The next few days passed in a fever of impatience for Margaret. Each afternoon she besieged the twins for news of Corinne and her progress with the "cipher." And every day their report was about the same:
"She thinks she's on the right track, but she can't tell surely yet. It's pretty difficult, you know, and Corinne has to study and do other things, too, besides puzzling over that."
"But has she found out any of the letters?" Margaret would demand.
"She thinks so, but she can't be sure till she's made them all out definitely." And Bess would add, "Now, do be reasonable, Miss President! Your secretary is doing her very best. But if you don't think she's a success, you54 might take the job away from her and give it to me!" At which Margaret would chuckle derisively.
Truth to tell, the twins were almost as anxious as she for a solution of the mystery. The sudden introduction of this new element into their hitherto wholly athletic and unimaginative existences, they found, to their surprise, even more diverting than the most exciting tennis-match or basket-ball struggle. About a week after Corinne's first visit, all three burst in breathlessly upon Margaret, one cold afternoon, and transported her to the seventh heaven of delight with this exciting news: "Corinne's got it, at last! Haven't you, Corinne!
"Yes," she admitted, giving Margaret a big hug of greeting, "I think I've puzzled out most of the letters now, and I've even worked out a few of the first sentences—"
"Yes, and she says they're awfully strange!" interrupted the twins, in chorus. "And she wouldn't tell us a word, though we begged her hard!"
55
"Well, Miss President," laughed Corinne, "it seemed to me that this was a thing to be revealed only in a solemn meeting of the club and in your presence. Was I right?"
"Indeed you were!" declared Margaret. "Don't you ever tell them a thing before you've told me, will you?"
"I won't!" promised Corinne. "It shall be the first rule of our society,—no discoveries told to ordinary members before the president hears them! And now let's get to business!" They all drew up before the cozy open fire.
"Oh, isn't this lovely!" sighed Corinne. She opened the old account-book and placed beside it a paper on which she had written the letters of the alphabet, and next to each the sign that appeared to stand for it.
"I had the worst time puzzling this out!" she said. "I worked and worked over it and changed them all around nearly forty times before I struck anything that seemed just right. But now I guess we've got it, at last! I'm sure 'a' is this perpendicular straight line, 'b' the rectangle with the bottom missing, 'c' the56 horizontal parallels—and so on. Now, as I've said, I've made out the first few sentences and they seem awfully strange! Here they are." She turned the paper over and read:
"'This is a house of mystery, and strange, unaccountable dread. I feel daily that something menaces me—that my life is not safe.'" A delicious shudder ran through the listening group.
"Oh, isn't this gorgeous!" half whispered Margaret. "It fills me with—with thrills!" Corinne went on:
"'Therefore I am keeping this little journal from time to time. Should aught evil befall me in this strange land and among these unfriendly people, at least I will leave some record whereby my own kin may trace my fate, perchance, at some future day. I dare not write this out in good English lest it be discovered by those who hate me. So I have invented this secret code, whereof none save myself knows the key. This book I found in the library unused and I have taken it. I trust it will be counted no act of thievery. I keep it57 hidden in the false bottom of my trunk. The key of the code I have put in another spot. As soon as my memory has mastered it, I will destroy it. 'Tis safer.'—And that's as far as I got!" ended Corinne.
For a moment they all sat dumb with amazement.
"What do you make of it?" exclaimed Bess. "Who is it,—a man or a woman? When was it written, and where? Why, I'm just wild to find out all about it!"
"I confess," admitted Corinne, "that I don't know what to make of it. I've puzzled and puzzled over it all day—"
"But, good gracious!" interrupted the impatient Margaret, "of course we can't make anything out of it till we've worked out some more! Come ahead! Right now! We're only wasting time talking about it!"
"That's so!" laughed Corinne. "And when we can find out right away, by getting to work! Here, Margaret! You write, while I spell the thing out!" She thrust the paper and pencil into Margaret's hands, while the twins hung58 over her as she slowly deciphered the sentences:
"'Would—that—I—had—never—left—my—peaceful—Bermuda—'" Corinne dropped the book suddenly.
"Bermuda!—I've been there! Oh, this is fine!"
"Have you been to Bermuda?" exclaimed Margaret and the twins, with awe. "When?"
"Last winter, with Father. He was ill, and we stayed six weeks. It was heavenly!"
"You lucky girl!" sighed Margaret. "But, go on! We must find out more, right away!"
Corinne took up the book and began anew: "'But since I did wilfully abandon my home—aye!—and Grandfather, too, even though he does not love me—'"
"'Grandfather'?" interrupted Bess. "He can't be very old, if he has a grandfather living!"
"Doesn't seem likely," murmured Corinne, spelling out another word under her breath, then continuing:
"'—and did in venturesome manner contribute59 my aid to the plot against my country, I must pay the price, I fear. I am watched constantly. I take no walk abroad, even in the grounds, but I feel that I am spied upon. The affection of Madame M. has changed to dislike. She, too, suspects me. 'Tis hard for a lass of but sixteen—'"
"A lass!" shouted all four. "And only sixteen!"
"Oh, girls!" cried Corinne, rocking back and forth in her excitement. "She's just like ourselves—only a year older than I am! What can be the trouble—or rather, what could have been the trouble with the poor little thing?"
"Go on! go on!" ordered Margaret, with glistening eyes. "Let's find out!"
Corinne snatched up the book again: "'to be alone and friendless in a strange land and to feel so constantly in danger. But I must not complain. I brought it on myself. As I have said, Madame M. no longer appears to care for me. She was so cordial and affectionate at first, partly for Aunt's sake, no doubt, and partly because she really seemed to like me.60 But since the day when I spoke to Lady ——, at the time her coach broke down, Madame M. has regarded me only with suspicion.'"
"I wish I knew who 'Madame M.' was, and 'Lady Blank,'" put in Margaret. "How mysterious she is—never writing out their full names!"
"Perhaps she didn't dare," said Corinne. "You see, she says she's in danger. But, oh!—listen to what she says next!—'There is something which weighs right heavily on my conscience. 'Tis the matter of the sapphire signet. But of that I will speak later.'"
"The sapphire signet!" breathed the twins in a tone of hushed awe. "Doesn't it sound rich and gorgeous and—and mysterious! What's a 'signet,' anyway?"
"I think," explained Corinne, "that it's another name for a seal—something with a monogram or crest or coat-of-arms, used to stamp on sealing-wax. Father has one set in a ring—not a sapphire though—just some ordinary stone with his monogram on. He61 never uses it, but he told me once that in former times they were used a great deal when letters were only sealed with wax. Oh! what do you suppose this matter of the sapphire signet is all about! Isn't it wildly exciting? But, goodness!" glancing at her watch, "it's awfully late again, and I must get home. The time goes so fast, and it takes so long to puzzle all this out!"
"I have an idea!" began Margaret, hesitatingly. "Suppose I do the puzzling out and write it down, now that Corinne has discovered the way. I have so much time that I don't know what to do with, and this would be so interesting! Then, when we meet again in a couple of days, I could read it right off to you without any trouble. We could get on so much faster!"
"I think that's splendid!" agreed Corinne. "And much as I'm crazy to find out right away what happens, I'd rather wait and hear a lot of it read at once. Wouldn't you all?"
"Yes, that's a good scheme," admitted Bess,62 "except for one thing. How about Sarah? You'd have a hard time hiding this from her, Margaret, and you know she simply mustn't find out!" For a moment they all looked "stumped." The obstacle seemed almost insuperable, when Jess had a brilliant idea.
"Tell you what! We'll hide the thing in the bookcase, way back here behind these old encyclopedias,—the account-book, the paper, and a brand-new fat blank-book that I'll give you to do all the copying in. You can tell Sarah to wheel you over to the bookcase because you want to read. Then, when she's out of the way, you can work to your heart's content. But do hide everything whenever you hear her coming!"
"Oh, good! Just the thing! Sarah'll never suspect in the world!" laughed Margaret. "And there's no difficulty about hearing her coming—she weighs two hundred and fifty pounds!"
"Well, that's settled then," said Corinne, "and I'll have to go. But I'm coming day after to-morrow, if I can manage to wait.63 It's better than the loveliest book I ever read! Good-by!"
When she had gone, the three sisters sat and looked at one another with an expression of sheer wonder on their faces. In one week, through the agency of this same "queer," quiet girl, their absolutely uninteresting and commonplace lives had been transformed into an unbelievable round of mystery and discovery and romance. And the strange part of it was that this same mystery had been lying here—right under their noses, so to speak—all these years, and they had never even suspected it, while she had been in the house scarcely half an hour and had run it straight to earth! Some such thought was in Margaret's mind when she presently exclaimed:
"Isn't she just wonderful! I think she's the most interesting person I ever met in my life!"
"So do I!" echoed Jess.
"Oh, I shall just dream of this all night!" whispered Margaret. "It's the most thrilling thing I ever heard of—this puzzle-story—and64 the best of it is, it's all our own. We discovered it! To-morrow you may envy me, girls, for I'll be finding out—all about the sapphire signet, and what happened next!"