But there
is nothing--not a single break!--not one word by itself! One word of
two hundred and seventy-six letters! I hope the wretch may be blessed
two hundred and seventy-six times for complicating his system in this
way! He ought to be hanged two hundred and seventy-six times!"
And a violent thump with his fist on the document emphasized this
charitable wish.
"But," continued the magistrate, "if I cannot find one of the words
in the body of the document, I might at least try my hand at the
beginning and end of each paragraph. There may be a chance there that
I ought not to miss."
And impressed with this idea Judge Jarriquez successively tried if
the letters which commenced or finished the different paragraphs
could be made to correspond with those which formed the most
important word, which was sure to be found somewhre, that of
_Dacosta_.
He could do nothing of the kind.
In fact, to take only the last paragraph with which he began, the
formula was:
P = D
h = a
y = c
f = o
s = s
l = t
y = a
Now, at the very first letter Jarriquez was stopped in his
calculations, for the difference in alphabetical position between the
_d_ and the _p_ gave him not one cipher, but two, namely, 12, and in
this kind of cryptograph only one letter can take the place of
another.
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