tings of famous
colonials celebrated in the English wars, and into the room. Hargrave
turned on the light and poked up the fire. Sir Henry sat down by the
table. He took out his three newspapers and laid them down before him.

"My word, Hargrave," he said, "old Arnold is a clever beggar! He cleared
the thing up clean as rain." The Baronet spread the newspapers out
before him.

"We knew here at the Criminal Investigation Department that this thing
was a cipher of some sort, because we knew about these horses. We had
caught up with this business of importing horses. We knew the shipment
was on the way as I explained to you. But we didn't know the port that
it would come into."

"Well," said the American, "did you find out?"

"My word," he cried, "old Arnold laughed in my face. 'Ach, monsieur,'
he cried, mixing up several languages, 'it is Heidel's cipher! It is
explained in the seventeenth Criminal Archive at Gratz. Attend and I
will explain it, monsieur. It is always written in two paragraphs. The
first paragraph contains the secret message, and the second paragraph
contains the key to it. Voila! This message is in two paragraphs:

"'"P.L.A. shipped nine hundred horses on freight steamer Don Carlos from
N. Y.

"'"Have the bill of lading handed over to our agent to check up."

"'The hidden message is made up of certain words and capital letters
contained in the first paragraph, while the presence of the letter t in
the second paragraph indicates the words or capital letters that count
in the first. One has only to note the numerical position of the letter
t in the second paragraph in order to know what capital letter or word
counts in the first paragraph.'"

The Baronet took out a pencil and underscored the words in the second
paragraph of the printed cipher: "Have the bill of lading handed over to
our agent to check up."

"You will observe that the second, the eighth and the eleventh words
in this paragraph begin with the letter t. Therefore, the second, the
eighth and the eleventh capital letters or words in the first paragraph
make up the hidden message."

And again with his pencil he underscored the letters of the first
paragraph of the cipher: "P.L.A. shipped nine hundred horses on freight
steamer Don Carlos from N. Y."

"So we get L, on, Don."

"London!" cried Hargrave. "The nine-hundred horses are to come into
London!"

And in his excitement he took the gold piece out of his pocket and
pitched it