When he left, the latter went with him to the elevator and
bowed him down.
"I don't quite understand their game," Carpenter chuckled, as he turned
away, "but it's no matter. I took all the tricks this morning and still
have a few trumps left. I thought he certainly would try for a copy of
the letter, but he didn't even attempt it. He may have committed it to
memory, but I'll chance it."
Returning to his office he gave the code-book another careful inspection
and confirmed his impression as to its being authentic. Then he laid it
aside, and took up the letter and _a l'aube du jour_!
First he tried it in reverse position: _ruoj ud ebua'l a_. The
translation was gibberish. Then he wrote the first and last letters, the
second and next to last, the third and the third from last, and so on.
The result, too, was gibberish. Next he dropped the first word, 'a' and
tried the rest--still gibberish. He dropped also the 'l'--still
gibberish. Then, in turn, the 'a' of the third word the 'd' of the
fourth, the 'j' of the last word--all gibberish. Next he wrote the
key-word entire but transposed the 'a' from the first letter to the
last--still gibberish. He began with the _aube_--still gibberish.
"Damn!" said he.
He was persuaded that the key-word was in the sentence before him; the
code-book, Crenshaw's slip of paper, and his own hunch were convincing,
yet the combination was slow in coming.
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