him to try his skill on this one before he reads further.
The circumstances, too, seemed as puzzling as the writing itself. Why, if any person wished to send a note and a key in a closed envelope, should he take the trouble to pack the note inside the key? Why, especially when the note was already written in so baffling a cypher? Whither had this ragged messenger been going with the mysterious package, and who had sent him, and why?
Guessing and musing, I reached home, and found that Hewitt had returned before me. I made my way into his office, and came on him sitting at his desk with a large lens, attentively examining a broken brass padlock.
"Am I bothering you?" I asked. "Are you on the bond robbery, now?"
Martin Hewitt nodded, with a jerk of the hand toward the padlock. "It's a tough job," he said, "and I shall shut myself up presently and think hard over it; just now I can't see my way into it at all. But what have you got there?"
"Never mind," I said, "you're too busy now. I came across something very odd at the hospital, which I thought would interest you—that's all."
"Very well, let me see it. I haven't begun my bout of cogitation yet. Show me."
