The girl had met him with some trepidation, and his distant bow had done more to assure her than had he displayed a desire to rehabilitate himself in her good opinion.
Without any preliminaries, Jimmy showed the contents of the packet. He did not explain to the girl by what means he had come into possession of them.
“Of all these papers,” began Jimmy, tapping the letter before him, “only one is of any service, and even that makes confusion worse confounded. Reale had evidently had this cursed cryptogram in his mind for a long time. He had made many experiments, and rejected many. Here is one.”
He pushed over a card, which bore a few words in Reale’s characteristic hand.
Angel read:—
“The word of five letters I will use, namely:
1. White every 24 sec.
2. Fixed white and red.
3. White group two every 30 sec.
4. Group occ. white red sec. 30 sec.
5. Fixed white and red.”
Underneath was written: “No good; too easy.”
The detective’s brows were bent in perplexity.
“I’m blessed if I can see where the easiness comes in,” he said. “To me it seems so much gibberish, and as difficult as the other.”