"None except the vernacular that the lady specials write in," said Boyd."Couldn't be an acrostic, could it?""I thought of that," said the m.e., "but the beginning letters contain only four vowels.It must be a code of some sort.""Try em in groups," suggested Boyd."Let's see -- 'Rash witching goes' -- not with me it doesn't.'Muf-fled rumour mine' -- must have an underground wire.
'Dark silent unfortunate richmond' -- no reason why he should knock that town so hard.'Existing great hotly'
-- no it doesn't pan out I'll call Scott."The city editor came in a hurry, and tried his luck.
A city editor must know something about everything;so Scott knew a little about cipher-writing.
"It may be what is called an inverted alphabet cipher,"said he."I'll try that.'R' seems to be the oftenest used initial letter, with the exception of 'm.' Assuming 'r' to mean 'e', the most frequently used vowel, we transpose the letters -- so."Scott worked rapidly with his pencil for two minutes;and then showed the first word according to his reading -- the word "Scejtzez.""Great!" cried Boyd."It's a charade.My first is a Russian general.Go on, Scott.""No, that won't work," said the city editor."It's undoubtedly a code.It's impossible to read it without the key.Has the office ever used a cipher code?""Just what I was asking," said the m.e."Hustle everybody up that ought to know.We must get at it some way.Calloway has evidently got hold of some-thing big, and the censor has put the screws on, or he wouldn't have cabled in a lot of chop suey like this."Throughout the office of the Enterprise a dragnet was sent, hauling in such members of the staff as would be likely to know of a code, past or present, by reason of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or length of servitude.They got together in a group in the city room, with the m.e.in the centre.No one had heard of a code.All began to explain to the head investi-gator that newspapers never use a code, anyhow -- that is, a cipher code.Of course the Associated Press stuff is a sort of code -- an abbreviation, rather -- but --The m.e.knew all that, and said so.He asked each man how long he had worked on the paper.Not one of them had drawn pay from an Enterprise envelope for longer than six years.Calloway had been on the paper twelve years.
"Try old Heffelbauer," said the m.e."He was here when Park Row was a potato patch."Heffelbauer was an institution.He was half janitor, half handy-man about the office, and half watchman --thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors.
Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality.
"Heffelbauer," said the m.e., "did you ever hear of a code belonging to the office a long time ago - a private code? You know what a code is, don't you?""Yah," said Heffelbauer."Sure I know vat a code is.
Yah, apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code.
Der reborters in der city-room haf it here.""Ah!" said the m.e."We're getting on the trail now.
Where was it kept, Heffelbauer? What do you know about it?""Somedimes," said the retainer, "dey keep it in der little room behind der library room.""Can you find it asked the m.e.eagerly."Do you know where it is?""Mein Gott!" said Heffelbauer."How long you dink a code live? Der reborters call him a maskeet.
But von day he butt mit his head der editor, und -- ""Oh, he's talking about a goat," said Boyd."Get out, Heffelbauer."Again discomfited, the concerted wit and resource of the Enterprise huddled around Calloway's puzzle, con-sidering its mysterious words in vain.
Then Vesey came in.
Vesey was the youngest reporter.He had a thirty-two-inch chest and wore a number fourteen collar; but his bright Scotch plaid suit gave him presence and con-ferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts.He wore his hat in such a position that people followed him about to see him take it off, convinced that it must be hung upon a peg driven into the back of his head.He was never without an immense, knotted, hard-wood cane with a German-silver tip on its crooked handle.Vesey was the best photograph hustler in the office.Scott said it was because no living human being could resist the per-sonal triumph it was to hand his picture over to Vesey.
Vesey always wrote his own news stories, except the big ones, which were sent to the rewrite men.Add to this fact that among all the inhabitants, temples, and groves of the earth nothing existed that could abash Vesey, and his dim sketch is concluded.
Vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer's "code" would have done, and asked what was up.Some one explained, with the touch of half-familiar condescension that they always used toward him.Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the m.e.'s hand.Under the protection of some special Providence, he was always doing appalling things like that, and coming, off unscathed.
"It's a code," said Vesey."Anybody got the key?""The office has no code," said Boyd, reaching for the message.Vesey held to it.
"Then old Callowav expects us to read it, anyhow,"said he."He's up a tree, or something, and he's made this up so as to get it by, the censor.It's up to us.Gee!
I wish they had sell, me, too.Say -- we can't afford to fall down on our end of it.'Foregone, preconcerted rash, witching' -- h'm."Vesey sat down on a table corner and began to whistle softly, frowning at the cablegram.
"Let's have it, please," said the m.e."We've got to get to work on it.""I believe I've got a line on it," said Vesey."Give me ten minutes."He walked to his desk, threw his hat into a waste-basket, spread out flat on his chest like a gorgeous lizard, and started his pencil going.The wit and wisdom of the Enterprise remained in a loose group, and smiled at one another, nodding their heads toward Vesey.Then they began to exchange their theories about the cipher.
It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes.He brought to the m.e.a pad with the code-key written on it.
"I felt the swing of it as soon as I saw it," said Vesey.
