re 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.

"I was induced by two reasons to make us