Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1888-03-17

diamond bracelet" I cudgclled my
brains for a. least half an hour. Then all
at once It occurred to mo what I'm the ex.
element Of my pursuit I may very well
be excused for not having thought OF be.
fore) that the playing card, the nine OF
hearts, must bear some relation 70 the
missiye. placed ft upon the paper.
Every word Yves hidden by the surface Of
the card; only the ngures and tho alpha.
betical letten were visible. "Doubtless," /"
thought I, ''if cut out the ptps Of . nine
Of hearts, and place IL upon the paper,
shall sec certain words which will form
the subject matter upon which Eustace
Rutland wrote to his sister" In that
case the mystery was confined to ninc
words, which, whatever their arrange
ment, would not be too difficult to intel
ligibly arrange. I would not mutilate
Miss Rutland's playing cards. I had
these selected the nine Of hearts and cut
out the pips. It was not On easy matter,
and in my eagerness pretty effectually
destroyed the surface Of my table; but
that did not trouble me. My interest was
now thoroughly aroused, and grew keener
when, placing the nine Of hearts upon
Eustacc Rutland's mystery letter, I found
these words disclosed:
Face--starcs -in-send- --money-death
--me-instantly-the.
Here, then, In these nine words, was the
communication which Eustace Rutland
intended his sister to understand. cop
led them on q separate sheet OF paper and
arranged them in different ways until l
arrived at their correct solution:
death stares me in the face, send
money instantly"
Congratulating myself upon my clever
ness, came to the conclusion that Eustace
Rutland, being banished from his fathers
house and not being able to obtain from
his father the funds necessary for his dis
reputable career, was taking advantage OF
his sisters devoted affection for him, and
was in the habit Of calling upon her to
supply him with money, which, no doubt,
the young lady did to the best Of her abil-
fly Curiosity led me to the task Of en-
deayoring to discover whether the alpha
betical letters and the figures in the frame
work bore any relation to this communi-
cation. With only the nine words ex-
posed through the pips Of the nine Of
hearts which had cut away, 1 saw that
the first word, ''death," was the sixth,
and the second word, ''stares," was the
second, and the third word, 'me, was the
seventh. The sequence of tho figures,
therefore, was @, 2, 2. Now, how were
these three figures arranged I'm the frame
work. The figure 0 came after the letter
M, the figure 2 came after the letter X,
the figure came after the letter H. Sat
isfied that had found the key, began to
study how these figures from to 8, rep
resentina the nine words In the COM
munication and the nine Of hearts in tho
playing card, were arranged In the frame
work in such manner as to lead an In
formed person at once to the solution.
There must be o starting point with which
both Eustace and his sister Mabel were
acquainted WHAT was this starting
point, One Of the letters Of the alphabet.
What letter. A. Starting, then, from A
in the framework, found that the figures
from to 0 ran thus: Q, Q. z, 0, o, 1, 4,
8, 8. Upon following, in this order, the
course of the words which were exposed
by the playing card with the nine pips cut
out, came to the conclusion that / had
correctly interpreted this first mystery
letter. 1 was very pleased, believing that
the key had discovered would lead me to
O correct reading Of Eustace's second and
third letter to his sister.
So absorbed had been in the unrayel-
ing of this mystery letter, which occupied
me good hour and o half, that had lost
sight during the whole of that time Of tho
two words which had at first enchained
my attention diamond bracelet. I"
"Death stares me in the face, send money
instantly" had appeared to me so reason
able construction to be placed upon the
communication of a man who must often
have been in desperate strait for want Of
funds, that the thought did not obtrude
itself that these words might be merely q
| blind, and that, in the words that re-
| mained after the obliteration Of this SEN
tence the correct solution was to be found.
! The longer l considered, the stronger be-
| came my doubts; with diamond brace
| let' staring me in the face, / felt that
had been following Will-o' the-wisp.
had asked DIR. Daincourt the date of
| the dinner party ut which Mr.. Rutland
had detected the absence of the diamond
bracelet on his daughters arm. That
date was the sth of September. exam
ined the postmark on the envelope Of Eus-
! tace Rutland's first communication; it
was the Goth Of September. Mr. Rutland
had laid upon his daughter the injunction
that the diamond bracelet was to be
shown to him before the end Of the month.
What month"; September. She had pro-
duced it In time, and her brothers mis-.
sive must have conveyed to her some In.
formation respecting the missing article
of jewelry. The elation Of spirits in which
had indulged took flight; had not dis
covered the clew.
set myself again to work. / felt now
as man feels who is hunting out a great
mystery or great criminal, and upon the
success of whose endeavor his own safety
depends. 1t seemed to me as II 1t were
not SO much Edward Layton's case as my
own in which / was engaged. Never in
the course of my career have been so in
terested. l determined to set aside the
words, 'Death stares me in the face, send
money instantly" and to search, in the
words that remained, for the true mean
ing of Eustace Rutland's first communi.
cation. / copied them In the order in
which they were arranged, and they ran
as follows: :.
go X G "a II 7.E, G
:. {
birds the g
. In runs back got
your hundred :, =:
trees the won are
As.-r1.
river di'm0nd sayly j. y
on bracelet four singing :
cherry the
=
Il n OF Il or A {
Icounted the number Of words ther
were twenty-five. Now, was the tru
reading of the con- nunication containe'
| in the whole of N Sc twenty two words