Chapter XXIII

_The End of the Coil_

Warriner laid the book on the table, and pulled out his pipe. I think it

was a full five minutes before any of us said a word. But Betty kept her

hand close-locked in mine.

"Any particular questions?" said Warriner at length.

"If I've got the hang of it," I began, "the Sigma ray was bound to get

the man or woman who happened to be sitting in that big chair on the

specified dates in June when the sun was in position to shine through

the bullseye lens."

"Yes."

"Then I escaped through the accident that, when the window was repaired,

the lens got mixed up with the ordinary glass bullseyes."

"Precisely. It had been replaced in a new position, an entirely unknown

one. As it happened--pure chance, you understand--the ray of sunshine

that fell upon your face at noon that day had passed through a bullseye

of common purple glass, and therefore it was harmless. But the Terror

was in the room; somewhere it was lying in wait, ready to strike. Do you

recall how I kept close to the wall, so as to avoid getting in the path

of the direct sunlight? You understand now that I realized the danger,

and took the obvious precaution. But John Thaneford was unaware that any

change had been made in the position of the death-dealing lens. And so

he walked straight into the line of destructive force; and the Sigma

ray, being no respecter of persons, proceeded to strike him down."

"I wonder how much he really knew about the whole affair?" queried

Betty. "You remember that Eunice expressly acquitted John Thaneford of

any actual part in my father's death."

"But he certainly must have been cognizant of the nature of the trap,"

answered Warriner. "He was the observer at the time of Mr. Graeme's

death, the elder Thaneford being physically unable to take his

accustomed post on Sugar Loaf. Again, his putting Hugh, bound and

helpless, into the fatal chair is unanswerable evidence that he did

possess a guilty knowledge of his father's secret. It makes no moral

difference that he had no hand in inventing or setting up the instrument

of vengeance. He knew of its existence undoubtedly, and hoped to profit

by it. That's enough."

"Have you any theory about the Sigma ray itself?" I asked. "Or rather

its effect upon the physical organism?"

"Do you happen to recall the medical testimony given at the coroner's

inquest by Doctor Williams of John Hopkins? Well, he testified, in

brief, that the autopsy had revealed a most peculiar lesion of the

brain; in unprofessional language, the injury might be characterized as

a case of greatly intensified sunstroke."

"Yes, I do remember."

"Now there are unexplained anomalies about even ordinary sunstroke,"

continued Warriner. "Just what are the conditions under which exposures

to the rays of the sun may be dangerous?

"In the first place, we may affirm confidently that the peril is not

dependent upon the amount of humidity that may be present in the

atmosphere. Down in New Orleans, where the air is full of moisture and

the thermometer stands high in the scale for weeks at a time, sunstroke

is virtually unknown; men and beasts seem equally immune. But let a

ten-day heat wave submerge New York City and the emergency hospitals

will be full up, while the horses will be wearing plaited straw-bonnets

as a protection against the deadly sun.

"Again, there is Fort Yuma in Arizona, the hottest place in the United

States, with the possible exception of Death Valley. Yes, it is

abnormally hot at Yuma and the air is furnace-dried; the old-timers will

tell you that, on really bad days, a man can't drink water fast enough

to keep from dying of thirst. Of course, men do die from the effects of

the heat, but it isn't our ordinary form of sunstroke. To sum up, then:

"No sunstroke at New Orleans, where it is abnormally humid and hot; and

none at Fort Yuma, where it is abnormally dry and hot. But plenty of

cases in Paris, Chicago, and New York, where the climate is supposed to

be temperate.

"The inference is logical: under certain conditions, one of the

invisible, high frequency rays, always present in sunlight, is enabled

to get in its deadly work. Unfortunately, we don't know what those

conditions are. Perhaps the proportion of static electricity in the

atmosphere may have something to do with it. Anyway, the fact remains

that men do die of heat stroke in New York and Paris, while Louisiana

and Florida are comparatively free from that particular peril to life."

"Then, according to your theory, it is the Sigma ray which is the active

lethal agent in sunlight?"

"Yes, and Fielding Thaneford's invention enabled him to isolate the ray

in question, at the same time enormously intensifying its action. Both

Graeme and John Thaneford died the instant that it touched them."

"And that was Fielding Thaneford's secret," said Betty, just returned

from a flying visit to the nursery, where Little Hugh lay sleeping.

"Such a horrible secret!" She shuddered.

"Just as well that it died with him," assented Warriner soberly.

"Still, in the end, he sought to stop the evil thing that he had set in

motion," persisted Betty. "He told me all he could; all indeed that it

was necessary to know, once I really began to use my wits."

"Which reminds me," I put in, "that you have yet to explain how you

finally managed to read the cypher. What put you back on the track?"

"So simple a thing it was, too," laughed Betty. "And so easy to

overlook."

"I remember years ago," remarked Warriner, "that, on account of certain

rare astronomical conditions, it was possible to see the planet Venus at

midday. It took me the longest time to find the star, although I thought

I knew just where to look; also all my friends were admiring the

spectacle. At last I saw it, and then it was an easy matter to locate it

again. I suppose the reason is that I didn't know what to expect; some

sort of junior sun, I reckon. In reality, it was only a pin-point of

light, but brilliant as a diamond."

"And there's the game of challenging an opponent to find a word in a

geographical map," said Betty. "It isn't the one printed in fine type

and tucked away in a corner that is so hard to discover. The really

invisible word is the one stretching in big, widely separated letters

clear across the page."

"Will you _tell_ me?" I asked impatiently.

"Here goes then. You remember that I set down my theoretical

key-sentence, thus:"

W O N F O R T O O F O R A T E

"The uncoding went along splendidly for eight places, thus:"

W O N F O R T O

T H A N E C O U

"The rest was gibberish. It follows then that the running off the track

must have happened at the ninth substitution and nowhere else."

"Obviously."

"The very morning that your letter about the library window

arrived--that is, on June the twenty-first--I was sitting at my desk;

for the ten thousand time, more or less, I printed out those distracting

capitals:"

W O N F O R T O O F O R A T E

"As I looked at the line of letters I suddenly discovered something

entirely new: the five end ones formed the perfectly good English word,

_Orate_.

"There is a game, you know, in which you mix up the letters of a long

word, such as _Plenipotentiary_, and then try to recombine them into

subsidiary words, the biggest list winning the prize. Perhaps there were

other esoteric or inside words in my key-sentence, a still deeper

meaning and significance to this apparently haphazard collection of

alphabetical symbols. I started experimenting, and almost immediately I

did get another word, _Fort_. Now I'll write out the series again,

using vertical lines to divide off the word-groups. Here it is:"

W O N | F O R T | O O F | O R A T E

"The only perplexity was in the third section, for although _OOF_ is a

Yiddish slang word for money or cash it isn't much in use in our rural

locality; in all probability, old Mr. Thaneford had never even heard of

it. All the other words were good English.

"What was the ninth letter, the alphabetical rock upon which my fine

theory had gone to pieces? Why it was none other than the second O in

that very word, _OOF_. Then I saw the solution in a flash. Do you?"

I shook my head.

"There is another English work which corresponds phonetically to the

number 2 or two. Of course it is _TO_. Let us make the substitution,

thus:"

W O N | F O R T | O F | O R A T E

"A complete English sentence, you see. It doesn't make very good sense,

but that is of no consequence, since it is merely what Chalmers calls

er--er--well, what _do_ you call it, Chalmers?"

"Mnemonic guide," smiled Warriner. "An artificial aid to one's memory.

It would be somewhat easier to write down the key-letters correctly if

this absurd sentence were kept in mind. You have to be absolutely

accurate in the coding of a cypher message."

"Now then, Hugh, do you see?" demanded my wife.

"Of course I do," I answered eagerly. "The extra O in your original

key-sentence is not only wrong in itself, but its inclusion in the

series throws everything which follows it into hopeless confusion. Let's

try it out."

Rapidly I wrote down the correct key-letters, and underneath them a

score of the cypher symbols, thus:

W O N F O R T O F O R A T E W O N F O R T

Q W O T T U I J X I S V A Z P I H N X J X

Taking up the magic square I asked Betty to repeat the formula for

uncoding.

"Find where the first key-letter occurs in the top row," said Betty

glibly. "For example: W. Then follow that vertical column down until you

reach the first letter of the cypher message; in this case: Q. Follow

that horizontal line to the extreme left, and you will recover the

initial letter of the original message, namely: T. _Da capo ad

infinitum. Q. E. D._"

Together we worked out the first line of the cypher in the leather-bound

book. The complete layout ran as follows:

W O N F O R T O F O R A T E W O N F O R T

Q W O T T U I J X I S V A Z P I H N X J X

T H A N E C O U R T A U G U S T T H I R D

"And so on, world without end," commented Betty. "You can imagine how

like mad I worked once we were on the train and rushing Southward. For

now I knew _why_ it was necessary to avoid entering that room,

especially at this particular time of year."

* * * * *

The clocks were striking nine, and Chalmers wanted to drop in at

"Powersthorp" on his way home. So he bade us good night, climbed into

his car, and was off, the red star of his tail-light twinkling through

the linden trees bordering upon the driveway. And I remained alone with

Betty; only, for a long time, we did not speak; it was not necessary.

* * * * *

There is but a word to add. The walls of the library wing had sustained

but little damage in the fire; consequently, the process of rebuilding

and refitting was made so much the easier. The stained glass, of

course, had been entirely destroyed, but for that there could be few

regrets; all those Old Testament pictures had been scenes of hatred and

violence and divine wrath. It were better that Little Hugh should never

see them and so have his childish imagination darkened. They have been

replaced by windows of a softer nature--green pastures and still water,

the lilies and poppies of the Parsifal meadows on Good Friday morning,

and the peace of the everlasting hills. No chance here for even the

unwitting insertion of that terrible purple boss; indeed the grapes of

wrath were no longer in existence, for Chalmers Warriner had taken pains

to have every bit of the _disjecta membra_ of the old windows gathered

up and buried in some inaccesible pit, its very location to remain

forever hidden from human eyes.

* * * * *

To-day the library at "Hildebrand Hundred," exorcised of its dark

spirit, is again our favorite living-room. The teakwood desk and the

great swivel-chair were destroyed in the fire, and indeed all the old

fittings and hangings have given way to bright and cheerful modern

furnishings. As I sit at my desk, writing the final page of these

memoirs, the sun lies warm and glowing upon the oaken floor, but there

is no hidden menace in its beauty. The scent of roses floats through the

open windows, and I can hear the clip of Betty's garden shears as she

cuts off the perfumed coupons of her floral treasures; one by one the

gorgeous blooms fall into the waiting basket; our dinner table must be

resplendent to-night for Chalmers and Hilda, just back from their

honeymoon journey, are coming to us for an intimate _partie carree_.

And in the middle distance stands Little Hugh, the breeze roughing up

his sleek, black poll, his legs planted confidently wide apart, and his

gaze traveling outward upon the fair, broad acres that some day will be

all his own; my lawful son and heir, a true Hildebrand of "Hildebrand

Hundred."

Truly, God is good and life is sweet.

THE END