Chapter XXI
_A Lost Clue_
"Suppose we admit, for the sake of argument," began Betty "that JohnThaneford was in possession of the secret. Then everything points backto his father, old Fielding, who certainly had all the brains of thefamily. Last and most important, it was a secret which Mr. Thaneford,senior, desired to impart to me; he did tell me all he could."
"The series of numbers, you mean? I recall them perfectly: 1-4-2-4-8.And what then?"
"Do you remember the story of Christian and his fellow pilgrim, Hopeful,imprisoned in Giant Despair's stronghold of Doubting Castle? Afterlanguishing for a week or more in darkness and misery, Hopeful suddenlybethinks him of a key which he has in his bosom, a key that will unlockany door in the castle. The rest is easy.
"So, too, I had my key, but I had only used it once--to unlock the firstand most obvious door----"
"The combination of the safe," I interrupted.
"Precisely. It never occurred to either of us that it might be amaster-key to which all locks must yield. But so it was.
"Not that I learned to use it without a lot of trouble anddiscouragement. It took months and months, and I only got it fullyworking on the train trip down from Stockbridge.
"Of course, you have guessed that the whole story lay buried in thatleather-bound book belonging to Fielding Thaneford which we found in thesafe. I remembered all that you had told me about 'Le ChiffreIndechiffrable,' but even granting that that particular cypher had beenemployed, how was I ever to stumble upon the indispensable key-word, ormore likely, key-sentence?
"One day I had an inspiration. There was the series of numbers:1-4-2-4-8. Considered as numbers merely they could be of no use, sincemost cypher codes are built up on letters. But I might put the numbersinto their written word equivalents, thus: One-four-two-four-eight Itwas certainly conceivable that these letters might form thekey-sentence; it would be all the more easily memorized since, in itsnumerical form, it served as a combination to the safe.
"I had with me the magic square which you had made for me, and I beganvery carefully to work out the problem according to your directions.
"The initial procedure was to put down my theoretical key-sentences,thus:"
O N E F O U R T W O F O U R E I G H T
"Underneath I must write the cypher message, and half a dozen letterswould be enough to show if I were on the right track. I opened Mr.Fielding Thaneford's old book, and copied down the first seven letters,ranging them vertically under the key-letters. That gave me thisarrangement:"
O N E F O U R Q W O T T U I
"Now the rule goes on to say that you must find the letter O in the tophorizontal column, and follow that column vertically downward until youcome to the first cypher letter, in this case Q. The letter at theoutside, left end of this second horizontal column, will be the firstletter of the original message.
"Well, I tried it, and got the letter B. The next pair yielded an I,which was encouraging, as one would expect a vowel in this position. Butthe third try gave me a J, and that was not so promising; then I got anN and an E. So far my decoded message read: BIJNE; not veryenlightening. The next pair showed the letter U in both key-sentence andcypher. Such a combination is impossible on our magic square, and I hadto put down a blank space. The final letter obtained was a Q, and thecomplete result read: BIJNE-Q. Pure gibberish of course. I tried out afew more pairs, and then gave up in disgust; my beautiful theory hadfallen to pieces.
"Just the same, I wasn't ready to give it up. I knew, right in my bones,that old Mr. Thaneford had wanted to tell me something of supremeimportance at that last moment on his deathbed, when my hand lay in hisand I could feel the intermittent pressure of his fingers. It wasimpossible that I should be mistaken about any of the figures, for hewent over the series three or four times; besides, they did open thesafe.
"I was still sure that the numbers meant something more than the merecombination to an old strong-box that held nothing of any pecuniaryvalue. The real secret lay between the covers of that leather-boundbook, and I was certain that the old man had been desirous that I shoulddiscover it. The Thanefords and the Hildebrands had not been friends fora long while, although nobody knew just why. Probably, it was someancient grudge Or unforgiven wrong, and old Mr. Thaneford had done hispart in keeping it up. But now that he was sick and paralyzed and dying,and especially since he and I had become friends of a sort, he waswilling to bury the hatchet. So he told all he could--you remember thathe couldn't speak--and he seemed to feel satisfied that I would find thehint sufficient, that I would be clever enough to solve the puzzle.
"And surely it was a puzzle. My best guess had come a flivver, and Ididn't see how I could go a step further. Perhaps it was silly to attachso much importance to what the old man had tried to tell me, but I hadan intuition that our future happiness and safety were bound up in thosecrumbling leather covers.
"Time went on, and the solution was as far off as ever; at leastapparently. Little Hugh and I had come to Irvington for the winter; itwas close to Christmas, and I had the blues terribly. Just to think ofChristmas and that abyss lying between us! For I knew that you would notcome unless I called, and I could not send for you quite yet. Supposethat the discovery of the secret should be close at hand; I might needChalmers to help out on some difficult scientific point.
"It is always the little things that show the way out. Hilda's weeklyletter had come, and I was reading it eagerly hoping to find somemention of you. Now Hilda, poor dear! is an awful speller; she nevercould learn to visualize words. As I read along I came on a word whichlooked odd; then I saw that she had committed the carelessstenographer's error of spelling 'forty' with an u, thus: 'fourty.' Ofcourse, the pronunciation is the same in either case--and then it wasthat I got my _big_ idea. Was it possible that the phonetic sounds in myseries of numbers might fit words of entirely different meaning thantheir ordinary equivalents in letters? Let me try.
"1-4-2-4-8. Why, yes, 1 is 'one' and also 'won'; 4 is 'four' and also'for'; 2 is 'two' and also 'too'--quick! let me get them all down. Andhere was the result: Won--for--too--for--ate. You see that, in everyinstance, the phonetic sound of the number can be represented exactly bya word of entirely different meaning. But this peculiar quality in theseries, 1-4-2-4-8, would not be apparent at a casual glance, and thefigures could even be written down for future reference, or sent to adistant correspondent, without any probability of that innersignificance becoming revealed. Very clever of Fielding Thaneford--thatis if my deductions were really correct!
"The first step was to set down the new key-sentence with the cypherwriting underneath. Here it is; this time using fifteen letters."
W O N F O R T O O F O R A T E Q W O T T U I J X I S V A Z P
"Applying the decoding rule I got the following in my first six tries:"
T H A N E C
"You can imagine how excited I was. If my theory were correct the nextfour letters should be OURT, completing the word 'Thane Court,' Eureka!it is coming! It is coming! I got both the O and the U.
"From the height of exultation to the depths of despair. For instead ofR in the ninth place, I had to set down an I; and then, in succession:CDD-FKL. Perfectly impossible! Look at it: THANECOUICDD-FKL, etc.
"And yet the cypher had certainly started to uncode; what could havethrown me off the track? For I had succeeded in getting 'Thanecou,' andthat unusual combination was significant in the highest degree. Whatword could it be but 'Thane Court,' the ancestral home of theThanefords? Why the chances were a million to one against my reachingsuch a series for--for----"
"Fortuitously," I prompted.
"Yes, that's it; something like the 'fortuitous concourse of atoms' thatthe philosophers talk about. I remember the phrase from my school days.
"And yet the mix-up came to spoil everything. For what could anysensible person make of THANECOUICDD-FKL?
"I tried carrying on the series until my brain was positively dizzy, butI got nothing except incomprehensi
ble rubbish. And yet I knew that I hadfound a real clue; how in the world had I lost it again? I used to workuntil I actually went fast to sleep at my desk, but nothing came of it.It was enough to drive one mad.
"The middle of May I went up to Stockbridge, and of course I carried mytroubles with me. Wherever I looked I seemed to see that tantalizingkey-sentence: Won--for--too--for--ate; it was as bad as the squaring ofthe circle. Just some little, insignificant error was keeping me fromthe solving of the puzzle, but for the life of me I couldn't put myfinger on it. Honestly now, Hugh, do you think you would have beenclever enough to have figured it out?"
I checked up Betty's "layout" and went over the decoding process withmeticulous care. I got precisely the same result: THANECOU--and thenchaos.
"It beats me," I confessed. "It's enough to make one dotty."
"I dare say that is what Aunt Alice Crew thought of me in her heart ofhearts," laughed Betty, "although she was too polite to say so. And,really, it was getting on my nerves. I couldn't eat, and a _nuitblanche_ was no uncommon thing with me. I couldn't get it out of myhead, you understand, that the solving of the problem must be of immenseimportance. There _was_ a mystery at the 'Hundred,' and so long as itremained a mystery there could be no enduring peace or happiness for us.If you had been willing to sell the 'Hundred' there might have been somechance of escaping the curse; hadn't poor Eunice said as much in thatweird statement which she left behind her. But you would not considerthe suggestion even."
"I suppose I was pig-headed and altogether in the wrong," I admittedhumbly. "But it all seemed so fantastic and incredible--here in thetwentieth century."
"Granting that the mystery had continued unsolved," said Betty, lookingme straight in the eye. "What then?"
"But you have given me to understand----" I began.
"Never mind that," interrupted my wife. "Even now you don't know thesecret, and I might find it inadvisable to tell you. Admitting thepossibility that the ghost has not been truly laid, would you stillinsist upon remaining master of 'Hildebrand Hundred'?"
A vision of those strong, cruel hands, with their black-tufted knuckles,rose before me, and I shuddered.
"Or would you be willing that Little Hugh should enter upon hisinheritance with this cloud hanging over it?"
"No, I wouldn't," I said soberly. "To be honest, I hadn't thought of itin that light."
"You see a woman has to consider all these things," rejoined Betty. "Butyou have been very patient, Hugh, and the winding up of my yarn won'ttake long. The crisis begins with Chalmers' coming to Stockbridge."
"For me, that was the denouement, the end of all things," I saidshamefacedly, and Warriner roared.
"You see, I never suspected even that I was cast for the role of breakerup of homes," he remarked meditatively. "Betty and I were good friends,of course, but once you appeared on the sky line I was reduced toplaying gooseberry. Besides, there never had been anyone else thanHilda for me."
"I'm only trying to explain my conduct," I retorted. "I'm well awarethat nothing can excuse it. Shoot, Betty."
"Of course, Chalmers was coming to Stockbridge," went on Betty, "for thesimple reason that Hilda was visiting me. Nevertheless, I was lookingforward to his arrival, because he had promised to dig up certain datafor me.
"You remember the list of Hildebrand tragedies as given by Eunice; howYardley Hildebrand had succeeded his father, Oliver, in 1860, and haddied the following year; then how his younger brother, Randall, hadbecome master of the 'Hundred,' and had only lived a twelvemonth; and soon.
"Well, I thought it might be useful to ascertain all these datesexactly, and, in order to do that, it would be necessary to taketranscripts from the parish register at S. Saviour's. I wrote toChalmers, and asked him to look up this information and bring it withhim when he came to Stockbridge. Not only did he do this, but he tookthe trouble to type out the complete record, so that all the facts inthe case might lie under the eye. I'll read it."
Betty pulled out a folded sheet of paper from the portfolio lying in herlap and began:
Yardley Hildebrand, b. March 5, 1806; succeeded his father, Oliver, 1860; d. June 20, 1861.
Randall Hildebrand, b. May 11, 1809; succeeded his brother, Yardley, 1861; d. June 22, 1862.
Horace Hildebrand, elder son of Randall, b. December 4, 1830; succeeded his father, 1862; d. June 22, 1865.
Richard Hildebrand, younger son of Randall, b. June 1, 1835; succeeded his elder brother, 1865; d. June 20, 1918.
Francis Hildebrand Graeme, great-nephew to Richard, b. April 13, 1874; succeeded his great-uncle, 1918; d. June 21, 1919.
Eunice Trevor, b. September 2, 1892; d. June 20, 1920.
"And now we may add a final entry," continued Betty: "John Thaneford,nephew to Richard, b. July 16, 1892; d. June 22, 1922."
Betty handed me over the list. "Do you notice anything peculiar aboutthose dates?" she asked.
I read the paper through, and then again. "You have already pointedout," I began hesitatingly, "that the tenure of 'Hildebrand Hundred' wasfor the comparatively brief period of one to three years. Except forRichard, who held the property for over fifty."
"I don't mean that. Examine the actual dates."
I scanned the record with still greater attention. "Ah!" I exclaimed,"here _is_ something strange. Everyone of these men, and Eunice, too,died in June; yes, and on a day of the month that varied between thetwentieth and the twenty-second. Is that what you had in mind?"
"Yes, and it seemed to indicate clearly that those particular threedays, the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second of June----"
"In astronomical parlance, the summer solstice," interrupted Warriner.
"----was the danger period."
"Yes, and then?"
"Your letter came, saying that you had been obliged to enter the libraryto look after the window repairs; you added that you would probably haveto go again to finish up the job. As I have already told you, thatletter reached me on Thursday morning, June the twenty-first; Chalmersand I left at once for New York. On the way down I succeeded in readingthe cypher, and so got Fielding Thaneford's message in full."
"But how in the world----" I began.
"You'll know in good time," cut in Betty. "First, I want you to consideranother of my sources of information. Here it is," and she held up asmall book bound in tattered leather.
"This," continued my wife, "is a diary kept by Horace Hildebrand, whosucceeded to the 'Hundred' in 1862, and died June 22, 1865. The notesrefer chiefly to the weather, a record that many country gentlemen arefond of keeping for their own amusement. The only period which interestsus is that covering those fatal June days in 1863, 1864, and 1865."
Betty thumbed over the leaves, and stopped at the latter part of June,1863.
"You see that the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second aredescribed as overcast and rainy. Now for 1864:
"'June 20, cloudy; June 21, clear. (Note: A total eclipse of the suntook place to-day, the period of partial and complete darkness lastingfrom 10.45 A. M. to 2.10 P. M.); June 22, cloudy.' Finally, we take1865:
"'June 20, rainy; June twenty-first, heavy rains; June 22, fine andclear.' This is the last entry in the book as Horace Hildebrand wasfound dead later on in that same day.
"Just one more point. What possible hypothesis can we establish toaccount for Richard Hildebrand's half century of immunity? Now ithappened that I had questioned Effingham on this very subject before Ileft the 'Hundred.' Effingham had lived, as boy and man, on theHildebrand estate for over sixty years. Consequently, he knew MarseRichard, as he called him, very well, and was familiar with his habitsof life.
"According to Effingham, Richard Hildebrand disliked the warm weather,and always left the 'Hundred' the first of June; he would spend thesummer at the 'Old White,' returning to Maryland toward the end ofSeptember. But in 1918, the last year of his life, he was too feeble togo away from home. His favorite room was the library, and there
he wasfound dead the evening of the twentieth of June, 1918. He was supposedto have died of heart disease; certainly there was no suspicion of foulplay.
"So that was the sum total of my investigations to date," concludedBetty. "Do you make anything of it?"
"It's beyond me," I confessed frankly. "What is the answer?"
"Only Fielding Thaneford himself can give it," replied Betty. "Here ishis fully decoded statement, and I'll ask Chalmers to read it aloud. AsI said a moment ago, we worked it out together that long day on thetrain. When we reached town we had the whole story, and knew what toexpect. Except one thing: Would it be a cloudy day? But it turned outfair and hot, with only a faint suggestion of thunder in the air. Therewas a bad wreck on the Cape Charles route, and anyhow we had missed theconnection for the morning train. So we hired a car, threw away thespeedometer, and made to strike the 'Hundred' by midday. We couldn'tquite do it, but the tide of chance had turned at last, and it didn'tmatter. Now go on, Chalmers."
Warriner ruffled the dozen or more sheets of paper between his fingersand began: