"What's wrong?" I queried, looking up at her.
"I've been watching you," said she, "and you haven't depressed your figure lever once. You must have it all wrong. It'll just be simple letters instead of the signs."
I had been typing all the time with my eyes on the keyboard, and I hadn't once glanced at the finished work. Now I looked at it I saw that she was right. I had been typing letters all along when I should have been printing figures. And then something queer about the letters struck me. My heart gave a jump.
"Go on," I said huskily to Cumshaw. "Give me a few more."
He read out two or three more combinations and then I leaned back in the chair. "Look," I said triumphantly, "look what I've done!"
Two heads bobbed down over my work, stared at it for a moment, and then two pairs of eyes smiled at me.
"You've solved it by accident," said Cumshaw.
"I'm sorry for what I said," Moira said simply.
"It's just the simplest cypher in existence," I said. "You've got a keyboard with letters and figures on it. When you want letters you type straight out, and when you want figures you just depress the lever. Now look at this. That 5 is on the same key as T, @ is on H's key, 3 means E, and so on. When Bryce worked it out he simply pressed down the figure lever and left it down, and now to reverse the process all we've got to do is to hit the keys these signs are on and leave the lever alone. Simple, isn't it?"
"Very," said Cumshaw.