He came back at midday with the SCOTSMAN. There was nothing in
it, except some further evidence of Paddock and the milkman, and a
repetition of yesterday's statement that the murderer had gone
North. But there was a long article, reprinted from THE TIMES, about
Karolides and the state of affairs in the Balkans, though there was no
mention of any visit to England. I got rid of the innkeeper for the
afternoon, for I was getting very warm in my search for the cypher.

As I told you, it was a numerical cypher, and by an elaborate
system of experiments I had pretty well discovered what were the
nulls and stops. The trouble was the key word, and when I thought
of the odd million words he might have used I felt pretty hopeless.
But about three o'clock I had a sudden inspiration.

The name Julia Czechenyi flashed across my memory. Scudder
had said it was the key to the Karolides business, and it occurred to
me to try it on his cypher.

It worked. The five letters of 'Julia' gave me the position of the
vowels. A was J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, and so represented
by X in the cypher. E was XXI, and so on. 'Czechenyi' gave
me the numerals for the principal consonants. I scribbled that
scheme on a bit of paper and sat down to read Scudder's pages.

In half an hour I was reading with a whitish face and fingers that
drummed on the table.

I glanced out of the window and saw a big touring-car coming
up the glen towards the inn. It drew up at the door, and there was