another packet and returned to Burroughs.
“I am still undecided what to do,” I said to him. “If this man’s tale is true, I shan’t punish him. But he must stop here for the present, of course. Have him locked in a room and let a couple of men be with him.”
Then I made another exchange of the packets and said to Henriques. “You can’t have your weapons, but you can keep this.” And I gave it him.