It was a wretched drawing, intended, evidently, to resemble an old pike and three young ones. What it meant he had no idea. He passed to the third and last sheet of paper, and it instantly held his attention.
On it was depicted a figure, which he supposed was the artist's idea of a Japanese dancing girl. She held a fan in her left hand. Over her extended right hand a butterfly hovered.
But what interested and concentrated Guild's attention was not the very amateurish drawing, but the series of silly decorations on the paper above her head—a number of quartered circles inclosed in squares and oblongs.
As decorations they meant nothing, indicated nothing, except that the intellect responsible for them must be a meagre one.
But as a cipher message these doubly bisected circles promised anything.
This is what Guild saw and what caused him to seat himself on the sofa beside the girl who still lay huddled over her pillows, her face hidden in her hands.
Seated, he drew out the portfolio containing his letters and a notebook. Then, slipping a lead-pencil from the leather socket and tearing out a sheet of paper, he started work—using the leather-backed book for a support—on a cipher which looked to be impossible. Yet, all ciphers are solved by the same method. And he knew it.
