king when they reached
the magistrate's office. Scarcely had Lecoq opened the door than M.
Segmuller and his clerk rose from their seats. They both read important
intelligence in our hero's troubled face. "What is it?" eagerly asked
the magistrate. Lecoq's sole response was to lay the pellet of bread
upon M. Segmuller's desk. In an instant the magistrate had opened it,
extracting from the centre a tiny slip of the thinnest tissue paper.
This he unfolded, and smoothed upon the palm of his hand. As soon as
he glanced at it, his brow contracted. "Ah! this note is written in
cipher," he exclaimed, with a disappointed air.

"We must not lose patience," said Lecoq quietly. He took the slip of
paper from the magistrate and read the numbers inscribed upon it. They
ran as follows: "235, 15, 3, 8, 25, 2, 16, 208, 5, 360, 4, 36, 19, 7,
14, 118, 84, 23, 9, 40, 11, 99."

"And so we shall learn nothing from this note," murmured the governor.

"Why not?" the smiling clerk ventured to remark. "There is no system of
cipher which can not be read with a little skill and patience; there are
some people who make it their business."

"You are right," said Lecoq, approvingly. "And I, myself, once had the
knack of it."

"What!" exclaimed the magistrate; "do you hope to find the key to this
cipher?"

"With time, yes."

Lecoq was about to place the paper in his breast-pocket, when the
magistrate begged him to examine it a little further. He did so; and
after a while his face suddenly brightened. Striking his forehead with
his open palm, he cried: "I've found it!"

An exclamation of incredulous surprise simultaneously escaped the
magistrate, the governor, and the clerk.

"At least I think so," added Lecoq, more cautiously. "If I am not
mistaken, the prisoner and his accomplice have adopted a very simple
system called the double book-cipher. The correspondents first agree
upon some particular book; and both obtain a copy of the same edition.
When one desires to communicate with the other, he opens the book
haphazard, and begins by writing the number of the page. Then he must
find on the same page the words that will express his thoughts. If the
first word he wishes to write is the twentieth on the page, he places
number 20 after the number of the page; then he begins to count one,
two, three, and so on, until he finds the next word he wishes to use.
If this word happens to be the sixth, he writes the figure 6, and he
continues so on ti