--and also a
little as though he himself dared not take it up.

"Well!" cried Massiban, greatly excited.

"I have it--here it is--we're there at last!"

"But the title--are you sure?--"

"Why, of course: look!"

"Are you convinced? Have we mastered the secret at last?"

"The front page--what does the front page say?"

"Read: The Whole Truth now first exhibited. One hundred copies printed
by myself for the instruction of the Court."

"That's it, that's it," muttered Massiban, in a hoarse voice. "It's the
copy snatched from the flames! It's the very book which Louis XIV.
condemned."

They turned over the pages. The first part set forth the explanations
given by Captain de Larbeyrie in his journal.

"Get on, get on!" said Beautrelet, who was in a hurry to come to the
solution.

"Get on? What do you mean? Not at all! We know that the Man with the
Iron Mask was imprisoned because he knew and wished to divulge the
secret of the Royal house of France. But how did he know it? And why
did he wish to divulge it? Lastly, who was that strange personage? A
half-brother of Louis XIV., as Voltaire maintained, or Mattioli, the
Italian minister, as the modern critics declare? Hang it, those are
questions of the very first interest!"

"Later, later," protested Beautrelet, feverishly turning the pages, as
though he feared that the book would fly out of his hands before he had
solved the riddle.

"But--" said Massiban, who doted on historical details.

"We have plenty of time--afterward--let's see the explanation first--"

Suddenly Beautrelet stopped. The document! In the middle of a left-hand
page, his eyes saw the five mysterious lines of dots and figures! He
made sure, with a glance, that the text was identical with that which
he had studied so long; the same arrangement of the signs, the same
intervals that permitted of the isolation of the word demoiselles and
the separation of the two words aiguille and creuse.

A short note preceded it:

All the necessary indications, it appears, were reduced by King Louis
XIII. into a little table which I transcribe below.

Here followed the table of dots and figures.

Then came the explanation of the document itself. Beautrelet read, in a
broken voice:

* * * * *

As will be seen, this table, even after we have changed the figures
into vowels, affords no light. One might say that, in order to decipher
the puzzle, we must first know it. It