d do? The walls of the room, of solid
brick, he could not hope to penetrate. The door, of iron, a dozen men
could not break through. He forced his shoulder against it, and laughed
bitterly as he realized that with all his strength he could not even
cause it to give the fraction of an inch. He determined to get the snuff
box--to examine it--reckless of his fear of being observed. In a moment
he had snatched the opera hat from the corner, torn out the lining, and
held the box in his hand.

He paused for a moment, listening intently. Everything about him was
still. There were no sounds from the laboratory above. He remembered now
that he had not heard Hartmann and his companion ascend the iron
stairway. Doubtless they had returned to the main building by means of
the lower corridor.

In a moment he had hung the torn opera hat over the knob of the door, to
prevent anyone from observing him through the keyhole, and going
directly beneath the bracket which held the electric globe, proceeded to
examine the box carefully.

The first thought that came to his mind, filled him with a strange
feeling of hope. He had no more than glanced at the top of the box when
he saw what he had previously failed to observe, that the circle of
pearls upon its top formed a rosary, which was completed by the ivory
cross in the center. The Rosary! Why had this song been so persistently
and continuously played? Was it for him, some message, indeed, intended
to show him a way out of his difficulties? Yet if so, to what did it
lead? There was a rosary upon the top of the box, it is true, but what
of it? Absently he began to count the pearls, hardly realizing what he
was doing. One of them, he noted, the one at the very top of the cross,
was larger than the others, and he started here, slowly counting around
the circumference of the box. His eyes pained him frightfully and twice
he lost count and had to begin all over again, but on the third attempt
he discovered that the pearls numbered twenty-six. Even yet, the
significance of this fact did not occur to him--he began to count the
pearls again, mechanically.

Then suddenly, in a flash, the thing came to him. Twenty-six
pearls--twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Evidently the box, in some
way, formed a cipher, a secret alphabet, which might be used in
correspondence, or in the preparation of important documents, yet
how--how?

With repressed eagerness he held the box more closely to the light,