He stared at her. Her pencil was flying across the paper. Who was this woman? She knew the key! Was there anything that she did not know? He watched her in a stunned way, his mind in confusion. And then he leaned forward to observe her work more closely. Beneath the original cipher she had written this:
ziduve sfuufw efwjfdfs uofnohjtopd teopnbje ofu eobtvpiu
tsbmmpe zbepu npsg nbesfutnb fwbi opjubnspgoj fiu fmpn
tj hojzbm b uobmq pu ufh nfiu uihjopu offxufc uihjf eob
fojo lpmdp eob usfwje opjdjqtvt pu fnpt fop ftmf ovs fiu
fmpn pu iusbf eob flbn nji ihvpd qv.
“It is so simple, Bundy,” she murmured caustically. “The numerals to designate the number of letters in the words, the transposition of ‘a’ for ‘b’, and so on, and the words spelled backwards. It is so simple, Bundy, that it is strange you should have forgotten—and forgotten that there are other secrets I have found in that den of yours, apart from that very convenient and ingenious door!”
She was working as she spoke, paying no attention to him. He made no reply, only watched her as she set down a second series of letters:
yhctud rettev deviecer tnemngisnoc sdnomaid net dnasuoht
srallod yadot morf madretsma evah noitamrofni eht elom
si gniyal a tnalp ot teg meht thginot neewteb thgie dna enin
kcolco dna trevid noicipsus ot emos eno esle nur eht elom
ot htrae dna ekam mih hguoc pu.
A moment more, and she had written out the message in plain English:
Dutchy Vetter received consignment diamonds ten thousand dollars to-day from Amsterdam. Have information the Mole is laying a plant to get them to-night between eight and nine o’clock, and divert suspicion to some one else. Run the Mole to earth and make him cough up.
She was studying the paper in her hand. Billy Kane lighted another cigarette. He was still watching her, but it was in a detached sort of way. Between eight and nine o’clock! Peters was rarely able to leave the Ellsworth home on his evenings off until well after eight o’clock; Peters, therefore, would not reach his flat much before nine, and certainly was not likely to leave there again immediately.
Billy Kane’s mind was working in quick, and seemingly unrelated snatches of thought. There was time enough to see this Vetter game through without interfering with that interview he meant to hold with Peters.... It was strange that it should be Vetter ... Whitie Jack had spoken of Vetter ... Savnak, the violin player, and Vetter ... Whitie Jack said that Savnak and Vetter spent most of their evenings together at Vetter’s playing pinochle and the violin.... Savnak would likely be there then between eight and nine.... Upon whom was it that the so-called Mole intended to point suspicion?... Here was the moral obligation again.... He had fought that out last night.... She, this woman here, was not the driving force.... She only represented disaster from an entirely different source if he failed.... If he stood aside with the foreknowledge of crime in his possession he was as guilty as this Mole.... Perhaps he had been trying to trick his own conscience in not pressing Red Vallon for explanations.... Perhaps, in a measure, he had allowed the argument that he might invite Red Vallon’s suspicions to act as an excuse for evading the responsibility that this foreknowledge of crime entailed.... Well, that responsibility was his now, thanks to her.... He had no choice.... It was likely to be the man in the mask again, and——
She pushed the paper toward him.