John Thorndyke's Cases — The Moabite Cipher

THE MOABITE CIPHER

A large and motley crowd lined the pavements of Oxford Street as Thorndyke and I made our way leisurely eastward.

Floral decorations and drooping bunting announced one of those functions inaugurated from time to time by a benevolent Government for the entertainment of fashionable loungers and the relief of distressed pickpockets.

For a Russian Grand Duke, who had torn himself away, amidst valedictory explosions, from a loving if too demonstrative people, was to pass anon on his way to the Guildhall; and a British Prince, heroically indiscreet, was expected to occupy a seat in the ducal carriage.

Near Rathbone Place Thorndyke halted and drew my attention to a smart-looking man who stood lounging in a doorway, cigarette in hand.

"Our old friend Inspector Badger," said Thorndyke.

"He seems mightily interested in that gentleman in the light overcoat.

How d'ye do, Badger?"

for at this moment the detective caught his eye and bowed.

"Who is your friend?"

"That's what I want to know, sir," replied the inspector.

"I've been shadowing him for the last half-hour, but I can't make him out, though I believe I've seen him somewhere.

He don't look like a foreigner, but he has got something bulky in his pocket, so I must keep him in sight until the Duke is safely past.

I wish," he added gloomily, "these beastly Russians would stop at home.

They give us no end of trouble."

"Are you expecting any--occurrences, then?"

asked Thorndyke.

"Bless you, sir," exclaimed Badger, "the whole route is lined with plain-clothes men.

You see, it is known that several desperate characters followed the Duke to England, and there are a good many exiles living here who would like to have a rap at him.

Hallo!

What's he up to now?"

The man in the light overcoat had suddenly caught the inspector's too inquiring eye, and forthwith dived into the crowd at the edge of the pavement.

In his haste he trod heavily on the foot of a big, rough-looking man, by whom he was in a moment hustled out into the road with such violence that he fell sprawling face downwards.

It was an unlucky moment.

A mounted constable was just then backing in upon the crowd, and before he could gather the meaning of the shout that arose from the bystanders, his horse had set down one hind-hoof firmly on the prostrate man's back.

The inspector signalled to a constable, who forthwith made a way for us through the crowd; but even as we approached the injured man, he rose stiffly and looked round with a pale, vacant face.

"Are you hurt?"

Thorndyke asked gently, with an earnest look into the frightened, wondering eyes.

"No, sir," was the reply; "only I feel queer--sinking--just here."

He laid a trembling hand on his chest, and Thorndyke, still eyeing him anxiously, said in a low voice to the inspector: "Cab or ambulance, as quickly as you can."

A cab was led round from Newman Street, and the injured man put into it.

Thorndyke, Badger, and I entered, and we drove off up Rathbone Place.

As we proceeded, our patient's face grew more and more ashen, drawn, and anxious; his breathing was shallow and uneven, and his teeth chattered slightly.

The cab swung round into Goodge Street, and then--suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye--there came a change.

The eyelids and jaw relaxed, the eyes became filmy, and the whole form subsided into the corner in a shrunken heap, with the strange gelatinous limpness of a body that is dead as a whole, while its tissues are still alive.

"God save us!

The man's dead!"

exclaimed the inspector in a shocked voice--for even policemen have their feelings.

He sat staring at the corpse, as it nodded gently with the jolting of the cab, until we drew up inside the courtyard of the Middlesex Hospital, when he got out briskly, with suddenly renewed cheerfulness, to help the porter to place the body on the wheeled couch.

"We shall know who he is now, at any rate," said he, as we followed the couch to the casualty-room.

Thorndyke nodded unsympathetically.

The medical instinct in him was for the moment stronger than the legal.

The house-surgeon leaned over the couch, and made a rapid examination as he listened to our account of the accident.

Then he straightened himself up and looked at Thorndyke.

"Internal hæmorrhage, I expect," said he.

"At any rate, he's dead, poor beggar!

--as dead as Nebuchadnezzar.

Ah!

here comes a bobby; it's his affair now."

A sergeant came into the room, breathing quickly, and looked in surprise from the corpse to the inspector.

But the latter, without loss of time, proceeded to turn out the dead man's pockets, commencing with the bulky object that had first attracted his attention; which proved to be a brown-paper parcel tied up with red tape.

"Pork-pie, begad!"

he exclaimed with a crestfallen air as he cut the tape and opened the package.

"You had better go through his other pockets, sergeant."

The small heap of odds and ends that resulted from this process tended, with a single exception, to throw little light on the man's identity;

the exception being a letter, sealed, but not stamped, addressed in an exceedingly illiterate hand to Mr. Adolf Schönberg, 213, Greek Street, Soho.

"He was going to leave it by hand, I expect," observed the inspector, with a wistful glance at the sealed envelope.

"I think I'll take it round myself, and you had better come with me, sergeant."

He slipped the letter into his pocket, and, leaving the sergeant to take possession of the other effects, made his way out of the building.

"I suppose, Doctor," said he, as we crossed into Berners Street, "you are not coming our way!

Don't want to see Mr. Schönberg, h'm?"

Thorndyke reflected for a moment.

"Well, it isn't very far, and we may as well see the end of the incident.

Yes; let us go together."

No. 213, Greek Street, was one of those houses that irresistibly suggest to the observer the idea of a church organ, either jamb of the doorway being adorned with a row of brass bell-handles corresponding to the stop-knobs.

These the sergeant examined with the air of an expert musician, and having, as it were, gauged the capacity of the instrument, selected the middle knob on the right-hand side and pulled it briskly; whereupon a first-floor window was thrown up and a head protruded.

But it afforded us a momentary glimpse only, for, having caught the sergeant's upturned eye, it retired with surprising precipitancy, and before we had time to speculate on the apparition, the street-door was opened and a man emerged.

He was about to close the door after him when the inspector interposed.

"Does Mr. Adolf Schönberg live here?"

The new-comer, a very typical Jew of the red-haired type, surveyed us thoughtfully through his gold-rimmed spectacles as he repeated the name.

"Schönberg--Schönberg?

Ah, yes!

I know.

He lives on the third-floor.

I

saw him go up a short time ago.

Third-floor back;" and indicating the open door with a wave of the hand, he raised his hat and passed into the street.

"I suppose we had better go up," said the inspector, with a dubious glance at the row of bell-pulls.

He accordingly started up the stairs, and we all followed in his wake.

There were two doors at the back on the third-floor, but as the one was open, displaying an unoccupied bedroom, the inspector rapped smartly on the other.

It flew open almost immediately, and a fierce-looking little man confronted us with a hostile stare.

"Well?"

said he.

"Mr. Adolf Schönberg?"

inquired the inspector.

"Well?

What about him?"

snapped our new acquaintance.

"I wished to have a few words with him," said Badger.

"Then what the deuce do you come banging at _my_ door for?"

demanded the other.

"Why, doesn't he live here?"

"No. First-floor front," replied our friend, preparing to close the door.

"Pardon me," said Thorndyke, "but what is Mr. Schönberg like?

I mean--" "Like?"

interrupted the resident.

"He's like a blooming Sheeny, with a carroty beard and gold gig-lamps!"

and, having presented this impressionist sketch, he brought the interview to a definite close by slamming the door and turning the key.

With a wrathful exclamation, the inspector turned towards the stairs, down which the sergeant was already clattering in hot haste, and made his way back to the ground-floor, followed, as before, by Thorndyke and me.

On the doorstep we found the sergeant breathlessly interrogating a smartly-dressed youth, whom I had seen alight from a hansom as we entered the house, and who now stood with a notebook tucked under his arm, sharpening a pencil with deliberate care.

"Mr. James saw him come out, sir," said the sergeant.

"He turned up towards the Square."

"Did he seem to hurry?"

asked the inspector.

"Rather," replied the reporter.

"As soon as you were inside, he went off like a lamplighter.

You won't catch him now."

"We don't want to catch him," the detective rejoined gruffly; then, backing out of earshot of the eager pressman, he said in a lower tone: "That was Mr. Schönberg, beyond a doubt, and it is clear that he has some reason for making himself scarce; so I shall consider myself justified in opening that note."

He suited the action to the word, and, having cut the envelope open with official neatness, drew out the enclosure.

"My hat!"

he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon the contents.

"What in creation is this?

It isn't shorthand, but what the deuce is it?"

He handed the document to Thorndyke, who, having held it up to the light and felt the paper critically, proceeded to examine it with keen interest.

It consisted of a single half-sheet of thin notepaper, both sides of which were covered with strange, crabbed characters, written with a brownish-black ink in continuous lines, without any spaces to indicate the divisions into words; and, but for the modern material which bore the writing, it might have been a portion of some ancient manuscript or forgotten codex.

"What do you make of it, Doctor?"

inquired the inspector anxiously, after a pause, during which Thorndyke had scrutinized the strange writing with knitted brows.

"Not a great deal," replied Thorndyke.

"The character is the Moabite or Phoenician--primitive Semitic, in fact--and reads from right to left.

The language I take to be Hebrew.

At any rate, I can find no Greek words, and I see here a group of letters which _may_ form one of the few Hebrew words that I know--the word _badim_, 'lies.'

But you had better get it deciphered by an expert."

"If it is Hebrew," said Badger, "we can manage it all right.

There are plenty of Jews at our disposal."

"You had much better take the paper to the British Museum," said Thorndyke, "and submit it to the keeper of the Phoenician antiquities for decipherment."

Inspector Badger smiled a foxy smile as he deposited the paper in his pocket-book.

"We'll see what we can make of it ourselves first," he said; "but many thanks for your advice, all the same, Doctor.

No, Mr. James, I can't give you any information just at present; you had better apply at the hospital."

"I suspect," said Thorndyke, as we took our way homewards, "that Mr. James has collected enough material for his purpose already.

He must have followed us from the hospital, and I have no doubt that he has his report, with 'full details,' mentally arranged at this moment.

And I am not sure that he didn't get a peep at the mysterious paper, in spite of the inspector's precautions."

"By the way," I said, "what do you make of the document?"

"A cipher, most probably," he replied.

"It is written in the primitive Semitic alphabet, which, as you know, is practically identical with primitive Greek.

It is written from right to left, like the Phoenician, Hebrew, and Moabite, as well as the earliest Greek, inscriptions.

The paper is common cream-laid notepaper, and the ink is ordinary indelible Chinese ink, such as is used by draughtsmen.

Those are the facts, and without further study of the document itself, they don't carry us very far."

"Why do you think it is a cipher rather than a document in straightforward Hebrew?"

"Because it is obviously a secret message of some kind.

Now, every educated Jew knows more or less Hebrew, and, although he is able to read and write only the modern square Hebrew character, it is so easy to transpose one alphabet into another that the mere language would afford no security.

Therefore, I expect that, when the experts translate this document, the translation or transliteration will be a mere farrago of unintelligible nonsense.

But we shall see, and meanwhile the facts that we have offer several interesting suggestions which are well worth consideration."

"As, for instance--?"

"Now, my dear Jervis," said Thorndyke, shaking an admonitory forefinger at me, "don't, I pray you, give way to mental indolence.

You have these few facts that I have mentioned.

Consider them separately and collectively, and in their relation to the circumstances.

Don't attempt to suck my brain when you have an excellent brain of your own to suck."

On the following morning the papers fully justified my colleague's opinion of Mr. James.

All the events which had occurred, as well as a number that had not, were given in the fullest and most vivid detail, a lengthy reference being made to the paper "found on the person of the dead anarchist," and "written in a private shorthand or cryptogram."

The report concluded with the gratifying--though untrue--statement that "in this intricate and important case, the police have wisely secured the assistance of Dr. John Thorndyke, to whose acute intellect and vast experience the portentous cryptogram will doubtless soon deliver up its secret."

"Very flattering," laughed Thorndyke, to whom I read the extract on his return from the hospital, "but a little awkward if it should induce our friends to deposit a few trifling mementoes in the form of nitro-compounds on our main staircase or in the cellars.

By the way, I met Superintendent Miller on London Bridge.

The 'cryptogram,' as Mr. James calls it, has set Scotland Yard in a mighty ferment."

"Naturally.

What have they done in the matter?"

"They adopted my suggestion, after all, finding that they could make nothing of it themselves, and took it to the British Museum.

The Museum people referred them to Professor Poppelbaum, the great palæographer, to whom they accordingly submitted it."

"Did he express any opinion about it?"

"Yes, provisionally.

After a brief examination, he found it to consist of a number of Hebrew words sandwiched between apparently meaningless groups of letters.

He furnished the Superintendent off-hand with a translation of the words, and Miller forthwith struck off a number of hectograph copies of it, which he has distributed among the senior officials of his department; so that at present"--here Thorndyke gave vent to a soft chuckle--"Scotland Yard is engaged in a sort of missing word--or, rather, missing sense--competition.

Miller invited me to join in the sport, and to that end presented me with one of the hectograph copies on which to exercise my wits, together with a photograph of the document."

"And shall you?"

I asked.

"Not I," he replied, laughing.

"In the first place, I have not been formally consulted, and consequently am a passive, though interested, spectator.

In the second place, I have a theory of my own which I shall test if the occasion arises.

But if you would like to take part in the competition, I am authorized to show you the photograph and the translation.

I will pass them on to you, and I wish you joy of them."

He handed me the photograph and a sheet of paper that he had just taken from his pocket-book, and watched me with grim amusement as I read out the first few lines.

[Illustration: THE CIPHER.

] "Woe, city, lies, robbery, prey, noise, whip, rattling, wheel, horse, chariot, day, darkness, gloominess, clouds, darkness, morning, mountain, people, strong, fire, them, flame."

"It doesn't look very promising at first sight," I remarked.

"What is the Professor's theory?"

"His theory--provisionally, of course--is that the words form the message, and the groups of letters represent mere filled-up spaces between the words."

"But surely," I protested, "that would be a very transparent device."

Thorndyke laughed.

"There is a childlike simplicity about it," said he, "that is highly attractive--but discouraging.

It is much more probable that the words are dummies, and that the letters contain the message.

Or, again, the solution may lie in an entirely different direction.

But listen!

Is that cab coming here?"

It was.

It drew up opposite our chambers, and a few moments later a brisk step ascending the stairs heralded a smart rat-tat at our door.

Flinging open the latter, I found myself confronted by a well-dressed stranger, who, after a quick glance at me, peered inquisitively over my shoulder into the room.

"I am relieved, Dr. Jervis," said he, "to find you and Dr. Thorndyke at home, as I have come on somewhat urgent professional business.

My name," he continued, entering in response to my invitation, "is Barton, but you don't know me, though I know you both by sight.

I have come to ask you if one of you--or, better still, both--could come to-night and see my brother."

"That," said Thorndyke, "depends on the circumstances and on the whereabouts of your brother."

"The circumstances," said Mr. Barton, "are, in my opinion, highly suspicious, and I will place them before you--of course, in strict confidence."

Thorndyke nodded and indicated a chair.

"My brother," continued Mr. Barton, taking the profferred seat, "has recently married for the second time.

His age is fifty-five, and that of his wife twenty-six, and I may say that the marriage has been--well, by no means a success.

Now, within the last fortnight, my brother has been attacked by a mysterious and extremely painful affection of the stomach, to which his doctor seems unable to give a name.

It has resisted all treatment hitherto.

Day by day the pain and distress increase, and I feel that, unless something decisive is done, the end cannot be far off."

"Is the pain worse after taking food?"

inquired Thorndyke.

"That's just it!"

exclaimed our visitor.

"I see what is in your mind, and it has been in mine, too; so much so that I have tried repeatedly to obtain samples of the food that he is taking.

And this morning I succeeded."

Here he took from his pocket a wide-mouthed bottle, which, disengaging from its paper wrappings, he laid on the table.

"When I called, he was taking his breakfast of arrowroot, which he complained had a gritty taste, supposed by his wife to be due to the sugar.

Now I had provided myself with this bottle, and, during the absence of his wife, I managed unobserved to convey a portion of the arrowroot that he had left into it, and I should be greatly obliged if you would examine it and tell me if this arrowroot contains anything that it should not."

He pushed the bottle across to Thorndyke, who carried it to the window, and, extracting a small quantity of the contents with a glass rod, examined the pasty mass with the aid of a lens; then, lifting the bell-glass cover from the microscope, which stood on its table by the window, he smeared a small quantity of the suspected matter on to a glass slip, and placed it on the stage of the instrument.

"I observe a number of crystalline particles in this," he said, after a brief inspection, "which have the appearance of arsenious acid."

"Ah!"

ejaculated Mr. Barton, "just what I feared.

But are you certain?"

"No," replied Thorndyke; "but the matter is easily tested."

He pressed the button of the bell that communicated with the laboratory, a summons that brought the laboratory assistant from his lair with characteristic promptitude.

"Will you please prepare a Marsh's apparatus, Polton," said Thorndyke.

"I have a couple ready, sir," replied Polton.

"Then pour the acid into one and bring it to me, with a tile."

As his familiar vanished silently, Thorndyke turned to Mr. Barton.

"Supposing we find arsenic in this arrowroot, as we probably shall, what do you want us to do?"

"I want you to come and see my brother," replied our client.

"Why not take a note from me to his doctor?"

"No, no; I want you to come--I should like you both to come--and put a stop at once to this dreadful business.

Consider!

It's a matter of life and death.

You won't refuse!

I beg you not to refuse me your help in these terrible circumstances."

"Well," said Thorndyke, as his assistant reappeared, "let us first see what the test has to tell us."

Polton advanced to the table, on which he deposited a small flask, the contents of which were in a state of brisk effervescence, a bottle labelled "calcium hypochlorite," and a white porcelain tile.

The flask was fitted with a safety-funnel and a glass tube drawn out to a fine jet, to which Polton cautiously applied a lighted match.

Instantly there sprang from the jet a tiny, pale violet flame.

Thorndyke now took the tile, and held it in the flame for a few seconds, when the appearance of the surface remained unchanged save for a small circle of condensed moisture.

His next proceeding was to thin the arrowroot with distilled water until it was quite fluid, and then pour a small quantity into the funnel.

It ran slowly down the tube into the flask, with the bubbling contents of which it became speedily mixed.

Almost immediately a change began to appear in the character of the flame, which from a pale violet turned gradually to a sickly blue, while above it hung a faint cloud of white smoke.

Once more Thorndyke held the tile above the jet, but this time, no sooner had the pallid flame touched the cold surface of the porcelain, than there appeared on the latter a glistening black stain.

"That is pretty conclusive," observed Thorndyke, lifting the stopper out of the reagent bottle, "but we will apply the final test."

He dropped a few drops of the hypochlorite solution on to the tile, and immediately the black stain faded away and vanished.

"We can now answer your question, Mr. Barton," said he, replacing the stopper as he turned to our client.

"The specimen that you brought us certainly contains arsenic, and in very considerable quantities."

"Then," exclaimed Mr. Barton, starting from his chair, "you will come and help me to rescue my brother from this dreadful peril.

Don't refuse me, Dr. Thorndyke, for mercy's sake, don't refuse."

Thorndyke reflected for a moment.

"Before we decide," said he, "we must see what engagements we have."

With a quick, significant glance at me, he walked into the office, whither I followed in some bewilderment, for I knew that we had no engagements for the evening.

"Now, Jervis," said Thorndyke, as he closed the office door, "what are we to do?"

"We must go, I suppose," I replied.

"It seems a pretty urgent case."

"It does," he agreed.

"Of course, the man may be telling the truth, after all."

"You don't think he is, then?"

"No. It is a plausible tale, but there is too much arsenic in that arrowroot.

Still, I think I ought to go.

It is an ordinary professional risk.

But there is no reason why you should put your head into the noose."

"Thank you," said I, somewhat huffily.

"I don't see what risk there is, but if any exists I claim the right to share it."

"Very well," he answered with a smile, "we will both go.

I think we can take care of ourselves."

He re-entered the sitting-room, and announced his decision to Mr. Barton, whose relief and gratitude were quite pathetic.

"But," said Thorndyke, "you have not yet told us where your brother lives."

"Rexford," was the reply--"Rexford, in Essex.

It is an out-of-the-way place, but if we catch the seven-fifteen train from Liverpool Street, we shall be there in an hour and a half."

"And as to the return?

You know the trains, I suppose?"

"Oh yes," replied our client; "I will see that you don't miss your train back."

"Then I will be with you in a minute," said Thorndyke; and, taking the still-bubbling flask, he retired to the laboratory, whence he returned in a few minutes carrying his hat and overcoat.

The cab which had brought our client was still waiting, and we were soon rattling through the streets towards the station, where we arrived in time to furnish ourselves with dinner-baskets and select our compartment at leisure.

During the early part of the journey our companion was in excellent spirits.

He despatched the cold fowl from the basket and quaffed the rather indifferent claret with as much relish as if he had not had a single relation in the world, and after dinner he became genial to the verge of hilarity.

But, as time went on, there crept into his manner a certain anxious restlessness.

He became silent and preoccupied, and several times furtively consulted his watch.

"The train is confoundedly late!"

he exclaimed irritably.

"Seven minutes behind time already!"

"A few minutes more or less are not of much consequence," said Thorndyke.

"No, of course not; but still--Ah, thank Heaven, here we are!"

He thrust his head out of the off-side window, and gazed eagerly down the line; then, leaping to his feet, he bustled out on to the platform while the train was still moving.

Even as we alighted a warning bell rang furiously on the up-platform, and as Mr. Barton hurried us through the empty booking-office to the outside of the station, the rumble of the approaching train could be heard above the noise made by our own train moving off.

"My carriage doesn't seem to have arrived yet," exclaimed Mr. Barton, looking anxiously up the station approach.

"If you will wait here a moment, I will go and make inquiries."

He darted back into the booking-office and through it on to the platform, just as the up-train roared into the station.

Thorndyke followed him with quick but stealthy steps, and, peering out of the booking-office door, watched his proceedings; then he turned and beckoned to me.

"There he goes," said he, pointing to an iron footbridge that spanned the line; and, as I looked, I saw, clearly defined against the dim night sky, a flying figure racing towards the "up" side.

It was hardly two-thirds across when the guard's whistle sang out its shrill warning.

"Quick, Jervis," exclaimed Thorndyke; "she's off!"

He leaped down on to the line, whither I followed instantly, and, crossing the rails, we clambered up together on to the foot-board opposite an empty first-class compartment.

Thorndyke's magazine knife, containing, among other implements, a railway-key, was already in his hand.

The door was speedily unlocked, and, as we entered, Thorndyke ran through and looked out on to the platform.

"Just in time!"

he exclaimed.

"He is in one of the forward compartments."

He relocked the door, and, seating himself, proceeded to fill his pipe.

"And now," said I, as the train moved out of the station, "perhaps you will explain this little comedy."

"With pleasure," he replied, "if it needs any explanation.

But you can hardly have forgotten Mr. James's flattering remarks in his report of the Greek Street incident, clearly giving the impression that the mysterious document was in my possession.

When I read that, I knew I must look out for some attempt to recover it, though I hardly expected such promptness.

Still, when Mr. Barton called without credentials or appointment, I viewed him with some suspicion.

That suspicion deepened when he wanted us both to come.

It deepened further when I found an impossible quantity of arsenic in his sample, and it gave place to certainty when, having allowed him to select the trains by which we were to travel, I went up to the laboratory and examined the time-table; for I then found that the last train for London left Rexford ten minutes after we were due to arrive.

Obviously this was a plan to get us both safely out of the way while he and some of his friends ransacked our chambers for the missing document."

"I see; and that accounts for his extraordinary anxiety at the lateness of the train.

But why did you come, if you knew it was a 'plant'?"