ns, the solver of amusing problems, the answerer of
charades, rebuses, logogryphs, and such things, was at last in his true
element.

At the thought that the document might perhaps contain the justification
of Joam Dacosta, he felt all the instinct of the analyst aroused. Here,
before his very eyes, was a cryptogram! And so from that moment he
thought of nothing but how to discover its meaning, and it is scarcely
necessary to say that he made up his mind to work at it continuously,
even if he forgot to eat or to drink.

After the departure of the young people, Judge Jarriquez installed
himself in his study. His door, barred against every one, assured him of
several hours of perfect solitude. His spectacles were on his nose,
his snuff-box on the table. He took a good pinch so as to develop the
finesse and sagacity of his mind. He picked up the document and became
absorbed in meditation, which soon became materialized in the shape of a
monologue. The worthy justice was one of those unreserved men who think
more easily aloud than to himself. "Let us proceed with method," he
said. "No method, no logic; no logic, no success."

Then, taking the document, he ran through it from beginning to end,
without understanding it in the least.

The document contained a hundred lines, which were divided into half a
dozen paragraphs.

"Hum!" said the judge, after a little reflection; "to try every
paragraph, one after the other, would be to lose precious time, and be
of no use. I had better select one of these paragraphs, and take the one
which is likely to prove the most interesting. Which of them would do
this better than the last, where the recital of the whole affair is
probably summed up? Proper names might put me on the track, among others
that of Joam Dacosta; and if he had anything to do with this document,
his name will evidently not be absent from its concluding paragraph."

The magistrate's reasoning was logical, and he was decidedly right in
bringing all his resources to bear in the first place on the gist of the
cryptogram as contained in its last paragraph.

Here is the paragraph, for it is necessary to again bring it before the
eyes of the reader so as to show how an analyst set to work to discover
its meaning.

_"P h y j s l y d d q f d z x g a s g z z q q e h x g k f n d r x u j u
g I o c y t d x v k s b x h h u y p o h d v y r y m h u h p u y d k j o
x p h e t o z l s l e t n p m v f f o v p d p a j x h y y n o