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Chapter Thirty
Closed Doors
“Will you come up with me into the study, dear?” asked the Professor, in as quiet a voice as he could, when they had finished luncheon.
“I have a letter to write, dad,” replied the girl in excuse. “I’ll come in and sit with you before tea.”
“But I want to speak to you, dear,” he said. “I want to tell you something. Come with me now.” Rather surprised at her father’s somewhat strained and unusual demeanour, the girl ascended the stairs to the book-lined room, and when the door was closed the old man crossed to where she stood, and said:
“Gwen, congratulate me, child.”
“Upon what, dad?” she said, looking into his face, surprised.
“I have discovered the key to the cipher!”
The girl started. Then with a wild cry she threw her arms about her father’s neck, kissed him passionately, and with tears of joy welling in her eyes, congratulated him.
“What will Frank say!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “How delighted he’ll be! Why, dad, we shall discover the position of the hiding-place of the sacred relics, after all!”
Her enthusiasm was unbounded. Her father who had worked so hard by night and by day upon those puzzling cryptic numericals, was at last successful.
“Can you really read the cipher?” she asked quickly.
“Yes, dear,” was her father’s response. “I have already deciphered part of the extraordinary statement.”
“Then we must telegraph to Frank,” she said. “He is down at Horsford, visiting his sister and seeing Doctor Diamond at the same time.”
“No, not yet, my child,” he replied quietly. “Let me complete the work before we announce the good news to our friends. I have told you, because I knew you would be gratified.”
“Why, of course I am, dad,” replied the girl eagerly. “It will greatly enhance your reputation, besides preserving the sacred relics to the Jews. Our opponents had other intentions. Their efforts are directed towards causing annoyance and bringing ridicule upon the Hebrew race. But,” she added, her arm still affectionately around his neck, “how did you accomplish it, dad?”
“Sit down, dear, and I’ll explain to you,” he said, pointing to the armchair near his writing-table, while he took his writing-chair, and drew towards him the open Hebrew text of Ezekiel.
“You see,” he commenced, “for some weeks I have been applying all the known numerical ciphers to this text, but without result. More than once I was able to read a couple or three words, and believed that I had discovered the key. But, alas! I found it to fail inevitably before I could establish a complete sentence. I was about to relinquish the problem as either impossible of solution, or as a theory without basis, when this morning, almost as a last resource and certainly without expecting any definite result, I applied a variation of the Apocalyptic Number, which though appearing in the Book of Revelation, (Revelations, xiii, 13) was no doubt known at a much earlier period. In the text of Ezekiel xvii, the first and second verses: ‘And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, put forth a riddle and speak a parable unto the house of Israel;’ I had long recognised certain signs by which I had suspicion that there was a hidden meaning, and again in verses 14, 16 and 16, ending with the words ‘even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die.’
“To my utter amazement I found, by applying the numbers 666 – the Hebrew ‘wâw’ sign three times repeated, that I could read an intelligible sentence which was nothing less than a portion of the cipher exactly as quoted by Holmboe! Since my discovery I have been hard at work, and have deciphered many ominous sentences.”
“Then there is no doubt whatever now that the cipher record exists in the writings of the prophet?”
“Not the slightest.”
“But I don’t quite understand how you arrived at the key, dad?” she said. “Explain to me, for, as you know, I’m all curiosity.”
“Well, as you don’t know Hebrew, dear, I’ll try and explain it as clearly as I can,” he said. “Each Hebrew letter has its own numerical value, as you know, A-leph representing 1, Bêth 2, Gi-mel 3, and so on to Yodh 10, and the nine tens to 100, or Qoph, to 400, represented by the last of the twenty-two consonants, Tâw. The fact that Holmboe mentioned ‘wâw,’ or the number 6, in his manuscript, first caused me to believe that he did so as a blind, because this also signified ‘hook’ and was the sign of evil. I applied it diligently in nearly two hundred places in the Book of Ezekiel, but without a single success. I used other numbers, indeed most of the combinations of the twenty-two consonants, especially the one of three and thirty-three which was one of the earliest numerical ciphers. You know well how diligently I worked, and how unsuccessful I have been until to-day.”
“I know, dad,” exclaimed the pretty girl, “but I confess I can hardly follow you, even now.”
“Well, listen,” he said. “The Apocalyptic Number is 666, and its interpretation rests upon the fact that in Hebrew, as well as in Greek, the letters of the alphabet did service for numbers. Hence, a writer, while avoiding a direct mention of some person or thing, could yet indicate the same by a number which was the sum of the various values comprising the name. First establishing the point where the actual message commences, which I may as well explain is at Ezekiel, x, 8; ‘And there appeared in the cherubim the form of a man’s hand under their wings,’ I took the first ‘wâw’ or 6 sign, then the eleventh letter, being the sixth of sixty-six, then the sixty-sixth letter, and afterwards the six hundred and sixty-sixth letter. Following this, I made the additions which are known to the Greeks and also to the Hebrews, working it out thus: The fiftieth letter, the two-hundredth letter, the sixth letter, the fiftieth letter, the hundredth letter, the sixtieth letter and the two-hundredth letter – making in all six hundred and sixty-six. The Hebrew signs of each I wrote down in a line, and having divided them into words, I found to my amazement, that I was reading the secret record alleged by the dead professor!”
“But, surely, dad, that is a most ingenious cipher!” remarked his daughter.
“Most intricate, I assure you. By sheer good fortune I discovered the starting-point.”
“What led you to it?”
“A slight, almost unnoticeable deviation of the present Hebrew text from the St. Petersburg codex. I had never before noticed it, and it only arrested my attention because I was studying the subject so very closely.”
“And after making the additions of 666, how did you proceed?” urged the girl.
He paused for a few seconds as though in hesitation.
“By starting at the first ‘wâw’ sign and repeating my key. Sometimes, in a whole chapter, there is not a word of cipher, but following the numbers with regularity it reappears in the next. It is a most marvellous and most cunningly concealed record accounting, of course, for the number of superfluous and rather incongruous words in the writings of the prophet.”
“Was it written in the text – or placed there afterwards?” she asked.
“Placed there afterwards, without a doubt,” was the Professor’s quick reply. “Holy writ was inspired, of course, but some temple priest, an exile in Babylon probably, worked out the cipher and placed the record in the text in order that it might be there preserved and the existence of the treasure be known to coming generations of Jews who would be then aware of the existence of their war-chest.”
“It really is a most amazing discovery, dad dear,” declared the girl much excited. “When you publish it the whole world will be startled!”
“Yes, my dear,” was the old fellow’s response, as he ran his fingers through his scanty grey hair. “We have here before us,” and he placed his hand upon the open Hebrew text, “a secret explained which is surely the greatest and most remarkable of any discovered in any age.”
The girl, rising from her chair, saw upon the manuscript paper on her father’s blotting-pad, a number of lines of hastily-written Hebrew words.
“Is that part of the deciphered record?” she inquired, greatly interested.
“Yes, dear.”
“Oh, do read them to me, dad,” she cried, “I’m dying to learn exactly the purport of this message hidden through so many generations!”
“No, Gwen,” was the old man’s calm response, “not until I have worked out the whole. Then you shall, my child, be the first to have knowledge of the secret of Israel. And remember it is my wish that you write nothing to Farquhar regarding it. We must keep our knowledge to ourselves – very closely to ourselves, remember. Erich Haupt must have no suspicion of my success. Otherwise we may even yet be forestalled.”
“I quite see the danger, dad,” remarked his daughter, “but I’m so interested, do go on with your task and show me how it is accomplished.”
“Very well,” he said, smiling and humouring her. “You see here, at this mark,” and he showed her a pencilled line upon the Hebrew text, “that is where I halted for luncheon. Now we go on to the next sign of six. See, here it is – in the next line. Now we count the eleventh letter,” and he wrote it down in Hebrew. Then he counted the sixty-sixth, the six hundredth and sixty-sixth, the fiftieth, the two-hundredth, and so on until he had a number of Hebrew signs ranged side by side. Presently he said, pointing to them:
“Here you are! The English translation to this is ‘…yourselves, and wonder, for unto thee, O children of Israel…’”
“Really, dad!” exclaimed the girl, highly excited. “It’s most remarkable!”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I confess that until now I held the same idea that every Jewish Rabbi holds – namely that no secret cipher can exist in our inspired writings.”
“But you have now proved it beyond question!” she declared.
“Yes. But startling as it may be, we must preserve our secret, dear. There are others endeavouring to learn the trend of my investigations, recollect. We may have spies upon us, for aught we know,” he added in a low tone, glancing at her with a significant look.
“How long do you expect it will take before you are in full possession of the whole of the secret statement?” she asked.
“Many hours, my dear. Perhaps many days – how can I tell. Holmboe says it runs through only nine chapters. Therefore it should end with chapter xxvi. But as far as I can gather I believe I shall find further cryptic statements in the later chapters. There are certain evidences of these in chapter xxxvii, 16, in chapter xxxix, 18, 19 and 20, and again in chapter xliv, 5. Therefore, I anticipate that my task may be a rather long one. The counting and recounting to ensure accuracy occupies so much time. The miscounting of a single letter would throw everything out and prevent the record being recovered, as you will readily foresee. Hence, it must be done with the greatest precision and patience.”
“But, dad – this is most joyful news!” declared the girl excitedly, “I’m most anxious to telegraph to Frank.”
“Not until the secret is wholly ours, my dear. Remember we must keep the key a most profound secret to ourselves.”
“Of course, dad,” the girl answered, “I quite see that this information must not be allowed to pass to our enemies.”
Little did father or daughter imagine that, within their own quiet household, was a spy – the maid Laura, suborned by Jim Jannaway.
When the pair had entered the study she had crept silently up to the door, and listened intently for the one fact which Jannaway had instructed her to listen – the means by which the cipher could be unravelled.
She was a shrewd, intelligent girl, and the inducement which the good-looking adventurer had held out to her was such that the Professor’s explanation to his daughter impressed itself upon her memory.
She recollected every word, and still stood listening, able to hear quite distinctly, until there seemed no further information to be gathered. Then she descended the stairs, and made certain memoranda of the text at which to commence, and the mode by which the decipher could be made.
Half an hour later she made an excuse to the cook that she wished to go out to buy some hairpins, and then despatched a telegram to the name and address which her generous and good-looking “gentleman” had given her.
Meanwhile Gwen still sat with her father at his writing-table watching him slowly taking from the text of the Book of Ezekiel the full and complete record that had been hidden from scholars through all the ages – the record which was to deliver back to the house of Israel her most sacred possessions.
The light of the short afternoon faded, the electric light was switched on, tea was served by the faithless maid-servant, and dinner had been announced.
But the Professor worked on, regardless and oblivious of everything. He was far too occupied, and Gwen was also too excited to dress and descend to dinner. Therefore, Laura served the meal upon a tray.
All was silence save the Professor’s dry monotonous voice as he counted aloud the letters of the Hebrew text, recounted them to reassure himself, and then set down a Hebrew character as result.
Thus from after luncheon until midnight – through the time indeed that Diamond was so patiently watching the big house in Berkeley Square – the work of solving the problem went slowly on.
Gwen sat and watched her father’s Hebrew manuscript grow apace, until it covered many quarto pages. Now and then she assisted in counting the letters, verifying her father’s addition.
Then at last, just after the old-fashioned clock upon the mantelshelf had chimed twelve, the old scholar raised his grey head with a sigh, and wiping his glasses, as was his habit, said:
“Sit down, dear, and write the English translation at my dictation. I think we now have it quite complete.”
Chapter Thirty One
Exposes the Conspiracy
While Professor Griffin had been so busily engaged deciphering the concluding portion of the secret record, a strange scene was in progress at Sir Felix Challas’s, in Berkeley Square.
First, Jim Jannaway had arrived and had held a short consultation in the library with the red-faced Baronet, afterwards quickly leaving. Then, from the Waldorf Hotel, summoned by telephone, came old Erich Haupt, bustling and full of suppressed excitement.
Soon afterwards, the well-dressed Jim had returned, and had waited in momentary expectancy, ready to dart out into the hall on hearing the sound of cab wheels.
At last they were heard and the man-servant opened the door to Laura, tall, dark-haired and rather good-looking parlour-maid at Pembridge Gardens.
In the well-carpeted hall she recognised the man who had taken her out to dinner and the theatre on several occasions, and advanced excitedly to meet him.
“Oh! Laura!” he cried. “I’m so glad you’ve come. I had your ‘wire,’ and you got my message in reply, of course? You must see the gov’nor. This is his house, and I want you to tell him how the Professor is solving that puzzle.” Then, lowering his voice, he added. “There’s a pot of money in it for both of us, dear, if you keep your wits about you. You recollect what I promised you last Tuesday, don’t you?”
The girl sniggered and nodded. She was a giddy young person, whose head had been turned by the admiration of that good-looking man who called himself “Miller,” and who said he was a lawyer’s clerk. He had promised to become engaged to her and to marry her, provided they could get only a good round sum from “the gov’nor” for the information she could, with such ease, supply.
This had placed the girl upon the constant alert, with the present result.
Her nonchalant admirer led the way across the hall to the library, pushed upon the door, and introduced her to the two men therein – Challas, fat and prosperous, and Haupt, white-bearded and bespectacled.
Then, when the door was closed and she had seated herself, Challas – or “Mr Murray,” as he had been introduced – asked:
“I believe you’re Laura, and you are parlour-maid at Professor Griffin’s, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the girl, timidly, picking at her neat black skirt.
“Well, sir,” explained Jim, bearing out his part of lawyer’s clerk, “some time ago I explained to my young lady here, what we particularly wanted to know, and she’s kept both eyes and ears open. To-day she’s learned something, it seems.”
“What is it?” inquired old Erich, in a deep tone, with his strong German accent.
“Let the young lady explain herself,” urged the man introduced as “Murray,” and they all sat silent.
“Well, sir,” the girl faltered, a moment later. “You see it was like this. After luncheon to-day the Professor, who’d been very hard at work as usual all the morning, took Miss Gwen up to the study to speak to her privately; I listened, and I heard all their conversation. He told her how he’d solved the problem of the cipher.”
“Solved it!” ejaculated the old German, staring at her through his spectacles.
“Yes, sir,” the girl went on. “He told Miss Gwen that he’d tried and tried, but always failed. But he had taken the – well, sir, I think he called it the apoplectic number.”
The German laughed heartily.
“I know,” he said. “You mean the Apocalyptic Number, fräulein– the number 666.”
“That’s it, sir,” she said, a little flurried, while Jim exchanged significant glances with Challas. “He commences at the tenth chapter of Ezekiel, eighth verse, and – and – ” Then she fumbled in her pocket, producing a piece of crumpled paper to which she referred. “He takes the first sign of 6,” she went on, “then the eleventh letter, the sixty-sixth letter, and the six hundred and sixty-sixth letter. After this, the fiftieth letter, the two-hundredth letter, the sixth letter, the fiftieth letter, the hundredth letter, the sixtieth letter, and the two-hundredth letter – making six hundred and sixty-six in all. He writes down each of the Hebrew letters, and then reads them off like a book.”
“Wait – ah! wait!” urged the old German. “Let us have that again, fräulein,” and crossing to Sir Felix’s big mahogany writing-table, he opened the Hebrew text of Ezekiel upon it. “Where do you say the Professor commences – at the tenth chapter, eighth verse – eh? Good!” and he hastily found the reference. “Now?”
“Just tell this gentleman,” urged Jim, “tell him exactly what you heard.”
“Well, starting with the eighth verse, he commences with what he termed the first ‘wâw’ sign.”
“Zo! that’s the equivalent of the number 6,” Haupt remarked.
“Then the eleventh letter.”
The old professor counted and wrote down the letter in question in Hebrew characters.
“The sixty-sixth,” said the girl.
The old man counted sixty-six, while Sir Felix and Jannaway watched with intense, almost breathless interest. Here was the secret, snatched from their dreaded opponent, Arminger Griffin!
“And now the six hundred and sixty-sixth,” the girl went on, apparently thoroughly at home with the strangely assorted trio.
This took some time to count, but presently it was accomplished, and the girl time after time gave the old professor directions – the fiftieth letter, the two-hundredth letter, and so on.
“Well?” asked Challas, a few moments later, unable to repress his excitement any longer. “Do you make anything out of it?”
The old man was silent. He was carefully studying the Hebrew characters he had written down.
“Yes!” he gasped. “It is the secret – the great secret!” And he started up, exclaiming, “At last! at last – thanks to fräulein here – we have the key!”
“And we can actually read the cipher?” cried Challas.
“Most certainly,” responded the old scholar. “The secret is ours! Marvellous, how Griffin discovered it.”
“Confound Griffin!” exclaimed Jim Jannaway. “We have to thank Laura, here, for our success! She ought to be well rewarded.”
“And so she shall,” declared the man, whom the girl knew as “Mr Murray.”
“It’s late to-night, and we want Erich to get on at once with the decipher. Besides, the young lady, no doubt, wishes to get back home. Bring her to me to-morrow, or next day – and she shall be well rewarded.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” was the silly girl’s gratified reply, as she looked triumphant into the face of the cunning man who had declared his love for her.
The truth was that, having obtained that most valuable information, the trio wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible. Therefore, with excuses that the household at Pembridge Gardens would be suspicious if she returned too late, they bundled her almost unceremoniously outside, Jim hailing a hansom for her, paying the man, and telling him to drive to Notting Hill Gate Station.
Then, when he re-entered, he exclaimed with a laugh to the Baronet, “That was a cheap ‘quid’s’ worth of information, wasn’t it – eh?”
“Cheap, my dear boy? Why, it’s placed us absolutely on top. The treasure, if it still remains there, is ours!”
“Ah! not too hasty! Not too hasty!” exclaimed the old German in his deep guttural voice, and raising his head from the table. “Up to a certain point, it is all right, but – ”
“But what?” the others gasped, in the same breath.
“Well, there’s something wanting, alas! Or else the girl has made a great mistake. After the addition of the numbers to 666, all goes entirely wrong!”
“Goes wrong!” they echoed breathlessly, with one accord.
“Yes. The further reading is quite unintelligible,” he declared, speaking with his strong Teutonic accent.
“The girl seemed quite certain about it!” exclaimed Jim, exchanging glances with Challas.
“Quite,” the other remarked, blandly.
“Well, my dear sirs!” exclaimed Haupt, pointing to his lines of hastily-written Hebrew. “The commencement of the record is here, plain enough. It commences, ‘Remember and forget not, O Israel. Not for thy righteousness – ’ But after taking the two-hundredth letter I can discover nothing. Commencing again at six only results in nothing, while a repetition of the fiftieth and the consequent addition is equally futile. No! The confounded girl has made some mistake – and we are once more at a standstill. You see that one false number throws out the whole. The cipher is one of the most ingenious ever conceived.”
“But, my dear Haupt, you know the basis, and where it commences! You will surely succeed!” Challas cried, frantically.
The old man shook his head very dubiously.
“As I have already told you,” he responded in his deep voice, “a single misplaced number throws it all out. We are again at an absolute deadlock – and must remain as ignorant as we were before.”
“But have you made every possible effort?” asked Jim Jannaway, with eager face, as he bent over the old man’s shoulders.
“I have tried all the combinations of the Apocalyptic Number, but they are futile!” replied the old German, laying down his pen, and blinking through his glasses.
“Then the girl has failed us after all,” remarked Challas in a low, hard voice. “Griffin has deciphered the record and we’re absolutely ‘in the cart.’”
“I won’t give up!” declared Jannaway. “I’m hanged if I will! This may be one of Charlie’s tricks, remember! He may have learnt the truth and got hold of Laura to put us on the wrong scent.”
“He may – curse him!” muttered Sir Felix. “Why didn’t he take my warning and get away abroad?”
“Because he’s quite as cute as we are. He knows full well that while he remains in England circumstances will continue to be propitious. So he lives quietly down in Kent, with both eyes very much open.”
Already Jim Jannaway’s ingenious mind was active; already he was devising a way out of the awkward cul-de-sac in which they now found themselves.
“What are we to do?” inquired Sir Felix, with his dark brows knitted at this sudden failure of all his elaborate plans.
“Leave it to me,” replied the good-looking scoundrel, with the utmost confidence. “Let Erich remain quietly within reach – not, however, at the Waldorf – and allow me to carry out the scheme in my own way.”
“I cannot think why the girl made such a mistake,” Challas remarked very disappointedly. “I admit the solution was complicated, but you saw that she was clever enough to write it down.”
“She listened behind a closed door. She may have misunderstood,” Jim remarked.
“Or, what is much more likely,” remarked the German, “Griffin, who has the reputation of being a very shrewd man, does not trust his daughter, and purposely misled her in explaining his secret.”
“No, I don’t think that,” said Jannaway. “Griffin trusts the girl, even though she’s quite young, absolutely and implicitly.”
And thus the three desperate schemers agreed to leave matters in the hands of the most daring and unscrupulous of men, Jim Jannaway, unconscious that the exterior of the mansion was being watched independently by two persons, Doctor Diamond, and a thin-faced, ill-clad woman, who, noticing the Doctor’s keen interest in the place, glanced at him full of surprise and wonder.
