"Yes--and no," Mr. Skinner replied, and laid his information before
Cappy for perusal. Cappy read it all twice, then slid out to the edge
of his chair, placed his hands on his knees and looked at Mr. Skinner
over the rims of his spectacles.

"Skinner, my dear boy," he said solemnly, "this is certainly hell!
Cable the American consul in Pernambuco and ask him if Murphy received
the cablegram we sent in care of the consulate. And, in the meantime,
don't whisper a word of this disquieting information to Matt Peasley.
Time enough to cross a bridge, Skinner, when you come to it."

Mr. Skinner promptly filed a cablegram to the American consul, and
just before the office closed they got about forty dollars' worth of
reply, informing them that Captain Murphy had appeared at the
consulate greatly excited the night previous; that he had declared the
cablegram awaiting him might mean life or death--certainly a large sum
of money; that he had been given the cablegram and had gone aboard
ship to look up his cipher key. He had not returned and the ship was
not in the harbor.

"Let me see the carbon copy of the cablegram you sent Murphy in care
of the American consul," Cappy demanded. Mr. Skinner with a sinking
heart obeyed.

"Skinner," said Cappy, "do I understand you sent this message in
cipher, which necessitated on the part of our captain a trip back to
his ship before he could decipher it? Why didn't you send him the
message in regular code? He would then have decoded it right in the
consulate, or at best he could have gone to the cable office and
borrowed a code book from them."