Читать книгу The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET - Scott Mariani, Scott Mariani - Страница 69

The excitement of his discovery gave Ben a new surge of energy. He flipped through the notebook pages, looking for more messages that could cast further light on what he’d found. At the bottom of the page where he’d found the coded word TRESOR was a block of three more encrypted words.

22E 18T 22 E 18I

26

T12 U20 A18

22E 18T 22E 18 I–26–T12 U20 A18. The pattern was looking familiar now–but when he applied his key to crack the message, his heart sank.

There was no way to create meaning out of it. COEICSEW A IHVDRE?

All right, you old bastard, you can’t throw me off that easily. Beginning to understand the mischievous tricks Fulcanelli seemed to enjoy playing, he reversed the key, now running the numbers forwards along the key line and the alternating alphabet backwards. This threw up a very different reading.

Running across the line and scavenging odd letters from the vertical columns, he was suddenly able to form intelligible words in French.