Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-09-08

tneN lock on the other. 1t would be perfectly
possible, therefore, to write the message the
prisoner wanted to send out on a strip of It's
sue paper, or any thin paper, and cram it into
the bracelet at the lock end. In that event
it would certainly pass minute inspection {;
the only difficulty would be for the outside
person to find it. That was 4 chance; but it
was all a chance anyway.
When the young -'oman came here and
produced a strip of thin paper. apparently
blank. with the multitude OF wrinkles in it, l
Immediately saw that that paper had been
recovered from the bracelet 1t was old yellow
and worn Therefore, blank or not, that was the
message which the prisoner had sent out. You
saw hold it the brazier, and the
characters appear. 1t was sympathetic ink, of
course.
Hard to make in prison, YOU say Not at
all. Writing either with lemon juice or milk
once dry, is perfectly invisible on paper; but
when exposed to heat at any time afterward
it will appear That is chemical truth.
Now, the thing that appeared was cipher
an absurd one, still cipher. Extraordinary
precaution of the prisoner who was about to
die This cipher-let me exactly" and the
scientist spelled it out;
g" Observation-Disclosures ed serueh Sort
tnaeG ed eteT al rap eetej erbmol ed tniop I'D
zerit sruO'd rehcoR I'D eueuq I'D dron ia
sdeip tnec.'
If You know anything of languages, Mr..
HATCH he continued you know that the
French is the only language where the apos-
trophe and the accent marks play very I'M
portant part A moments study of this par
ticular Ct pher therefore convinced me that it
was in French. l tried the simple expedient
of reading it backward, with this result:
'Stonehedge. Cent pieds au nord du
queue du Rocher d'Ours tirez du point de
rombre ietee par La Tete de Geant trois heures
de Tapres-midi.'
Here, therefore, was sensible statement
in French, which translated freely into Eng
lish is simply:
"'Stonehedge. Hundred feet due north
from tail Bear Rock through apex Cor point
of shadow cast by Giants Head, three p. NJ
Il had read the cipher and knew its English
before gave a copy of 1t to the young woman
who was here. / specifically asked her if she
knew French, to give her a Clue bv which she
might interpret the cipher herself. And thus
] blaZed the way within few minutes to the
point where astronomical and geometrical
calculations were next. Please bear in mind
that this message from the dead was not dated.
Now, about the young woman herself,
continued the scientist after d moment. The
statement of how she come to find the brace
let was obviously untrue; particularly are we
convinced of this when she cannot, OF will not,
explain how it was broken Therefore,
other field is open for scrutiny. The bracelet
was broken If we assume that 1t is the brace
let, and there is no reason to doubt it, and we
know 1t is in her possession, we know also that
more than one person had been searching for
it. We know positively that that other per-
SOn-not the masked girl, out the one VINO mad
preceded her to Miss Hardings room on the
same night-got the bracelet from Miss Hard
ing, and we are safe in assuming that it passed
out of that PERSONS hand by force. The brace
let had been literally torn apart at the hinge.
In other words, there had been physical con-
test, and one piece of the circlet-the piece
| with the message-passed out of the hands of
the person who had preceded the masked
| woman and stolen the bracelet.
But this is by the way. Stonehedge is the
name of the old Tremaine Harding estate,
| about twenty miles out, and there the IRE
maine Harding family valuables were hidden
by William Tremaine Harding who died by
bullet martyr to the cause of freedom We
| shall get the treasure this afternoon, after /
| have settled one two dates and made the
astronomical and ,geometrical calculations
which are necessary"
There was silence for a minute or more,
| broken at last by the impatient " Honk, honkl"
of an automobile outside.
"We'l go now" announced The Thinking
Machine as he rose. There is a car for US
| He led the way out, Hatch following. A
heavy touring car, with three seats, driven by
a young woman, was waiting at the door.
| The woman was a stranger to the reporter
but there was no introduction.
Did you get the date of Captain Harding's
| imprisonment" asked The Thinking Machine.
"Yes," was the reply" June 3, 1870"
The Thinking Machine clambered in Hatch
| fo11ou,inu silently and the car rushed away