The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman
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dying away, some metallic object, apparently a coin, dropped with a sharp clink on to the pavement under our window.
At the sound the watchers simultaneously sprang to their feet.
“You two go first,” said the sergeant, addressing the uniformed men, who thereupon stole noiselessly, in their rubber-soled boots, down the stone stairs and along the pavement. The rest of us followed, with less attention to silence, and as we ran up to Thorndyke’s chambers, we were aware of quick but stealthy footsteps on the stairs above.
“They’ve been at work, you see,” whispered one of the constables, flashing his lantern on to the iron-bound outer door of our sitting-room, on which the marks of a large jemmy were plainly visible.
The sergeant nodded grimly, and, bidding the constables to remain on the landing, led the way upwards.
As we ascended, faint rustlings continued to be audible from above, and on the second-floor landing we met a man descending briskly, but without hurry, from the third. It was Mr. Barton, and I could not but admire the composure with which he passed the two detectives. But suddenly his glance fell on Thorndyke, and his composure vanished. With a wild stare of incredulous horror, he halted as if petrified; then he broke away and raced furiously down the stairs, and a moment later a muffled shout and the sound of a scuffle told us that he had received a check. On the next flight we met two more men, who, more hurried and less self-possessed, endeavoured to push past; but the sergeant barred the way.
“Why, bless me!” exclaimed the latter, “it’s Moakey; and isn’t that Tom Harris?”
“It’s all right, sergeant,” said Moakey plaintively, striving to escape from the officer’s grip. “We’ve come to the wrong house, that’s all.”
The sergeant smiled indulgently. “I know,” he replied. “But you’re always coming to the wrong house, Moakey; and now you’re just coming along with me to the right house.”
He slipped his hand inside his captive’s coat, and adroitly fished out a large, folding jemmy; whereupon the discomforted burglar abandoned all further protest.
On our return to the first-floor, we found Mr. Barton sulkily awaiting us, handcuffed to one of the constables, and watched by Polton with pensive disapproval.
“I needn’t trouble you tonight, Doctor,” said the sergeant, as he marshalled his little troop of captors and captives. “You’ll hear from us in the morning. Good-night, sir.”
The melancholy procession moved off down the stairs, and we retired into our chambers with Anstey to smoke a last pipe.
“A capable man, that Barton,” observed Thorndyke—“ready, plausible, and ingenious, but spoilt by prolonged contact with fools. I wonder if the police will perceive the significance of this little affair.”
“They will be more acute than I am if they do,” said I.
“Naturally,” interposed Anstey, who loved to “cheek” his revered senior, “because there isn’t any. It’s only Thorndyke’s bounce. He is really in a deuce of a fog himself.”
However this may have been, the police were a good deal puzzled by the incident, for, on the following morning, we received a visit from no less a person than Superintendent Miller, of Scotland Yard.
“This is a queer business,” said he, coming to the point at once—“this burglary, I mean. Why should they want to crack your place, right here in the Temple, too? You’ve got nothing of value here, have you? No ‘hard stuff,’ as they call it, for instance?”
“Not so much as a silver teaspoon,” replied Thorndyke, who had a conscientious objection to plate of all kinds.
“It’s odd,” said the superintendent, “deuced odd. When we got your note, we thought these anarchist idiots had mixed you up with the case—you saw the papers, I suppose—and wanted to go through your rooms for some reason. We thought we had our hands on the gang, instead of which we find a party of common crooks that we’re sick of the sight of. I tell you, sir, it’s annoying when you think you’ve hooked a salmon, to bring up a blooming eel.”
“It must be a great disappointment,” Thorndyke agreed, suppressing a smile.
“It is,” said the detective. “Not but what we’re glad enough to get these beggars, especially Halkett, or Barton, as he calls himself—a mighty slippery customer is Halkett, and mischievous, too—but we’re not wanting any disappointments just now. There was that big jewel job in Piccadilly, Taplin and Horne’s; I don’t mind telling you that we’ve not got the ghost of a clue. Then there’s this anarchist affair. We’re all in the dark there, too.”
“But what about the cipher?” asked Thorndyke.
“Oh, hang the cipher!” exclaimed the detective irritably. “This Professor Poppelbaum may be a very learned man, but he doesn’t help us much. He says the document is in Hebrew, and he has translated it into Double Dutch. Just listen to this!” He dragged out of his pocket a bundle of papers, and, dabbing down a photograph of the document before Thorndyke, commenced to read the Professor’s report. “‘The document is written in the characters of the well-known inscription of Mesha, King of Moab’ (who the devil’s he? Never heard of him. Well known, indeed!) ‘The language is Hebrew, and the words are separated by groups of letters, which are meaningless, and obviously introduced to mislead and confuse the reader. The words themselves are not strictly consecutive, but, by the interpolation of certain other words, a series of intelligible sentences is obtained, the meaning of which is not very clear, but is no doubt allegorical. The method of decipherment is shown in the accompanying tables, and the full rendering suggested on the enclosed sheet. It is to be noted that the writer of this document was apparently quite unacquainted with the Hebrew language, as appears from the absence of any grammatical construction.’ That’s the Professor’s report, Doctor, and here are the tables showing how he worked it out. It makes my head spin to look at ’em.”
He handed to Thorndyke a bundle of ruled sheets, which my colleague examined attentively for a while, and then passed on to me.
“This is very systematic and thorough,” said he. “But now let us see the final result at which he arrives.”
“It may be all very systematic,” growled the superintendent, sorting out his papers, “but I tell you, sir, it’s all bosh!” The latter word he jerked out viciously, as he slapped down on the table the final product of the Professor’s labours. “There,” he continued, “that’s what he calls the ‘full rendering,’ and I reckon it’ll make your hair curl. It might be a message from Bedlam.”
Thorndyke took up the first sheet, and as he compared the constructed renderings with the literal translation, the ghost of a smile stole across his usually immovable countenance.
“The meaning is certainly a little obscure,” he observed, “though the reconstruction is highly ingenious; and, moreover, I think the Professor is probably right. That is to say, the words which he has supplied are probably the omitted parts of the passages from which the words of the cryptogram were taken. What do you think, Jervis?”
He handed me the two papers, of which one gave the actual words of the cryptogram, and the other a suggested reconstruction, with omitted words supplied. The first read:
“Woe city lies robbery prey noise whip rattling wheel horse chariot day darkness gloominess cloud darkness morning mountain people strong fire them flame.”
Turning to the second paper, I read out the suggested rendering:
“‘Woe to the bloody city! It is full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not. The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots.
“‘A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds, and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains, a great people and a strong.
“‘A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth.’”