Carpenter?" he asked.
Carpenter took the letter and examined it for a moment, holding it to
the light, and carefully feeling its texture.
"Not a great deal cursorily," he answered. "It's a French paper--the
sort, I think, used at the Quay d'Orsay. Have you the envelope
accompanying it?"
"Here it is!" said Harleston.
"This envelope, however, is not French; it's English," Carpenter said
instantly. "See! a saltire within an orle is the private water-mark of
Sergeant & Co. I likely can tell you more after careful examination in
my workshop."
"How about the message itself?" Harleston asked.
"It is the Vigenerie cipher, that's reasonably certain; and, as you are
aware, Mr. Harleston, the Vigenerie is practically impossible of
solution without the key-word. It is the one cipher that needs no
code-book, nor anything else that can be lost or stolen--the code-word
can be carried in one's mind. We used it in the De la Porte affair, you
will remember. Indeed, just because of its simplicity it is used more
generally by every nation than any other cipher."
"I thought that you might be able to work it out," said Harleston. "You
can do it if any one on earth can."
"I can do some things, Mr. Harleston," smiled Carpenter deprecatingly,
"but I'm not omniscient.
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