"Lying on its side in that corner"—I pointed. "It was hurled there last Friday night, when the dwarf surprised Burke here."
She went over to it, while I raised the blinds. Instantly she recoiled with a cry, and then in a flash was fairly wild with excitement.
"Knowles, Knowles!" she screamed. "Here they are!"
And sure enough, there they were—the brass tacks with which the artificial leather cover had been fastened on. Their heads were ornamental, with just such crenellated edges as might have prompted the circular figures at each end of the cipher.
I stared at them in stupefied silence. The row of gleaming tacks staggered me. How many times had I lingered by that very table while I racked my brain to remember where I had seen the peculiar figure! Why, once I even had paused and drawn the design in the dust on the leather cover! What a dunce—how blind I had been!
The cipher was not difficult to read now. At once I recalled Burke's shadow on the blind; he had been bending over this table, and the agile movements of his hands were no longer mysterious. He, too, had some knowledge of the cipher, and he had been rapidly running over the tack-heads, hunting for the combination that would reveal a concealed compartment.
After a while we grew rational again. I got out the cipher, and once more Genevieve and I put our heads together over it. Here it is; you may follow us while we dig it out:
"If you remember," I said presently, "I told you that very likely it would have to be interpreted in connection with something not on the paper. Count the tacks along the front edge."