Jules Verne (33 page)

Manoel was struck with the argument; he thought about it, and, in short,
had no reply to make.

"And had I made the observation sooner," continued the magistrate, "I
might have spared myself a good deal of trouble and a headache which
extends from my occiput to my sinciput."

"But, sir," asked Manoel, who felt the little hope vanishing on which he
had hitherto rested, "what do you mean by a cipher?"

"Tell me a number."

"Any number you like."

"Give me an example and you will understand the explanation better."

Judge Jarriquez sat down at the table, took up a sheet of paper and a
pencil, and said:

"Now, Mr. Manoel, let us choose a sentence by chance, the first that
comes; for instance:

Judge Jarriquez has an ingenious mind.

I write this phrase so as to space the letters different and I get:

Judgejarriquezhasaningeniousmind.

"That done," said the magistrate, to whom the phrase seemed to contain
a proposition beyond dispute, looking Manoel straight in the face,
"suppose I take a number by chance, so as to give a cryptographic form
to this natural succession of words; suppose now this word is composed
of three ciphers, and let these ciphers be 2, 3, and 4. Now on the line
below I put the number 234, and repeat it as many times as are necessary
to get to the end of the phrase, and so that every cipher comes
underneath a letter. This is what we get:

J u d g e j a r r I q u e z h a s a n I n g e n I o u s m I n d
2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4

And now, Mr. Manoel, replacing each letter by the letter in advance of it in
alphabetical order according to the value of the cipher, we get:

j
+ 2 =
l
u
+ 3 =
x
d
+ 4 =
h
g
+ 2 =
i
e
+ 3 =
h
j
+ 4 =
n
a
+ 2 =
c
r
+ 3 =
u
r
+ 4 =
v
i
+ 2 =
k
q
+ 3 =
t
u
+ 4 =
y
e
+ 2 =
g
a
+ 3 =
c
h
+ 4 =
t
a
+ 2 =
c
s
+ 3 =
v
a
+ 4 =
e
n
+ 2 =
p
i
+ 3 =
l
n
+ 4 =
r
g
+ 2 =
i
e
+ 3 =
h
n
+ 4 =
r
i
+ 2 =
k
o
+ 3 =
r
u
+ 4 =
y
s
+ 2 =
u
and so on.

"If, on account of the value of the ciphers which compose the number
I come to the end of the alphabet without having enough complementary
letters to deduct, I begin again at the beginning. That is what happens
at the end of my name when the
z
is replaced by the 3. As after
z
the alphabet has no more letters, I commence to count from
a,
and
so get the
c
. That done, when I get to the end of this cryptographic
system, made up of the 234—which was arbitrarily selected, do not
forget!—the phrase which you recognize above is replaced by

lxhihncuvktygclveplrihrkryupmpg.

"And now, young man, just look at it, and do you not think it is very
much like what is in the document? Well, what is the consequence? Why,
that the signification of the letters depends on a cipher which chance
puts beneath them, and the cryptographic letter which answers to a
true one is not always the same. So in this phrase the first
j
is
represented by an
l,
the second by an
n;
the first
e
by an
h,
the second b a
g,
the third by an
h;
the first
d
is represented by
an
h,
the last by a
g;
the first
u
by an
x,
the last by a
y;
the first and second
a's
by a
c,
the last by an
e;
and in my own
name one
r
is represented by a
u,
the other by a
v.
and so on. Now
do you see that if you do not know the cipher 234 you will never be able
to read the lines, and consequently if we do not know the number of the
document it remains undecipherable."

On hearing the magistrate reason with such careful logic, Manoel was at
first overwhelmed, but, raising his head, he exclaimed:

"No, sir, I will not renounce the hope of finding the number!"

"We might have done so," answered Judge Jarriquez, "if the lines of the
document had been divided into words."

"And why?"

"For this reason, young man. I think we can assume that in the last
paragraph all that is written in these earlier paragraphs is summed up.
Now I am convinced that in it will be found the name of Joam Dacosta.
Well, if the lines had been divided into words, in trying the words one
after the other—I mean the words composed of seven letters, as the name
of Dacosta is—it would not have been impossible to evolve the number
which is the key of the document."

"Will you explain to me how you ought to proceed to do that, sir?" asked
Manoel, who probably caught a glimpse of one more hope.

"Nothing can be more simple," answered the judge. "Let us take, for
example, one of the words in the sentence we have just written—my
name, if you like. It is represented in the cryptogram by this queer
succession of letters,
ncuvktygc
. Well, arranging these letters in a
column, one under the other, and then placing against them the letters
of my name and deducting one from the other the numbers of their places
in alphabetical order, I see the following result:

Between
n
and
j
we have 4 letters
—    
c
—
a
    —    2    —
—    
u
—
r
    —    3    —
—    
v
—
r
    —    4    —
—    
k
—
i
    —    2    —
—    
t
—
q
    —    3    —
—    
y
—
u
    —    4    —
—    
g
—
e
    —    2    —
—    
c
—
z
    —    3    —

"Now what is the column of ciphers made up of that we have got by this
simple operation? Look here! 423 423 423, that is to say, of repetitions
of the numbers 423, or 234, or 342."

"Yes, that is it!" answered Manoel.

"You understand, then, by this means, that in calculating the true
letter from the false, instead of the false from the true, I have been
able to discover the number with ease; and the number I was in search of
is really the 234 which I took as the key of my cryptogram."

"Well, sir!" exclaimed Manoel, "if that is so, the name of Dacosta is in
the last paragraph; and taking successively each letter of those lines
for the first of the seven letters which compose his name, we ought to
get—"

"That would be impossible," interrupted the judge, "except on one
condition."

"What is that?"

"That the first cipher of the number should happen to be the first
letter of the word Dacosta, and I think you will agree with me that that
is not probable."

"Quite so!" sighed Manoel, who, with this improbability, saw the last
chance vanish.

"And so we must trust to chance alone," continued Jarriquez, who shook
his head, "and chance does not often do much in things of this sort."

"But still," said Manoel, "chance might give us this number."

"This number," exclaimed the magistrate—"this number? But how many
ciphers is it composed of? Of two, or three, or four, or nine, or ten?
Is it made of different ciphers only or of ciphers in different order
many times repeated? Do you not know, young man, that with the ordinary
ten ciphers, using all at a time, but without any repetition, you
can make three million two hundred and sixty-eight thousand and eight
hundred different numbers, and that if you use the same cipher more than
once in the number, these millions of combinations will be enormously
increased! And do you not know that if we employ every one of the five
hundred and twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes of which the
year is composed to try at each of these numbers, it would take you six
years, and that you would want three centuries if each operation took
you an hour? No! You ask the impossible!"

"Impossible, sir?" answered Manoel. "An innocent man has been branded
as guilty, and Joam Dacosta is to lose his life and his honor while you
hold in your hands the material proof of his innocence! That is what is
impossible!"

"Ah! young man!" exclaimed Jarriquez, "who told you, after all, that
Torres did not tell a lie? Who told you that he really did have in his
hands a document written by the author of the crime? that this paper was
the document, and that this document refers to Joam Dacosta?"

"Who told me so?" repeated Manoel, and his face was hidden in his hands.

In fact, nothing could prove for certain that the document had anything
to do with the affair in the diamond province. There was, in fact,
nothing to show that it was not utterly devoid of meaning, and that it
had been imagined by Torres himself, who was as capable of selling a
false thing as a true one!

"It does not matter, Manoel," continued the judge, rising; "it does not
matter! Whatever it may be to which the document refers, I have not
yet given up discovering the cipher. After all, it is worth more than a
logogryph or a rebus!"

At these words Manoel rose, shook hands with the magistrate, and
returned to the jangada, feeling more hopeless when he went back than
when he set out.

A COMPLETE change took place in public opinion on the subject of Joam
Dacosta. To anger succeeded pity. The population no longer thronged to
the prison of Manaos to roar out cries of death to the prisoner. On
the contrary, the most forward of them in accusing him of being the
principal author of the crime of Tijuco now averred that he was not
guilty, and demanded his immediate restoration to liberty. Thus it
always is with the mob—from one extreme they run to the other. But the
change was intelligible.

The events which had happened during the last few days—the struggle
between Benito and Torres; the search for the corpse, which had
reappeared under such extraordinary circumstances; the finding of the
"indecipherable" document, if we can so call it; the information it
concealed, the assurance that it contained, or rather the wish that it
contained, the material proof of the guiltlessness of Joam Dacosta; and
the hope that it was written by the real culprit—all these things had
contributed to work the change in public opinion. What the people had
desired and impatiently demanded forty-eight hours before, they now
feared, and that was the arrival of the instructions due from Rio de
Janeiro.

These, however, were not likely to be delayed.

Joam Dacosta had been arrested on the 24th of August, and examined next
day. The judge's report was sent off on the 26th. It was now the 28th.
In three or four days more the minister would have come to a decision
regarding the convict, and it was only too certain that justice would
take its course.

There was no doubt that such would be the case. On the other hand, that
the assurance of Dacosta's innocence would appear from the document,
was not doubted by anybody, neither by his family nor by the fickle
population of Manaos, who excitedly followed the phases of this dramatic
affair.

But, on the other hand, in the eyes of disinterested or indifferent
persons who were not affected by the event, what value could be assigned
to this document? and how could they even declare that it referred to
the crime in the diamond arrayal? It existed, that was undeniable; it
had been found on the corpse of Torres, nothing could be more certain.
It could even be seen, by comparing it with the letter in which Torres
gave the information about Joam Dacosta, that the document was not in
the handwriting of the adventurer. But, as had been suggested by Judge
Jarriquez, why should not the scoundrel have invented it for the sake of
his bargain? And this was less unlikely to be the case, considering
that Torres had declined to part with it until after his marriage with
Dacosta's daughter—that is to say, when it would have been impossible
to undo an accomplished fact.

All these views were held by some people in some form, and we can quite
understand what interest the affair created. In any case, the situation
of Joam Dacosta was most hazardous. If the document were not deciphered,
it would be just the same as if it did not exist; and if the secret of
the cryptogram were not miraculously divined or revealed before the end
of the three days, the supreme sentence would inevitably be suffered by
the doomed man of Tijuco. And this miracle a man attempted to perform!
The man was Jarriquez, and he now really set to work more in the
interest of Joam Dacosta than for the satisfaction of his analytical
faculties. A complete change had also taken place in his opinion. Was
not this man, who had voluntarily abandoned his retreat at Iquitos, who
had come at the risk of his life to demand his rehabilitation at the
hands of Brazilian justice, a moral enigma worth all the others put
together? And so the judge had resolved never to leave the document
until he had discovered the cipher. He set to work at it in a fury.
He ate no more; he slept no more! All his time was passed in inventing
combinations of numbers, in forging a key to force this lock!