If
you can supply a key to this key we may arrive. Such an array of
unpronounceables may be Russian, it assuredly isn't French or English.
Look at it!" and he handed the translation to Harleston, who read:
AGELUMTONZUCLPMUHRHUNBARGPUH
PJICLWYIAOIWFPHLUOZFRXUFJWH
WASNVDPS
"Good Lord!" said Harleston. "I pass. Did you ever see so many
consonants. I reckon my key-word isn't the key."
"Try being held up again," Carpenter advised; "you may succeed the
second time. If Madeline Spencer is the holdee, no telling what you'd
find."
"I'd find nothing," Harleston rejoined.
"You'd be holding a particularly lovely and attractive bit of skirts!"
Carpenter smiled.
"I don't want to hold that at present."
"Not even--Mrs. Clephane?"
Harleston raised his eyebrows slightly.
"What do you know about Mrs. Clephane?" he asked.
"That she's even lovelier and more attractive than Mrs. Spencer."
"You've seen her--you know her?"
"You told me," replied Carpenter.
"I told you!--I never referred to Mrs. Clephane's appearance."
"Exactly: your careful reticence told me more than if you had used tons
of words. I'm a reader of secret ciphers; you don't imagine a mere
individual presents much of a problem. I tell you there are too many
petticoats mixed up in this affair of the cab of the sleeping horse,"
Carpenter repeated.
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