I shut myself up in my room, and vowed that I would not leave it until I had worked out the cipher." Paul, Hortebise, and Catenac examined the letter curiously, but could make nothing of it.
"I can't make head or tail of it," said the doctor impatiently.
Mascarin smiled as he took back the paper, and remarked,-- "At first I was as much puzzled as you were, and more than once was tempted to throw the document into the waste-paper basket, but a secret feeling that it opened a way to all our fortunes restrained me.

Of course there was the chance that I might only decipher some foolish jest, and no secret at all, but still I went on.

If the commencement of the word was written in a woman's hand, the last word had evidently been added by a man.

But why should a cryptogram have been used?
Was it because the demand was of so dangerous and compromising a character that it was impossible to put it in plain language?
If so, why was the last word not in cipher?
Simply because the mere rejection of what was certainly a demand would in no manner compromise the writer.

You will ask how it happens that demand and rejection are both on the same sheet of paper.