Nixon brought in a telegram, and, as Mrs.Packard advanced to take it, she threw on the table the slip of paper which she had been poring over behind the curtains.
As I stepped back at Nixon's entrance I was near the table and the single glance I gave this paper as it fell showed me that it was covered with the same Hebrew-like characters of which I already possessed more than one example.

The surprise was acute, but the opportunity which came with it was one I could not let slip.

Meeting her eye as the door closed on Nixon, I pointed at the scrawl she had thrown down, and wonderingly asked her if that was what Letty had found pinned to the baby's coat.
With a surprised start, she paused in her act of opening the telegram and made a motion as if to repossess herself of this, but seeming to think better of it she confined herself to giving me a sharp look.
"Yes," was her curt assent.
I summoned up all my courage, possibly all my powers of acting.
"Why, what is there in unreadable characters like these to alarm you ?" She forgot her telegram, she forgot everything but that here was a question she must answer in a way to disarm all suspicion.
"The fact," she accentuated gravely, "that they are unreadable.

What menace may they not contain?
I am afraid of them, as I am of all obscure and mystifying things." In a flash, at the utterance of these words, I saw, my way to the fulfillment of the wish which had actuated me from the instant my eyes had fallen on this paper.
"Do you think it a cipher ?" I asked.
"A cipher ?" "I have always been good at puzzles.

I wish you would let me see what I can make out of these rows of broken squares and topsy-turvy angles.
Perhaps I can prove to you that they contain nothing to alarm you." The gleam of something almost ferocious sprang into this gentle woman's eyes.