It took several hours of hard work before he could obtain the key of the cipher. Then he realised with a gasp that it was in one of the simplest of British signal codes. The key read:
At first Dick was completely mystified. The message conveyed nothing to him. Who were Mataza, Wilson, and Greening? Where was Chalkley? And, above all, why should such a message appear in an English code in an obscure paper published in Barcelona?
It was the last point which worried him most.
He felt instinctively that the message must conceal a meaning of which he was necessarily ignorant, and that it must be related to some affair which was pending in England. The more he thought about it the more uneasy he grew. He had the premonition which so often comes to the help of the detective, and at length, though he was almost ashamed of acting on such slender grounds, he decided to consult his chief. An hour later he was on his way to Paris, leaving the affair of the bank swindlers in the hands of a capable subordinate.
Arriving in Paris he drove straight to Regnier’s private apartment, just off the Place de la Concorde.
“Why, Manton, what brings you here?” asked Regnier in surprise. “Have you finished at Barcelona already?”
For answer Dick laid the deciphered cryptogram before the Chief.
“What do you make of that?” he asked abruptly.
Regnier read the slip of paper with knitted brows.