Chapter 12

THE CIPHER

We sat rigid and breathless, with our eyes glued to the slowly revolving door-knob. At last a faint click announced that the latch was released. Then the door opened a few inches, to reveal the slender figure of Alexander Burke.

Manifestly he was ignorant of our presence. Neither I nor Miss Cooper stirred, and Burke was for the time being blinded by having come so abruptly from the snow glare into the comparative dimness of the hall.

I regretted that we were not in a position to follow his movements unobserved, for of course he must be attracted to us the instant either of us stirred. I was exceedingly curious to learn what had brought him back to his employer's house.

And now he did a singular thing. His hand was still on the knob, and only his head and the upper part of his body projected through the doorway. His attitude was that of a strained listener; and had I not been there to testify to the contrary, one might have sworn that he received a warning not to enter. The silence, however, remained absolutely unbroken.

All at once a shudder convulsed his frame. He slowly withdrew his head, as if fearful of disturbing the house's lifeless occupant. Next he deliberately closed the door, without entering at all.

Miss Cooper turned to me in blank amazement, and for a moment I confess that I was nonplussed myself by such singular conduct. But in a second I comprehended: the fellow was afraid.

I laughed quietly, and explained to my companion:

"He expected to find the house thronged with people, and the undisturbed stillness dismayed him. . . . Careful! He's still on the porch, hesitating between desire to enter and fear to make the attempt. Slip quietly into the library; I mean to find out what he 's after, if I can. He does n't need to know of your being here."

She colored, and nodded in comprehension, and at once tripped across the hall, carrying with her the card and jewel-box.

"Mind, I shall be close at hand," I whispered after her; which she acknowledged, before the door hid her from me, with one of her bright, friendly smiles.

I then went and threw the front door wide open. Burke jumped as if I had unexpectedly fired a shot at him.

"Come in," said I, dryly.

He stared unblinkingly at me for a moment, but during that moment he recovered his equanimity, and became again his customary inscrutable self. It would perhaps be too much to say that the color returned to his face, for it was colorless at all times. However, I knew that for once I had caught the man off his guard.

I surveyed him with derisive contempt.

"I didn't expect to find you here," he said at length.

"And all whom you did expect to find have gone," returned I. "But that's no reason why we should stand holding the door open and filling the house with cold. Come in."

"I don't understand you," said he, hesitating a second longer; "I was looking for no one."

I glanced out for some sign of Stodger, but saw nothing of him. Then I closed the door and placed my back against it.

"Perhaps no one in particular," I observed. "Neither did you anticipate encountering such a forbiddingly empty house. Look here, Burke, what _did_ you come back for?"

His eyes might have been actually sightless, his pallid features a lifeless mask, for all the expression they conveyed; there was absolutely no facial sign by which I could even determine whether I commanded his attention; but his hands were never quiet, the slender, nervous fingers twitched unceasingly.

Was his mind occupied by the crack in the library door? For an instant I imagined that he detected Miss Cooper's presence, and my look hardened with a sudden gust of anger; but he immediately answered my question.

"I came for the papers I brought here last evening; they should be returned to the file-case."

"Is Mr. Page wanting them?" I inquired ironically.

"It's not a joking matter, Mr. Swift; it would be decidedly awkward for me to have them misplaced."

"Then I can set your mind at ease: I gave them to Mr. Ulysses White"--naming Mr. Page's lawyer.

Burke elevated the blank expanse where his eyebrows should have been.

"Don't you think," said he, in a tone of hurt surprise, "that you might properly have consulted me before making any disposition of them? I feel, in a way, responsible for all the business affairs which Mr. Page ordinarily entrusted to me."

"I daresay I might have done so," returned I, indifferently, "if you had been present when I handed them to Mr. White. Don't you regard them as being safe with him?"

"To be sure--they could n't be in safer hands. But it is the implication that I no longer command or deserve the confidence--"

"Pooh!" I unceremoniously cut in. "Burke, if I were you, I 'd be a little careful how I emphasized an attitude of innocence toward this affair. There 's no implication or innuendo about; I 'm only too willing to tell you frankly that I am something more than suspicious of you. I _know_ that you have n't told everything you might about this murder. You 're lucky that I have n't run you in before this. Is that plain enough?"

He recoiled a step, with a queer, hissing intake of breath.

"Swift," he muttered, "I have half a mind to make you prove your words."

"Do," said I, grimly. "I would like nothing better."

He stared at me so long that it gave me an uncanny feeling. I broke the silence with a blunt demand.

"Burke, where 's that ruby?"

"Don't try to browbeat me," he said through his teeth. "Please understand that you are not dealing with a criminal, and I don't propose to be bulldozed by any fat-witted sleuths."

I laughed in his face.

"Maybe it will interest you to know that I have wit enough to contrast your secretive manner with Maillot's willingness to talk, and to draw the one consistent inference therefrom."

There is a nervous affliction of the eyes, called by pathologists nystagmus, which is characterized by a perpetual weaving to and fro of the eyeballs; it is impossible for the unfortunate victim to fix his look upon a given point without the greatest effort. When the attention of such a one is not centred the swaying of his eyes goes on incessantly.

So it was now with Burke's pale orbs and his lean death's head. He seemed to be searching, forever feverishly searching, for something that he could not find. There was something positively repulsive about the man in this new guise, although the change was so subtle that I was unable to define it. At last he spoke.

"Swift," he said, scarcely above a whisper, "I 'm a peaceable man; nevertheless I resent your aspersions. I can't do it openly in the circumstances; this murder ties my hands; but--damn you!" he suddenly spat at me, "if my silence would hang Royal Maillot, I 'd bite my tongue out before I 'd ever utter another word. There you have it."

I stared at him in astonishment. Was it possible that this cold-blooded creature could harbor an emotion as fiery as hatred?

"What have you against Maillot?" I sternly asked, after a pause.

His bloodless upper lip, thin and flexible, curled in a smile; there was a momentary flash of his teeth.

"You 're a detective," he said; "find out."

I pondered, still regarding him.

"So," said I at last, "it's to be warfare between you and me, is it? Very well. Take care, Burke, for I do mean to find out. And I promise you that when I do you 'll get all you have coming to you."

He knew that I was more or less at sea; he had divined that in my own mind I had already cleared him of the actual murder.

"Thank you," he now had the impudence to say suavely. "Forewarned is forearmed, you know."

"You get out of here, Burke," I said, without heat, eying him steadily.

"Do you mean," he asked quickly, "that I 'm not to have an opportunity to ascertain whether I left any of my possessions here?" I fancied that he was disconcerted.

"I mean that I have n't any time to waste on you," I replied, evenly. "I 'm busy now; but I 'll take care of you when the time comes. If you want to go to any other part of the house, be quick about it."

Again his voice dropped.

"You intend to go with me--I see. I 'm not to be trusted. I 'll submit to no such indignity."

"Just as you choose."

He moved over to the door. There was no use questioning him further, because all his defences were up. But I watched him steadily--as I would have watched any other dangerous animal that I was not at liberty to crush.

At the door he paused and looked back; for the briefest instant his restless glance lingered upon an indefinable point up the stair-well. So thereabouts lay the centre of interest, did it?

The door was open; he turned again to me.

"I'll go," he said, "and--"

"And you need not come back," I broke in curtly. "This house will not be unguarded for one second until the ruby is found."

I felt, rather than saw, that the blank eyes flashed venomously.

"You devil!" he hissed, slipping hastily through the narrow aperture--"you devil!"

Next instant he was gone. And I drew a great breath of relief.

When I turned round Miss Cooper was advancing from the library, her eyes bright with suppressed excitement.

"What a horrid creature!" exclaimed she. "I heard all, Mr. Swift; no wonder Uncle Alfred despises the man."

I looked sharply at her: what earthly reason should Alfred Fluette have for despising Felix Page's private secretary? But of this later. If I was not much mistaken, Miss Cooper held in her hand the cause of her present pleased agitation.

"What have you discovered?"

"This." She handed me a small slip of paper. "I found it inside the lining of the little leather box."

"A cipher!" I cried, sharing some of her excitement.

The bit of paper, perhaps three inches long by an inch wide, was of almost parchment-like fineness and bore a number of peculiar characters written in black ink. At the first glance it suggested a safe combination; but after a minute's intent examination, during which the girl could scarcely restrain her eager impatience, I was obliged to forego that idea.

"Good for you!" was my admiring tribute. The color heightened in her cheeks. "I wonder, now, since you were keen enough to find it, whether you can make anything of it? Honestly--do you know--when I examined that box I never thought to look under the lining."

With her head on one side, she stared regretfully at the bit of paper.

"It's Greek to me," she said.

"To me, too. I 'd give a good deal to know what those hieroglyphs mean."

She clapped her hands with sudden delight.

"My!" she exclaimed, "it's just like a story! Isn't this what you call a cryptograph? It tells where a hidden treasure is, does it not?"

Glancing at her beautiful, animated countenance, I answered truthfully, "Yes"; but added, "It at least points me to a treasure that is unattainable."

For an instant she was puzzled, then she bent suddenly over the cipher and asked no more questions.

We had gone in to the big library table, where, with heads pleasantly close together, we studied in silence the seemingly meaningless characters. But after some minutes devoted to this exercise, we were constrained to give it up as hopeless. This is what the paper bore:

"I 'm afraid I shall prove to be a very indifferent assistant," she lamented, with a rueful little laugh. "I did n't deserve your commendation even for finding the cipher, because, while I was examining the box I was too intent on listening to you and that dreadful Burke creature to heed what I was doing. I felt the paper crackle, and then saw a corner of it through one of the rents in the faded blue satin."

"Never mind now. Maybe we shall understand it later. Some ciphers, you know, are to be read only in connection with something else; I think this is such a one. Let's put it away and take up something that I know you can help me with.

"That faded card"--I pointed to it lying upon the table, and noted that her face instantly grew grave--"why did you start so when you first looked at it--just as we heard Burke on the porch?"

She regarded me steadily.

"Mr. Swift, that is my aunt's handwriting--her name."

"Do you mean Mrs. Fluette?" I was in truth unprepared for this blunt announcement.

"Yes," she replied simply.

I believe the first effect of this disclosure was no more than an uneasy, apprehensive feeling; but in a flash the possibilities entailed began to occur to me, and I was left groping for words.

During the silence that followed I vainly tried to arrange my thoughts; the color slowly faded from Miss Cooper's face, and by and by she averted it from mine. I knew that our minds were working in parallel currents; I knew without looking at her that she was anxious and trembling.

At last I secured a grip upon myself, and I addressed her with decision.

"You believe I will do what is right, do you not?"

"Yes," she murmured, without looking up.

"Then I fear that our pact is to be short-lived, after all. This cursed tragedy is twining its tentacles nearer home than either of us dreamt of."

What, in the bitterness of my own reflections, was I allowing myself to say! I silently cursed myself for a blundering fool. The girl's gray face, the pinched look of it, frightened me. I started from my chair.

"Miss Cooper!"

For her head had dropped forward upon one curved arm, and she was shaken by a storm of tears.