And yet——
Although Why-Not Pape rarely questioned opportunity, there were some times and some women and some hopes—Rather roughly he dropped her hands; next offered her a memorandum which he had found folded inside the sheaf of stock-certificates—a list of names, with figures set down opposite.
“The writing is his beyond doubt—Judge Allen’s,” she declared after a moment’s scrutiny.
“Clinches the proof of his guilt in the oil deal. It is a ‘sucker list’—the names of stock biters and the price per bite. It is—” In his pause Pape gave the girl a look that was at once exultant for himself and regretful for her. “It is your family friend’s ticket to the Atlanta pen.”
To distract the very natural distress which he saw in her face, he forced cheer to lighten the murmur of their exchange.
“But let’s get to the famous cryptogram, lost and at last regained. Now we can read it as a whole.”
Allowing the jealous Belgian to wedge himself between them, Pape spread out the wrinkled sheet upon the hairy back; in guarded tones read:
List to the Nubian roar
And whisper of poplars four.
They tell of bed-rock
Where rests a crock
Brimful of Fortune’s store.
’Tis on a height
The vault you’ll sight
Of buried might.
’Twill lead you right,
Bring delight,
Win the fight.
Eighteen and twelve will show
The spot. Begin below.
Above the crock
A block will rock,
As rocks wrong’s overthrow.
List, then, the Nubian roar.
List whisper of poplars four.
Climb, then, the height.
Read signs aright.
Count eighteen—twelve.
Take heart and delve.
Obey. You’ll want no more.
For moments the three of them—counting Kicko—pondered in silence. Two, at least, were considering the crypt’s applicability to the height of Judge Allen’s selection. It seemed a possible place, except for slight discrepancies, such as the absence of any particular “roar,” an uncertain number of poplars among the pines and the lack of a “vault,” except for the rock-tomb of Pape’s untimely—proved so—burial. In both the hope grew that, should they make good their escape with the incriminating evidence against the little lawyer-leader, the gang’s work on the flat would be suspended until after recovery of the documents. Even should Allen force the search, on being freed, they were well ammunitioned for rebuttal in court.
One by one—in silence this time—Pape again scanned the enigmatic lines.