“You see,” he said, generously sharing the first sight of the solution with us, “this card has seven holes, at irregular distances. By placing it in the right position on this solid bank of letters, certain ones show through the holes, and these,—I hope,—will spell the message.”
And it did. After re-adjusting the key card several times, Wise finally got it right, and the letters that could be seen through the holes in this card, as he moved it along, spelled coherent words and sentences. Of course, the other letters were not to be used.
He read the message aloud, and as we suspected, it was information concerning the shipment of munitions, and told of certain sailing dates.
“Spy work of the cleverest type,” Wise exclaimed; “you see, ‘The Link’ got her information from stolen telegrams, and recorded it in this way, so it would be unintelligible to anyone not having this card,—or a duplicate of it.”
I scrutinized with interest the letters as they showed clearly through the little round holes.
“The information is of no particular value now,” Wise said; “it refers to yesterday as the sailing date. The point is, that this card,—this key card, was found on——”
He paused: a glance at Olive’s agonized face stopped the words he would have uttered. But we all knew. That card, found on Amos Gately’s desk, or in his desk drawer, proved that he was implicated in the interception of these messages, that he was guilty of treason to his country!
Wise tried to help matters by saying, hastily, “Perhaps it was a plant! Perhaps this card was put where it was found by some sly scoundrel for the purpose of misleading——”
“Don’t!” said Olive, faintly; “you are kind, Mr. Wise, but you are saying that merely to give me a ray of comfort and hope. You know better. You believe,—and I fear I must believe,—my guardian was involved in some wrong, some grave wrong—and——”
She broke down utterly and sobbed in Zizi’s arms which were opened to receive her.