When the last seal broke she gave a little cry, turned and covered her eyes with both hands. As for Guild, he stood with a sheet of paper in his hands, staring at the tracery which covered it and which meant absolutely nothing to him. Then he looked at the remaining sheets of paper. None had any significance to him. There were three sheets of thin translucent paper. These sheets were numbered from one to three. The first seemed to be a hasty study from some artist's sketch book. It appeared to be a roughly executed and hasty sketch of several rather oddly shaped trees--a mere note jotted down to record the impression of the moment--trees, a foreland, a flight of little hedge birds. [Illustration] On it, in English, the artist had written "Sunset." Indeed, the declining and somewhat archaic sun on the horizon and the obviously evening flight of the birds seemed to render the label unnecessary. For a long while Guild stood studying it in the light of the stateroom ceiling lamp. And what continually arrested his attention and perplexed him was the unusual shapes of the trees and the un-birdlike flight of the birds. Also artists don't sketch on such paper. Now and then he looked across at Karen with an inscrutable expression, and each time he looked at her his face seemed to grow more rigid and his set jaws more inflexible. The girl crouched in the corner of the lounge, her face covered by both hands and pressed against the pillows. He did not speak to her. Presently he turned to the next paper. It bore the rough sketch of a fish, and was numbered 2. [Illustration] It was a wretched drawing, intended, evidently, to resemble an old pike and three young ones. What it meant he had no idea. He passed to the third and last sheet of paper, and it instantly held his attention. On it was depicted a figure, which he supposed was the artist's idea of a Japanese dancing girl. She held a fan in her left hand. Over her extended right hand a butterfly hovered. [Illustration] But what interested and concentrated Guild's attention was not the very amateurish drawing, but the series of silly decorations on the paper above her head--a number of quartered circles inclosed in squares and oblongs. [Illustration] As decorations they meant nothing, indicated nothing, except that the intellect responsible for them must be a meagre one. But as a cipher message these doubly bisected circles promised anything. This is what Guild saw and what caused him to seat himself on the sofa beside the girl who still lay huddled over her pillows, her face hidden in her hands. Seated, he drew out the portfolio containing his letters and a notebook. Then, slipping a lead-pencil from the leather socket and tearing out a sheet of paper, he started work--using the leather-backed book for a support--on a cipher which looked to be impossible. Yet, all ciphers are solved by the same method. And he knew it. [Illustration]