from my pocket the clue I had surreptitiously stolen.

The piece of paper was pale blue, and as I opened it a cry of dismay involuntarily escaped me.

What was inscribed upon it was so strange!

Chapter Five.

Reveals Three Curious Facts.

There was no writing on the carefully-concealed scrap of paper. Only five rows of numerals, written in a fine feminine hand and arranged in the following manner:—

CONTENTS

 63 26 59 69 65 56 65 33 59 35 65 44 49 55 22 59 57 46 78 63 23 98 59 39 46 67 82 45 58 35 54 45 46 26 78 75 68 75 49 64 22 86 48 73 78 45 62 45 76 47 64 66 85 44 78 48 73 78 58 62 

I turned the paper over, utterly puzzled. It was certainly some cipher, but of a kind of which I knew nothing. Ciphers may of course be very easily constructed and yet defy solution. This appeared to be one of those. What hidden message it contained, I had no idea, save that it was certain to be something of importance and that some other person was in possession of the secret of the decipher, or its recipient would not have concealed it where he did.

If I could only read it, a clue to the dead man’s identity would no doubt be revealed. But as I glanced at those puzzling rows of numerals I felt that to endeavour to learn their secret was but a vain hope. I had expected to find upon that scrap of paper some intelligible letter, and was sorely disappointed at what I had discovered.

The further I pushed my inquiries, the more mysterious the affair seemed to become. A dozen times I tried by ordinary methods to turn the numbers into writing, but my calculations only resulted in an unmeaning array of letters of the alphabet, a chaos quite unintelligible, therefore I was at length compelled to abandon my efforts, and after examining the ring and deciding that it was a copy of one of those old Etruscan rings that I had seen in the British Museum, I reluctantly went upstairs to snatch an hour’s sleep before the dawn.

My brain was awhirl. Following so quickly the strange declarations of Lolita had come this startling tragedy with all its 

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