no case could stand for the _d_ in _Dacosta,_ because these letters
were in like manner twelve spaces apart.
So it was not his name that figured here.
The same observation applies to the words _arrayal_ and _Tijuco,_
which were successively tried, but whose construction did not
correspond with the cryptographic series.
After he had got so far, Judge Jarriquez, with his head nearly
splitting, arose and paced his office, went for fresh air to the
window, and gave utterance to a growl, at the noise of which a flock
of hummingbirds, murmuring among the foliage of a mimosa tree, betook
themselves to flight. Then he returned to the document.
He picked it up and turned it over and over.
“The humbig! the rascal!” he hissed; “it will end by driving me mad!
But steady! Be calm! Don’t let our spirits go down! This is not the
time!”
And then, having refreshed himself by giving his head a thorough
sluicing with cold water:
“Let us try another way,” he said, “and as I cannot hit upon the
number from the arrangement of the letters, let us see what number
the author of the document would have chosen in confessing that he
was the author of the crime at Tijuco.”
This was another method for the magistrate to enter upon, and maybe
he was right, for there was a certain amount of logic about it.
“And first let us try a date! Why should not the culprit have taken
the date of the year in which Dacosta, the innocent man he allowed to
be sentenced in his own place, was born? Was he likely to forget a
number which was so important to him? Then Joam Dacosta was born in
1804. Let us see what 1804 will give us as a cryptographical number.”
And Judge Jarriquez wrote the first letters of the paragraph, and
putting over them the number 1804 repeated thrice, he obtained
1804 1804 1804
_phyj slyd dqfd_
Then in counting up the spaced in alphabetical order, he obtained
_s.yf rdy. cif._
And this was meaningless! And he wanted three letters which he had to
replace by points, because the ciphers, 8, 4, and 4, which command
the three letters, _h, d,_ and _d,_ do not give corresponding letters
in ascending the series.
“That is not it again!” exclaimed Jarriques. “Let us try another
number.”
And he asked himself, if instead of this first date the author of the
document had not rather selected the date of the year in which the
crime was committed.
This was in 1826.
And so proceeding as above, he obtained.
1826 1826 1826
_phyj slyd dqfd_
and that gave
_o.vd rdv. cid._
the same meaningless series, the same absence of sense, as many
letters wanting as in the former instance, and for the same reason.
“Bother the number!” exclaimed the magistrate. “We must give it up
again. Let us have another one! Perhaps the rascal chose the number
of contos representing the amount of the booty!”
Now the value of the stolen diamonds was estimated at eight hundred
and thirty-four contos, or about 2,500,000 francs, and so the formula
became
834 834 834 834
_phy jsl ydd qfd_
and this gave a result as little gratifying as the others—-
_het bph pa. ic._
“Confound the document and him who imagined it!” shouted Jarriquez,
throwing down the paper, which was wafted to the other side of the
room. “It would try the patience of a saint!”
But the short burst of anger passed away, and the magistrate, who had
no idea of being beaten, picked up the paper. What he had done with
the first letters of the different paragraphs he did with the
last–and to no purpose. Then he tried everything his excited
imagination could suggest.
He tried in succession the numbers which represented Dacosta’s age,
which would have been known to the author of the crime, the date of
his arrest, the date of the sentence at the Villa Rica assizes, the
date fixed for the execution, etc., etc., even the number of victims
at the affray at Tijuco!
Nothing! All the time nothing!
Judge Jarriquez had worked himself into such a state of exasperation