XVIII
The Cipher Solved
Hanleigh made good his escape.
Chet Morton and Biff Hooper, who were widely separated at the time, heard the rifle shots and returned posthaste to the cabin, but they did not meet the fugitive. By the time they reached the cabin, further pursuit was out of the question. Looking out the window, Frank pointed to a dark figure hastening across the ice toward the mainland.
“By the time we got one of the iceboats out, he would be on the shore, and we’d never find him there,” he said. “Let him go. We learned something, at any rate.”
“What happened?” clamored Chet. “All we know is that Hanleigh was here. What did he do?”
Frank then told them of seeing Hanleigh among the trees, and of returning to the cabin to warn Joe.
“We watched him searching the place high and low. He was looking for the notebook—there’s no doubt of that. As a matter of fact, we heard him say that it didn’t really matter, because we wouldn’t be able to solve the cipher, anyway. So then Joe and I came in and asked him what he was doing. He tried to fool us with some cock-and-bull story about hunting for his pocketbook. He denied that he stole our supplies, but he was lying, of course. I threatened to turn him over to the police if he didn’t tell us what he knew about the notebook, and I guess that frightened him for he made a dash for the door.”
“We weren’t ready for him,” said Joe mournfully.
“I’ll bet he thinks twice before he comes here again,” declared Chet.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him,” Frank remarked. “There is something mighty important about that notebook, and I’m sure he is not the man to give up as easily as all that.”
Chet shook his head.
“He’ll just wait until we leave the island for good.”
“I don’t think so. He knows that we’re apt to stumble on the secret of that cipher at any time. I’m going to tackle that message again. It can’t be so very difficult.”
Frank immediately sat down at the desk, the cipher message before him, and began figuring on a pad of notepaper, while the other boys set about restoring the damage their visitor had created.
First of all, he set down all the letters of the alphabet in order, and studied them intently, with reference to the cipher.
“If I were writing a cipher,” he mused. “How would I go about it? Perhaps this thing is really a lot simpler than it looks.”
The easiest thing to do, he thought, would be merely to reverse the alphabet. Instead of the letter a he would use the letter z. Instead of the letter b he would use y, and so on.
With this in mind, he jotted down the alphabet backward, so that he had two rows of letters. Then he picked up the cipher again.
The first word was “Xzyrm.”
By replacing these letters with the corresponding letters in the other column he discovered that he had the word “cabin.”
Frank leaped to his feet with a shout of delight.
“I’ve got it!”
The others came running over to the desk.
“Have you solved it?” demanded Joe excitedly. “How did you do it? What does it say?”
“It’s as simple as a-b-c. It was so easy that it looked hard. The man just turned the alphabet backward. Look! The first word is ‘cabin.’ ”
“The rest of it! The rest of it!” exclaimed Biff.
“I haven’t tackled the other words yet. Wait a minute. I’ll have them in a jiffy.”
Frank turned to the cipher again. For a few minutes he worked industriously. Little by little, the complete message took shape on the sheet of paper.
At last he sat back with a sigh of satisfaction.
“All serene! The cipher is solved.”
“Read it.”
Frank picked up the paper and read aloud:
Cabin Island Chimney Left Front Nine Feet High.
Chet groaned with disappointment.
“And what good does that do?”
“What good does it do? Don’t you understand? This message refers to the chimney right in this very cabin. All we have to do now is examine a part of the chimney on the left hand side, in front, nine feet from the floor.”
The boys were immediately plunged into excitement. Everything else was forgotten. The chimney became the center of interest.
“Now we know why Hanleigh was measuring the chimney! Something is hidden there!” exclaimed Chet.
“Well, well!” said Joe approvingly. “And you actually figured it out all by yourself.”
“Nine feet high,” mused Frank. “We’ll have to get something to measure by.”
A stick was obtained and the boys roughly estimated its length as being about three feet. Then Joe went over to the chimney. Measuring from the floor, he marked off its length three times until he reached a spot which he judged would be nine feet high.
“It doesn’t look any different from any other part of the chimney,” said Chet.
Frank got up on a chair and carefully examined the chimney stone at the place to which Joe had measured. He felt the mortar, tapped the stone, ran his hands over the surface, but he found nothing to indicate anything amiss.
“Solid rocks and mortar,” he said, with disappointment. “All but those few cracks.”
“That’s queer,” said Joe. “Why should the cipher mention that part of the chimney so particularly?”
“We’re on the wrong track, for some reason or other.” Frank repeated the cipher message again: “ ‘Cabin Island chimney left front nine feet high.’ ”
“I can’t understand it,” remarked Biff. “The message must mean something.”
Frank’s face suddenly lighted up.
“Perhaps it means inside the chimney. If there is anything hidden, that would be the logical place. It couldn’t be from the outside, for we’d have to tear the whole chimney down to get at it.”
“How are we going to get at it if it is hidden inside the chimney?” Chet inquired.
“One of us will just have to turn Santa Claus for a while.”
“You mean, climb up nine feet into the chimney?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Somebody else can do it.”
“Who volunteers?”
Biff and Joe regarded the chimney doubtfully.
“I’ll bet there’s a lot of soot in there,” muttered Biff.
“Besides, there’s a fire on.”
“We’ll put the fire out first, of course,” Frank said. “Well, if nobody else wants to go, I’ll do it.”
“You will certainly need a bath when you come out,” Chet told him.
“Listen.” Biff seemed a trifle ashamed because of his reluctance to enter the chimney. “It’s a sort of messy job, and Frank shouldn’t have to do it just because the rest of us don’t like the idea. Suppose we draw lots for it.”
“That’s fair enough,” Joe agreed. “The fellow who draws the short straw goes up the chimney.”
There were no straws available but the boys broke up some small sticks, leaving one considerably shorter than the others. Frank held the four sticks between the palms of his hands so that only the tops were visible. Biff drew first—one of the long sticks. Joe was next, and the drawing was abruptly terminated, for he held the short one.
“It’s up to me, I guess,” he said, with a grimace. “Oh, well. It won’t be so bad. Perhaps I’ll find a fortune in diamonds hidden inside that chimney.”
“We’ll all take turns at scrubbing you when you come out,” Chet consoled him.
“We’ll have to wait until the fire dies down, first of all.”
Frank took the poker and broke up the burning log in the fireplace.
“In the meantime, you’d better get into some old clothes, Joe,” he said.
While they waited for the fire to burn itself out, Joe changed into some garments found in a shed that were so old and disreputable that the soot would make no appreciable difference. Much as the boys wanted to learn the secret of the chimney, none of them envied Joe his task, and, to tell the truth, he regarded it with some misgivings himself.
At last the fire had burned so low that a dipperful of water quenched the embers, and when the smoke had cleared away, Joe stepped into the big fireplace. He glanced up.
“Dark as a cellar!” he observed.
Chet came forward with his flashlight.
“I didn’t think it would be useful so soon,” he said, as he handed it over. “Away you go!”
Joe seized the flashlight and began his ascent into the chimney.
The stones were large and rough, affording a good foothold. No sooner had Joe begun his climb than a shower of soot descended into the fireplace. The lads heard a smothered gurgle.
“I’ll bet that chimney hasn’t been cleaned out since the cabin was built,” said Biff.
“I’m sure of it!” gasped Joe, from inside. Then there was another gurgle and Joe said no more because he had received a mouthful of soot.
Those below could hear him scrambling about inside, and, by peering up into the fireplace, they could see the reflection of the flashlight. More soot continued to pour down the chimney. Joe was evidently having a bad time of it.
“Wonder what he’ll find,” speculated Biff.
“Soot,” said Chet.
They waited. Then they heard a muffled cry of dismay.
“What’s the matter?” they shouted.
“I’m stuck! I got up here, but now I can’t get back.” Joe evidently gave a violent lunge for freedom, because an unusually heavy shower of soot followed.
“Come on, fellows! Don’t stand down there doing nothing!” he clamored. “Get me out of this before I smother!”