“That is the theory that seems to me the most hopeful at present. The numbers I have mentioned are the figures of the different successive scenes. It is barely possible that these numbers, either alone or combined with other numbers, might bring us to the hiding-place of the casket. The trouble is that not every scene has figures in the background. The eighth, for instance. And in hours five and eleven, the backgrounds are so mutilated that, even if this theory were true, we should lack those numbers to make our cipher complete.”

“And yet the existence of a cipher seems the only possible way by which the riddle may be solved.”

“I believe that is true. There are twelve hours, that is, there are twelve different steps–twelve different links to the whole chain. Beginning at hour one, so many steps, paces, or what not, ought to bring us to hour two. There, beginning afresh, so many steps, paces, and so forth, again ought to bring us to hour three, and so on. Do you get the idea?”

“It sounds reasonable,” I replied thoughtfully. “But since two or three scenes are missing, I can not see much promise in this theory.”

“I told you that they were all impossible,” 167growled the dealer. “So far we are quite at sea. To-morrow, perhaps–” he sighed wearily.

167

“To-morrow perhaps we shall have better luck,” I said cheerfully. “It is always darkest before the dawn.”

“Pas de banalités. I am not a Sunday-school scholar to be preached at. Come, let’s to dinner.”

Pas de banalités.

168

CHAPTER XVII

Three weeks passed before we made any further progress. A clue, but always an imaginary clue, would prick us into feverish activity, which invariably led us nowhere.

But toward the end of the third week of our search, St. Hilary came to my rooms one afternoon, triumphant. He had actually made a discovery. And this discovery proved, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, not only that the clock had a story to tell, not only that the twelve hours actually did constitute twelve links of a chain, but that somewhere, in the background of 

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