"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. And here was the result: Won--for--too--for--ate. You see that, in every instance, the phonetic sound of the number can be represented exactly by a word of entirely different meaning. But this peculiar quality in the series, 1-4-2-4-8, would not be apparent at a casual glance, and the figures could even be written down for future reference, or sent to a distant correspondent, without any probability of that inner significance becoming revealed. Very clever of Fielding Thaneford--that is if my deductions were really correct! "The first step was to set down the new key-sentence with the cypher writing 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 next four 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 of R 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 have thrown me off the track? For I had succeeded in getting 'Thanecou,' and that unusual combination was significant in the highest degree. What word could it be but 'Thane Court,' the ancestral home of the Thanefords? Why the chances were a million to one against my reaching such a series for--for----" "Fortuitously," I prompted. "Yes, that's it; something like the 'fortuitous concourse of atoms' that the philosophers talk about. I remember the phrase from my school days. "And yet the mix-up came to spoil everything. For what could any sensible person make of THANECOUICDD-FKL? "I tried carrying on the series until my brain was positively dizzy, but I got nothing except incomprehensible rubbish. And yet I knew that I had found a real clue; how in the world had I lost it again? I used to work until 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 my troubles with me. Wherever I looked I seemed to see that tantalizing key-sentence: Won--for--too--for--ate; it was as bad as the squaring of the circle. Just some little, insignificant error was keeping me from the solving of the puzzle, but for the life of me I couldn't put my finger on it. Honestly now, Hugh, do you think you would have been clever enough to have figured it out?" I checked up Betty's "layout" and went over the decoding process with meticulous care. I got precisely the same result: THANECOU--and then chaos.