The Collected Works of Jules Verne: 36 Novels and Short Stories (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics)

by Jules Verne

  "That simply proves that the basis of the document is a number. It shows _à priori_ that each letter is modified in virtue of the ciphers of the number and according to the place which it occupies."

  "And why?"

  "Because in no language will you find words with three consecutive repetitions of the letter _h."_

  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 h
ad 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.

  CHAPTER XIV. CHANCE!

  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!

  This idea had taken possession of Judge Jarriquez's brain at the end of the first day. Suppressed frenzy consumed him, and kept him in a perpetual heat. His whole house trembled; his servants, black or white, dared not come near him. Fortunately he was a bachelor; had there been a Madame Jarriquez she would have had a very uncomfortable time of it. Never had a problem so taken possession of this oddity, and he had thoroughly made up his mind to get at the solution, even if his head exploded like an overheated boiler under the tension of its vapor.

  It was perfectly clear to the mind of the worthy magistrate that the key to the document was a number, composed of two or more ciphers, but what this number was all investigation seemed powerless to discover.

  This was the enterprise on which Jarriquez, in quite a fury, was engaged, and during this 28th of August he brought all his faculties to bear on it, and worked away almost superhumanly.

  To arrive at the number by chance, he said, was to lose himself in millions of combinations, which would absorb the life of a first-rate calculator. But if he could in no respect reckon on chance, was it impossible to proceed by reasoning? Decidedly not! And so it was "to reason till he became unreasoning" that Judge Jarriquez gave himself up after vainly seeking repose in a few hours of sleep. He who ventured in upon him at this moment, after braving the formal defenses which protected his solitude, would have found him, as on the day before, in his study, before his desk, with the document under his eyes, the thousands of letters of which seemed all jumbled together and flying about his head.

  "Ah!" he exclaimed, "why did not the scoundrel who wrote this separate the words in this paragraph? We might--we will try--but no! However, if there is anything here about the murder and the robbery, two or three words there must be in it--'arrayal,' 'diamond,' 'Tijuco,' 'Dacosta,' and others; and in putting down their cryptological equivalents the number could be arrived at. But there is nothing--not a single break!--not one word by itself! One word of two hundred and seventy-six letters! I hope the wretch may be blessed two hundred and seventy-six times for complicating his system in this way! He ought to be hanged two hundred and seventy-six times!"

  And a violent thump with his fist on the document emphasized this charitable wish.

  "But," continued the magistrate, "if I cannot find one of the words in the body of the document, I might at least try my hand at the beginning and end of each paragraph. There may be a chance there that I ought not to miss."

  And impressed with this idea Judge Jarriquez successively tried if the letters which commenced or finished the different paragraphs could be made to correspond with those which formed the most important word, which was sure to be found somewhre, that of _Dacosta_.

  He could do nothing of the kind.

  In fact, to take only the last paragraph with which he began, the formula was:

  P = D h = a y = c f = o s = s l = t y = a

  Now, at the very first letter Jarriquez was stopped in his calculations, for the difference in alphabetical position between the _d_ and the _p_ gave him not one cipher, but two, namely, 12, and in this kind of cryptograph only one letter can take the place of another.

  It was the same for the seven last letters of the paragraph, _p s u v j h d,_ of which the series also commences with a _p,_ and which in no case could stand for the _d_ in _Dacosta,_ because these letters were in like manner twelve spaces apart.

  So it was not his name that figured here.

  The same observation applies to the words _arrayal_ and _Tijuco,_ which were successively tried, but whose construction did not correspond with the cryptographic series.

  After he had got so far, Judge Jarriquez, with his head nearly splitting, arose and paced his office, went for fresh air to the window, and gave utterance to a growl, at the
noise of which a flock of hummingbirds, murmuring among the foliage of a mimosa tree, betook themselves to flight. Then he returned to the document.

  He picked it up and turned it over and over.

  "The humbug! the rascal!" he hissed; "it will end by driving me mad! But steady! Be calm! Don't let our spirits go down! This is not the time!"

  And then, having refreshed himself by giving his head a thorough sluicing with cold water:

  "Let us try another way," he said, "and as I cannot hit upon the number from the arrangement of the letters, let us see what number the author of the document would have chosen in confessing that he was the author of the crime at Tijuco."

  This was another method for the magistrate to enter upon, and maybe he was right, for there was a certain amount of logic about it.

  "And first let us try a date! Why should not the culprit have taken the date of the year in which Dacosta, the innocent man he allowed to be sentenced in his own place, was born? Was he likely to forget a number which was so important to him? Then Joam Dacosta was born in 1804. Let us see what 1804 will give us as a cryptographical number."

  And Judge Jarriquez wrote the first letters of the paragraph, and putting over them the number 1804 repeated thrice, he obtained

  1804 1804 1804 _phyj slyd dqfd_

  Then in counting up the spaces in alphabetical order, he obtained

  _s.yf rdy. cif._

  And this was meaningless! And he wanted three letters which he had to replace by points, because the ciphers, 8, 4, and 4, which command the three letters, _h, d,_ and _d,_ do not give corresponding letters in ascending the series.

  "That is not it again!" exclaimed Jarriquez. "Let us try another number."

  And he asked himself, if instead of this first date the author of the document had not rather selected the date of the year in which the crime was committed.

  This was in 1826.

  And so proceeding as above, he obtained.

  1826 1826 1826 _phyj slyd dqfd_

  and that gave

  _o.vd rdv. cid._