Forgetting the code for the moment, he drew a letter from his pocket and read it mechanically. He placed his finger upon one paragraph in the letter.
“We have been entirely unable to solve this code,” he read half aloud. “It does not correspond to any system of code message that we have ever before encountered. We have no clew as to the system employed. It is something entirely new.”
The physician tossed the letter to the side of the desk. Once again he began his study of the original code.
He mumbled as he stroked his chin.
“The experts cannot solve it,” were his words. “Since they have failed, what can I do?”
It was not a sound that made Doctor Lukens raise his head. He was governed, instead, by one of those strange impulses that all human beings have felt — the mental impression that some other person is close at hand and watching.
This influence became so strong in the mind of Doctor Lukens that he suddenly forgot the code, leaned back in his chair, and glanced to the right. Then he started in amazement.
Seated beside the desk was a man clad in black. His figure seemed unaccountably dim in the gloomy light of the room. He was looking at Doctor Lukens, and the man’s face was vividly strange. An exclamation of astonishment came from the physician as he surveyed the countenance of the visitor.
It was smooth as parchment. It was masklike in its expression. The eyes were obscured by large, heavy-rimmed spectacles which were supplied with dark-tinted glass.
Doctor Lukens had an impression that there were unusual eyes behind those glasses; that the stranger wore them to conceal the vivid sparkle of his eyes.