“Just so. I’d like to have seen Mr. Carling, but of course he had to go; a man doesn’t get married every day. Where do you keep your own keys at night, Sir Robert?”
“Under my pillow. It is quite impossible that anyone can have obtained possession of them without my knowledge.”
“Yet the papers disappeared,” remarked the detective dryly. “Well, will you give me a description of them, Sir Robert? You say they were secret dispatches; were they in cipher?”
“One was; it was in French, and would be quite unintelligible to anyone who did not possess the key to the code used. Mr. Carling’s report on them both was also written in our private cipher, which only he and I understand.”
“Have you a key to that cipher?”
“Only in our heads; Carling invented it, and we memorized it.”
“How about the French code? Was that memorized also?”
“By ourselves, yes; at least we are so familiar with it that we never need to consult the code. It’s in the drawer of the safe.”
“That has not been stolen, then?”
“No. The theft of the French paper and of Carling’s report really does not matter much, for practically it would be impossible for any outside person to decipher them; but the other, which is by far the most important, was not in cipher, unfortunately.”