“Yes, that is it!” answered Manoel.
“You understand, then, by this means, that in calculating the true letter from the false, instead of the false from the true, I have been able to discover the number with ease; and the number I was in search of is really the 234 which I took as the key of my cryptogram.”
“Well, sir!” exclaimed Manoel, “if that is so, the name of Dacosta is in the last paragraph; and taking successively each letter of those lines for the first of the seven letters which compose his name, we ought to get——”
“That would be impossible,” interrupted the judge, “except on one condition.”
“What is that?”
“That the first cipher of the number should happen to be the first letter of the word Dacosta, and I think you will agree with me that that is not probable.”
“Quite so!” sighed Manoel, who, with this improbability, saw the last chance vanish.
“And so we must trust to chance alone,” continued Jarriquez, who shook his head, “and chance does not often do much in things of this sort.”
“But still,” said Manoel, “chance might give us this number.”
“This number,” exclaimed the magistrate—“this number? But how many ciphers is it composed of? Of two, or three, or four, or nine, or ten? Is it made of different ciphers only or of ciphers in different order many times repeated? Do you not know, young man, that with the ordinary ten ciphers, using all at a time, but without any repetition, you can make three million two hundred and sixty-eight thousand and eight hundred different numbers, and that if you use the same cipher more than once in the number, these millions of combinations will be enormously increased! And do you not know that if we employ every one of the five hundred and twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes of which the year is composed to try at each of these numbers, it would take you six years, and that you would want three centuries if each operation took you an hour? No! You ask the impossible!”