“It’s only the first step that I have taken, remember,” he admonished. “But, as Saint Augustine said, it’s the first step that counts. The miser’s gold is somewhere at the bottom of the lake.”
There followed an interval of astounded silence. It was broken by Roy with an exclamation of bewilderment:
“But—” he began. Then, he halted in confusion. He had been on the point of saying something concerning the secret vault in the music-room, and had checked himself only just in time. The others, however, had given no attention to his utterance, and he sighed with relief. It had flashed on him that his own knowledge in a way corroborated the statement by Billy, inasmuch as he found the vault empty.
“How? How?” Saxe was clamoring; David added his insistence.
Billy Walker preened himself with all the pride of a great discoverer, as well he might.
“It was simplicity itself,” he assured them. “It was only necessary for me to learn music, and the matter soon became clear.” Saxe and the others fairly gaped at the naïve assumption on the part of their friend that, in five minutes, he had mastered the art, but they did not care to question his complacency just then. “Being unhampered by over-much technique,” the oracle continued, with buoyant self-satisfaction, “I was able to investigate with an open mind, examining all the facts.” He paused to grin exultantly on the expectant trio, and then resumed his explanation:
“I had before me two determined facts, which gave no information in themselves, but required perhaps only the addition of other facts to become significant. Now, observe this lone bit of music at the head of the page.” He held up the sheet, so that the others could note the phrase at the top.
“The first fact of which I was possessed,” Billy went on, “thanks to the tuition in music afforded me by Saxe, was this: that the letters of the fragment are, B, E, D, A, C, in such order. At the outset of my logical examination, I attempted variations in this order, as offering the simplest solution of the puzzle. After some experimenting, I became convinced that the secret was not concealed in a changed sequence of the letters. Next, then, I set myself to a consideration of the second fact. This consisted in the knowledge that the bit of music contained a measure that was not a measure. That is to say, there was the marking of a measure by two vertical lines, but nothing in that measure, neither notes nor rests. This impressed me as of importance in all probability. The same fact that led Saxe to disregard it, led me to scrutinize it with particularity.” Again, Billy paused, to allow his hearers a moment in which to meditate on the shrewdness of his reasoning. When he went on speaking, his voice carried a note of increased contentment:
“Above this measure that is no measure, this measure that is empty, I perceived a pointer, of a size sufficient even to have attracted the notice of my friend here, hide-bound in technique as he is—but it did not. The pointer directed attention straight to a letter—a letter placed exactly over the measure that isn’t a measure because it’s empty. That letter thus pointed out is L. It fitted very well into the blank place with the other letters. So, where before we had only, B, E, D, A, C, we now have, B, E, D, L, A, C.” Billy ceased speaking, and surveyed the others happily.