And this was meaningless! And he wanted three letters which he had to replace by points, because the ciphers, 8, 4, and 4, which command the three letters, h, d, and d, do not give corresponding letters in ascending the series.
“That is not it again!” exclaimed Jarriquez. “Let us try another number.”
And he asked himself, if instead of this first date the author of the document had not rather selected the date of the year in which the crime was committed.
This was in 1826.
And so proceeding as above, he obtained.
| 1826 | 1826 | 1826 |
| phyj | slyd | dqfd |
and that gave
o.vd rdv. cid.
the same meaningless series, the same absence of sense, as many letters wanting as in the former instance, and for the same reason.
“Bother the number!” exclaimed the magistrate. “We must give it up again. Let us have another one! Perhaps the rascal chose the number of contos representing the amount of the booty!”