Uninteresting as the case appeared at first sight, he soon discovered that he could think of nothing else. He found himself puzzling over it during an afternoon concert at the Queen's Hall, and he even thought of it while calling upon the wife of the Prime Minister afterwards. As he drove in the Park before dinner, the wheels of his carriage seemed to be saying "Alpha and Omega, nineteen, twelve" over and over again with pitiless reiteration, and by the time he reached home once more he would gladly have paid a ten-pound note for a feasible solution of the enigma, if only to get its weight off his mind.
While waiting for dinner he took pen and paper and wrote the message out again, this time in half-a-dozen different ways. But the effect was the same, none of them afforded him any clue. He then took the second letter of each word, after that the third, then the fourth, and so on until he had exhausted them. The result in each case was absolute gibberish, and he felt that he was no nearer understanding it than when Mrs. Jeffrey's had handed it to him nearly eight hours before.
During the night he dreamt about it, and when he woke in the morning its weight was still upon his mind. "Nineteen--twelve," it is true, had left him, but he was not better off for the reason that "Seventy--eight Brazils" had taken its place. When he got out of bed he tried it again. But at the end of half-an-hour his patience was exhausted.
"Confound the thing," he said, as he threw the paper from him, and seated himself in a chair before his looking-glass in order that his confidential valet, Belton, might shave him. "I'll think no more of it. Mrs. Jeffreys must solve the mystery for herself. It has worried me too much already."
He laid his head back upon the rest and allowed his valet to run the soap brush over his chin. But, however much he might desire it, his Old Man of the Sea was not to be discarded so easily; the word "Brazils" seemed to be painted in letters of fire upon the ceiling. As the razor glided over his cheek he thought of the various constructions to be placed upon the word--the Country--Stocks--and even nuts--Brazil nuts, Spanish nuts, Barcelona nuts, walnuts, cob nuts--and then, as if to make the nightmare more complete, no less a thing than Nutall's Dictionary. The smile the last suggestion caused him came within an ace of leaving its mark upon his cheek. He signed to the man to stay his hand.
"Egad!" he cried, "who knows but this may be the solution of the mystery? Go down to the study, Belton, and bring me Nuttall's Dictionary."
He waited with one side of his face still soaped until his valet returned, bringing with him the desired volume. Having received it he placed it upon the table and took up the telegram.
"Seventy--eight Brazils," it said, "one--twenty--nine."
Accordingly he chose the seventieth page, and ran his fingers down the first column. The letter was B, but the eighth word proved useless. He thereupon turned to the seventy-eighth page, and in the first column discovered the word Bomb. In a second the whole aspect of the case changed, and he became all eagerness and excitement. The last words on the telegram were "one-twenty-nine," yet it was plain that there were barely a hundred upon the page. The only explanation, therefore, was that the word "One" distinguished the column, and the "twenty-nine" referred to the number of the word in it.
Almost trembling with eagerness he began to count. Surely enough the twenty-ninth word was Bomb. The coincidence was, to say the least of it, extraordinary. But presuming that it was correct, the rest of the message was simplicity itself. He turned the telegram over, and upon the back transcribed the communication as he imagined it should be read. When he had finished, it ran as follows: