The "agent" has said nothing as he isn't the one who wrote the Beale papers. The Beale papers states that the author decided to "remove his name from the publication" and that he had selected Ward to be the individual to which readers could direct their questions. So in essence Ward was just acting as the agent, he wasn't the author, at least as the story goes.
When the author claims that the papers were always on his mind "this is AFTER HE NUMBERED THEM" and not before, so any reference to the cipher numbers by the pamphlet author is AFTER HE NUMBERED THEM and not before. Your 1893 newspaper account actually contains an inaccurate quote from the pamphlet as that information was never stated in the original pamphlet. This, again, is just another example of how there is far too much inaccurate information in circulation regarding the story, and this isn't the only review that contains such errors. Just recently on these forums Jean posted another review containing inaccurate information. So best to stick to the original narration instead of placing trust in these other secondhand sources. There are several online sources that house copies of the original source.
When operating strictly from the original source you'll discover that everything I'm telling you is accurate. No possible way that the author could number those ciphers accurately unless he already knew the exact wording in them. And, if the ciphers were already numbered then the author clearly lied when he said that he numbered them so he could systemize a means of order for his efforts.
But the absolute dagger comes when the author of the original source states that his reason for turning the matter over to the public is that it was his hope that someone would have the required "unintelligible missing piece of paper." What completely slips by most people in these details is that the author is admitting that "he knows" the missing piece of paper is
"unintelligible". Only one way he could possible know that a paper was still missing and that the missing paper was unintelligible.