“Pardon me,” was the retort. “You only know it as a matter of technical knowledge, not as a fact from which to reason. The point is that there’s no K in the musical scale.”
“Well?” The monosyllable snapped from Roy. His face was set intently, the chin a little forward, the eyes hard.
“The thing is simply this,” Billy answered, beaming. “The late Mr. Abernethey, on account of the lack of the letter K in the musical notation, was compelled to resort to an expedient. He could not indicate the word ‘Lake’ on his cipher, since he was without either L or K. He evaded the difficulty by employing the initial letter from a word of direction, Largo, which provided the necessary L, and he got around the lack of the letter K by using the French word for Lake--_lac_. This fragment at the head of the sheet spells for us, ‘Bedlac’.” He pointed to the phrase again, as he concluded.
“So, we have only to do a bit of translating from the French _lac_ into the English lake, and then to amplify by supplying the obvious preposition and article, and the writing declares clearly: ‘The Bed of the Lake.’ It now remains for us to study this page until we learn just where under the water of the lake out there the gold is lying. Somewhere, somehow, this music tells!”
The clue discovered by Billy Walker was accepted without hesitation. No secret was made of the information thus obtained as the first progress in the search for the gold, and an air of excitement prevailed in and about the cottage. Jake, especially, was all agog with interest in the new development, and took an active part in the subsequent operations, since the four friends now spent much of their time on the water, hoping by some fortunate chance to come on a suggestion for further guidance. They went cruising out of sheer desperation, having no precise idea to follow until more should be learned from the manuscript. All pinned their faith to the music left by the miser. Each spent hours in study of the scrawled notes in the quest of added discovery, but all efforts were futile. Even the redoubtable Billy himself admitted humiliating defeat. Yet, he was in no wise cast down by the failure of the moment. He was sure of ultimate victory for the orderly processes of reason. Roy, on the other hand, retained his confidence in the final revelation that had been foretold by his industrious sixth sense, and David shared this optimistic trust in the occult. As for Saxe, when day after day passed without a hint of new knowledge concerning the gold, he might easily have become hopeless, had it not been for the diversion of interest offered by his love-affair. For now the manner of Margaret West toward him was such that sometimes he dared believe it possible to win her.