"Two, six," said Herrick, "by heaven that must mean the twenty-sixth! Move on one of these four letters. I stands or J, T, for U, K for L, and X in place of Y. July," cried Herrick dashing down the pen. "Here is the solution of the cryptogram." "The twenty-sixth of July," repeated Bess, "and the Colonel was murdered on the twenty-fourth. I do not see the connection." "We have not worked out the whole cipher yet," said Dr. Jim, "here, take a pen and write down the alphabet." Bess did this as rapidly as possible as she saw what the doctor meant. "Now place A under B, B under C, and so on to the end of the alphabet." "Bess did this also, 'I can put Z under no letter,' she said." "Yes you can. Z goes under A, I have heard of this cipher. It is written with misleading letters. You simply take the next letter for the one that is down. Come, we will apply the result to these ciphers." This is what they got. In the Chinese paper cipher:-- "The last warning. Till 26 July. Then death. Unless----" And in the printed cipher of the 'Daily Telegraph':-- "Frisco. Hyde Park Corner. 26 October. Speak to blue clothes, white hat, gloves, shoes. Carr's money." CHAPTER XI SETTLING DOWN The cipher was so simple that Herrick wondered that he had not solved it before. It merely consisted of the alphabet arranged in two lines as follows:-- A.B.C.D.E.F.G.H.I.J.K.L.M.N.O.P.Q.R.S.T.U.V.W.X.Y.Z. Z,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y, The cipher was written by using the second line as though it were the first. All that had to be done was to write out the alphabet as above, and use the first line in place of the second. Nothing could be more ingenious, or--when it was known--more simple. But for all that, Herrick would not have found the key, had he not recollected Stephen's remark that the number fifteen might be a date, and had not Bess related Frisco's apparently meaningless words. However here was the reading of the riddle. Colonel Carr had been warned to do a certain thing, and was threatened with death if he did not do it. He was given up to the twenty-sixth of July, but the punishment, vengeance, or whatever it was had been executed on the twenty-fourth. Jim could see no reason for this anticipation of the cipher letter.