Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/186

 doubtless heard our Navy officers speak of it as the Keyboard."

"Why the Keyboard Cipher?" asked Wilsnach.

"Because the transmitting machine—for wireless, of course,—is a good deal like an ordinary typewriter, with keys to close a certain number of 'contacts' for each letter. But the cipher-language is produced by first switching the letter-keys, the same as a mischievous boy might do on a typewriter—mixing 'em up in a hopeless mess. The receiving operator, of course, works with a keyboard correspondingly switched and at the same time combined about the same as the numeral sequence of a safe-lock. In wireless, of course, this shuts out the outsider. It stops eavesdropping. Since the decodification is done automatically, and printed on the tape of the receiving apparatus, it does no good for the outsider to try to tune in!" Andelman laughed as he took a sip of wine. "Sounds pretty complicated, doesn't it? But it's about two hundred times more complicated than I could ever make it sound, for it's just by its infinite complicatedness that it is made secret."

Kestner, who seemed deep in thought, did not comment on this statement.