Mrs. Westerfield was alarmed.
“Do you mean that you want a large sum of money?” she asked.
“I mean that I don’t waste my time on easy ciphers invented by fools.”
She laid the slip of paper on his desk.
“Waste your time on that,” she said satirically, “and see how you like it!”
He examined it—first with his bleared red-rimmed eyes; then with a magnifying-glass. The only expression of opinion that escaped him was indicated by his actions. He shut up his book, and gloated over the signs and characters before him. On a sudden he looked at Mrs. Westerfield. “How did you come by this?” he asked.
“That’s no business of yours.”
“In other words, you have reasons of your own for not answering my question?”
“Yes.”
Drawing his own inferences from that reply, he showed his three last-left yellow teeth in a horrid grin. “I understand!” he said, speaking to himself. He looked at the cipher once more, and put another question: “Have you got a copy of this?”