To such a man, versed in all the cabalistic ciphers of the ancients, the truth was plain. Extremely involved and ingenious it was, without a doubt, but by careful study of this he would, he saw, be able to find the key being used by the aged man who had in such an uncanny way signed himself “255.19.7.”
He replaced it carefully in his pocket, and lighting his pipe, set back in the carriage to reflect.
Ah! if he could only come across that will-o’-the-wisp who was engaged in the search after the truth. Probably he possessed the context of the burnt document, and could supply the missing portion. But if so, how had it fallen into his hands?
The affair was a problem which daily became more interesting and more extraordinary.
At Westbourne Park Station, when the collector came for his ticket, he fumbled for it in his pocket, but was unable for some time to find it. Then at Paddington he took a taxi-cab home, arriving in time for a late dinner.
Gwen bright and cheerful, sat at the head of the table as was her habit, inquisitive as to her father’s movements and discoveries.
But to her carefully guarded inquiries he remained mute. He had been down to the Bodleian, he said, but that was all. The old man longed to get back to the restful silence of his own study to examine the scrap of paper left by the stranger, and from it to determine the exact key to that very ingenious numerical cipher.
The man who was in search of the same secret as himself was a weird person, to say the least. Both in London and in Oxford, he had come across the aged man’s trail. That he was unknown in England as a scholar was apparent, and that he was a deeply read man and student of Hebrew was equally plain.
He was not a Jew. Both the Library assistants at the British Museum and at the Bodleian had agreed upon that point.
They had declared that he was from the north of Europe. Was he a Dane from Copenhagen, like the dead man who had preferred to be known as Jules Blanc?