Then, when he re-entered, he exclaimed with a laugh to the Baronet, “That was a cheap ‘quid’s’ worth of information, wasn’t it—eh?”
“Cheap, my dear boy? Why, it’s placed us absolutely on top. The treasure, if it still remains there, is ours!”
“Ah! not too hasty! Not too hasty!” exclaimed the old German in his deep guttural voice, and raising his head from the table. “Up to a certain point, it is all right, but—”
“But what?” the others gasped, in the same breath.
“Well, there’s something wanting, alas! Or else the girl has made a great mistake. After the addition of the numbers to 666, all goes entirely wrong!”
“Goes wrong!” they echoed breathlessly, with one accord.
“Yes. The further reading is quite unintelligible,” he declared, speaking with his strong Teutonic accent.
“The girl seemed quite certain about it!” exclaimed Jim, exchanging glances with Challas.
“Quite,” the other remarked, blandly.
“Well, my dear sirs!” exclaimed Haupt, pointing to his lines of hastily-written Hebrew. “The commencement of the record is here, plain enough. It commences, ‘Remember and forget not, O Israel. Not for thy righteousness—’ But after taking the two-hundredth letter I can discover nothing. Commencing again at six only results in nothing, while a repetition of the fiftieth and the consequent addition is equally futile. No! The confounded girl has made some mistake—and we are once more at a standstill. You see that one false number throws out the whole. The cipher is one of the most ingenious ever conceived.”