Explore "A Son of Ishmael" by L.T. Meade on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Crossley heaved a sigh, took his handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped some drops of moisture from his brow, and then began to speak in a dry, business-like tone.
"You know how very slight our clues have been up to the present? " he said after a pause. "Your brother was murdered in a café in Paris; murderer unknown; motive of the crime unknown. A man who is now in his grave appeared on the scene half-an-hour after the murder was committed. He found close to the body of the murdered man half a sheet of paper on which something in cipher was written, and at the foot of the cipher in place of signature were some very peculiar hieroglyphics. That piece of paper has lain in my possession for years. I have studied the cipher and the hieroglyphics which stood in place of a signature with the utmost care. I have transposed the alphabet in all manner of ways, not only at my office when I had a moment to spare, but over my evening pipe at home. With infinite trouble I have made out a few words, but nothing to give me any clue to the identity of the man to whom the paper belonged.