The first group of figures was 253.12/4.  Turning to page two hundred and fifty-three of the Confessions, and counting from the top of that page, he found that the fourth word of the twelfth line gave him you.  The second clump of figures was 59.25/1.  The first word of the twenty-fifth line of page fifty-nine gave him will.  The third clump of figures gave him have, and the fourth gathered.  These four words, ranged in order, read:  You will have gathered.  Such a sequence of words could not arise from mere accident.  When he had got thus far Ducie knew that Platzoff’s secret would soon be a secret no longer, that in a very little while the heart of the mystery would be laid bare.

Encouraged by his success, Ducie went to work with renewed vigour, and before the clock struck one he had completed the first sentence of the MS., which ran as under:—­

     You will have gathered from the foregoing note, my dear Carlo,
     that I have something of importance to relate to you—­something
     that I am desirous of keeping a secret from everyone but yourself.

As his friend Bexell surmised, Ducie found that the groups of figures distinguished from the rest by two horizontal lines, one above and one below, as thus 58.7 14.29 368.1 209.18 43.11, were the valeurs of some proper name or other word for which there was no equivalent in the book.  Such words had to be spelt out letter by letter in the same way that complete words were picked out in other cases.  Thus the marked figures as above, when taken letter by letter, made up the word Carlo—­a name to which there was nothing similar in the Confessions.

It had been broad daylight for two hours before Captain Ducie grew tired of his task and went to bed.  He went on with it next night, and every night till it was finished.  It was a task that deepened in interest as he proceeded with it.  It grew upon him to such a degree that when near the close he feigned illness, and kept his room for a whole day, so that he might the sooner get it done.

If Captain Ducie had ever amused himself with trying to imagine the nature of the secret which he had now succeeded in unravelling, the reality must have been very different from his expectations.  One gigantic thought, whose coming made him breathless for a moment, took possession of him, as a demon might have done, almost before he had finished his task, dwarfing all other thoughts by its magnitude.  It was a thought that found relief in six words only: 

“It must and shall be mine!”

CHAPTER XIII.

M. PLATZOFF’S SECRET—­CAPTAIN DUCIE’S TRANSLATION OF M. PAUL PLATZOFF’S MS.

“You will have gathered from the foregoing note, my dear Carlo, that I have something of importance to relate to you; something that I am desirous of keeping a secret from everyone but yourself.  From the same source you will have learned where to find the key by which alone the lock of my secret can be opened.