Chain Of Death

CHAPTER XVI A QUESTION OF CODES

“The solving of this circled code was child’s play. The man who wrote the message sought to make the message difficult. Instead, he opened it to simple attack.”

Doctor Lucas Mather made this statement as he faced Detective Joe Cardona and Mynheer Hansel Vaart. Mather, seated behind a table in a room which served him as a study, was pointing to the first of the two papers that Cardona had brought from Professor Langwood Devine’s.

Adjusting a pair of large spectacles, Mather peered toward the paper. A smile appeared upon his thin, pale lips. The cryptographer laughed scoffingly as he ran his fingers along the inscription:

“Let me explain my simple process of solution,” suggested Mather, in a methodical tone. “I noticed, first of all, that the message forms solid lines of characters. That would mean a jumble of words, unless a special character were utilized to indicate a space.

“Counting the various characters,” proceeded Doctor Mather, “I found that two symbols each appeared with more frequency than the others. Each of those particular symbols appeared exactly twenty-six times. Here are the characters in question.

“The most rudimentary fact regarding statements in the English language,” resumed Mather, “is that concerning the letter E. It will appear more often than any other letter of the alphabet, provided that no effort is made to reduce it by tricky wording.

“Hence, in my basic study of this message, I had two characters — the crossed circle and the plain circle — either of which might stand for the letter E. I began a prompt comparison of those two characters; and I made an immediate discovery.

“The crossed circle could easily stand for E. The blank circle was doubtful. You will note that the message begins with a blank circle and ends with one. That was one oddity. The second peculiarity was the intervals existing between blank circles. The third was the fact that no two blank circles appear together.

“Assuming that the blank circle was either E or some other frequent letter such as 0, or T, the intervals and lack of doubles stood against it. So I went back to my original theory, namely, that some character stood for a space between the words. The character could not be the crossed circle; for it twice appears as a double. It must be the blank circle. So I eliminated all the blank circles and made this revised message.”

The cryptographer produced a sheet of paper which bore the code.

“Beginning again,” explained Mather, “I used the crossed circle as the letter E. I was immediately impressed by the ninth word in the message. It consists of five letters, ending in a double E.

“Referring to my dictionary of word endings” — the speaker paused to tap a book that lay on the table — “I found very few words of five letters that end with a double E. One such word stood out from all the rest. It was the word ‘three’; so I used it for the ninth word of the message, thus.”

The bespectacled man wrote on a blank paper.

“The fifth word of the message is identical with the sixteenth. Both are words of four letters, beginning with TH. My choice was ‘this’ or ‘that’; of the two, I took ‘this’, because the words did not end in the character that I had established as T.

“The procedure gave me two new letters: I and S. Studying the tenth word of the message, I saw that I had five of its six characters. It ended in E, T, T, E, R. That meant that the first symbol was probably B or L. It eventually proved to be L. I shall tell you why.

“In the meantime, I had noticed the third word. Its second letter was I; it ended with a double character that was the same as the first symbol of the tenth word. So I chose double L, as double B would not have followed the letter I. The tenth word proved to be ‘letter’; the third word ‘will’.

“I supplied T wherever it belonged. I used the letter S, thus gaining plurals. With B, I, R and H at my disposal, I made speedy progress. The deciphered message needed only a few fills. The twenty-second word — four letters — spelled W, H, E; so I finished it with N. The last word of the message, with five letters gained, obviously spelled ‘solution’.”

THE cryptographer was working with his pencil as he gave his illustration. He was copying characters upon blank paper at a rate that made Joe Cardona stare in wonder.

“All checked,” concluded Mather, “with the exception of a few isolated letters that I reasoned out with ease. For example, the first letter of the message. I read it as P, U, then two unknown characters, both alike, and finally L, E.

“What was the double letter indicated by those central characters? The answer was simple. Inserting double Z, I gained the word puzzle’. I might have used double D” — Mather smiled wanly — “but dealing with a puzzle and not with a puddle, I chose Z.

“Here, gentlemen, is the deciphered message. It is merely a cryptogram, I take it, that some friend sent to Professor Devine to see if he could solve it.”

Mather printed letters upon a plain piece of paper. He handed the sheet to Detective Joe Cardona, who nodded and placed it in the hands of Mynheer Hansel Vaart.

The message read:

“And here,” added Doctor Mather, drawing a paper from the desk drawer, “is the code itself, arranged in alphabetical order. You will note that I have merely guessed at characters which could be used for the letters J, K and Q; for those do not appear in the message.”

The cryptogram expert looked upward through his rimmed spectacles. He saw the nodding head of Hansel Vaart.

“Is that the way you figured out the messages you got from Professor Devine?” questioned the detective. “Did yours follow the same line?”

“Yess.” The reply came methodically. “But some were more hard to read. Yess, much more hard. This one, it seems easy. So our friend, the good Doctor Mather, hass said.”

“Easy to you, maybe,” responded Cardona, “but it looks tougher than a dozen cross-word puzzles to me.”

“Mynheer Vaart,” asserted Mather, “agrees that this code is rudimentary. But I am positive that he will find the other message to be a complete riddle. I have been unable to make any headway with it.”

So saying, the cryptographer produced the second message. He passed it to the visitor. Keen eyes sparkled from beneath the false eyebrows as The Shadow studied the blocked code. Lingering minutes passed while Cardona and Mather watched him. Then The Shadow spoke, in the thick voice of Mynheer Vaart.

“It iss indeed a different thing,” he announced. “Never haff I seen one goad that iss like this one. Nothing, never hass Professor Devine sent me like this.”

“Prevailing characters lead one nowhere,” observed Mather. “I have tried every form of cryptogram solution, but to no avail. I have resorted to foreign languages. I have considered the use of extra symbols for certain letters; such as two — or perhaps three — different characters to represent the letter E. Yet I have been balked incessantly.”

“But if it iss like this one,” suggested The Shadow, in his disguised tone, as he pointed to the solved code of circles, “why should it be that you haff tried so long? Perhaps it iss another message off no important meaning.”

“That’s what we don’t know,” interposed Cardona. “Maybe the easy code was a blind to make this one look like it meant nothing.”

“Perhaps,” came the tones of Mynheer Vaart, “it iss a hoax that some one hass played upon mein poor dead friend. He wass very good at these goads, wass Professor Devine. Maybe this wass made to giff him trouble. Maybe these blocks and so forth wass intended to mean nothing.”

“Say!” exclaimed Cardona. “That’s an idea! You mean a jumble of crazy looking figures that never were coded at all?”

“Yess.”

“That is possible,” agreed Doctor Mather. “Nevertheless, I shall still persist in my efforts to solve this intriguing cipher. If it is actually a coded message, I believe that it must be of importance.”

Joe Cardona, studying the two persons before him, felt renewed reliance in the keenness of Mynheer Hansel Vaart. The Hollander was studying the blocked message with a gaze of concentrated interest. Cardona gained a sudden inspiration.

“Doctor Mather has photostatic copies of this message,” remarked the detective. “Perhaps you would like to take one with you, Mynheer Vaart. I know that I can rely upon you to keep it out of sight; if you have a chance to work on it while you are in Chicago, you might strike the key.”

“Ah, yess,” came the reply, with a nod. “If I could haff one copy of this goaded message, I might haff time to solf it, yess. Off course, since it iss not solfed by Doctor Mather, it may be that it can not be solfed by me.”

“I don’t know about that,” returned Mather, dryly. “Freak codes like this one are very, very tricky. Perhaps, through over-concentration, I may have passed by a simple key to the solution. Here is a copy, Mynheer Vaart. I shall be pleased to have your cooperation in this difficult task.”

IT was eleven o’clock when Mynheer Hansel Vaart shook hands with Detective Joe Cardona at the entrance to the Grand Central Station. The Hollander waddled into the huge terminal. Joe Cardona returned to headquarters. Shortly after midnight, he decided to leave for the night.

Smiling to himself, Joe pictured Mynheer Hansel Vaart aboard the midnight limited, pondering over the cryptic message which Doctor Lucas Mather had given him. Joe felt sure that the methodical Dutchman would work steadily upon the absorbing problem.

Cardona would have been surprised had he known where the copy of the message lay at present. It was not in the possession of Mynheer Hansel Vaart aboard the midnight limited, for no such passenger had boarded the Chicago-bound train.

The copied message was tucked safely in the pocket of a tuxedo jacket worn by a personage who looked amazingly like Lamont Cranston, the globe-trotting millionaire. The message was resting for the present; for its holder was engaged in playing chess with Howard Norwyn, fugitive from justice, in the smoking room of a New Jersey mansion.

The Shadow had played a clever part. He had gained the message which Professor Langwood Devine had received before his death. The Shadow knew that there would be time to work upon its solution.

That task would begin upon the morrow. In the meantime, returned to his guise of Lamont Cranston, the master sleuth was concerned with his game of chess. His gambits and his checks were too much for Howard Norwyn’s defense. The blacks — moved by the long fingers of The Shadow — were picking off the whites that Norwyn handled.

There was something prophetic about this friendly match. Pawns and rooks were The Shadow’s quarry to-night.

Beginning with the morrow, he would plan moves to capture living men. Like pieces on a chess board, the members of Crime Incorporated awaited the entry of The Shadow into their game.