“Do you mean this?” and I produced the dummy.
“It’s on me,” he said with a laugh. He was very American at times in his idioms.
“I’m either a big stupid ass and have taken a lot of trouble for nothing, or I’ve made a useful discovery. I shall soon know which,” I said explaining how I had changed the packets.
Then I fetched the cipher key which I had hidden in another room and returned to find him puffing at his pipe and puzzling over the copy of the letter.
I told him then about the discovery of the cipher, and laid the key over the lines getting more nonsense words from the first two or three. Then I read the letter again and a thought struck me.
Dagara spoke of ten problems. There were ten lines in the letter.
“The fifth and sixth will interest you,” ran the phrase.
I laid the punctured slip over these in turn. The fifth gave me this result. I will put the indicated letters in capitals.
“I hoPe that All our Playing mEmbeRS will find oR make.”
“P A P E R S R,” was shown up.