"How you could get enlightenment from those things is beyond me," he said. "But tell me what they indicated."
"The candle and the match-sticks count for little," said Ashton-Kirk. "It is the tracings of melted tallow that possess the secret. Look closely at them. At first glance they may seem the random drippings of a carelessly held light. But a little study will show you a clearly defined system contained in them."
"Well, you might say there were three lines of it," said Pendleton, after a moment's inspection.
"Right," said Ashton-Kirk. "Three lines there are, and each follows a row of tack heads. These latter were, apparently, once driven in to hold down a step-protector of some sort which has since become worn out and been removed."
The speaker took a pad of paper and a pencil from his pocket. Across the pad he drew three lines one under the other. Then with another glance at the candle droppings upon the step, he made a copy of them that looked like this:
Pendleton bent over the result under the flare of the gas light; and as he looked his eyes widened.
"Why," cried he, "they look like a stenographer's word-signs."
"Good!" said Ashton-Kirk. "And that, my dear fellow, is exactly what they are. There, scrawled erratically in dripping tallow, is a three word sentence in Benn Pitman's phonetic characters. It is roughly done, and may have occupied some minutes; but it is well done, and in excellent German. I'll write it out for you."