Jules Verne

“ If the meeting-place of the conspirators, hitherto so obstinately kept hidden, seemed to him to be suspected, what better means of baffling suspicion could be devised than to admit within it an accountant merely busying himself with accounts? ”

“ Under such circumstances to introduce a stranger into the house where such important matters were in hand, on the very eve of a rising, of which the signal might be sent at any moment, might seem an act of strange imprudence. ”

“ You are not so clever in hiding your joy as yon are your grief, and you'll betray yourself, if—”
“Shut up,” answered Sarcany, “and to work without losing a moment.”
“Before we feed?”
“Before we feed.”
And then Sarcany picked up a card of moderate thickness. He cut it according to his tracing so as to obtain a grating of the exact shape of his copy, not forgetting the little cross which showed the right end uppermost. Then he took a rule and divided his rectangle into thirty-six squares, all of equal size. ”

“ By means of this grating, which it would be easy to copy on a piece of ordinary card, Sarcany felt that he would have no difficulty in deciphering the fac-simile of the message then in possession of Toronthal; and so he put back the original grating among the papers, as he had found it, left Zathmar's room, left the house, and returned to his hotel.
A quarter of an hour afterward Zirone beheld him enter the room with such a triumphant air that he could not help exclaiming:
“Hallo! What is up? Take care of yourself! ”

“ It was the banker who now lost his head. Sarcany thought he had gone mad.
“Read!” said Toronthal, holding out the paper to Sarcany. “Read!”
“Read!”
“Yes! don't you see that, before they used the grating, Count Sandorfs correspondents wrote the letter backward?”
Sarcany took the paper, and this is what he read, proceeding from the last letter to the first:
“Tout est pret. Au premier signal que vous nous enverrez de Trieste, tous se leveront en masse pour l'independence de la Hongrie. Xrzah.”
“And the four [4] last letters?” he asked. ”

“ The disposition of the squares with openings, which allowed the paper on which he traced the contours of the chart to be seen, was—in the first line, three openings occupying places 2, 4 and 6; in the second line, an opening occupying place 5; in the third line, an opening occupying places 3; in the fourth line, two openings occupying places 2 and 5; in the fifth line, an opening occupying place 6; in the sixth line, an opening occupying place 4. ”