Shadow 001 - The Living Shadow

CHAPTER XXVII THE CODE IS SOLVED

THE watchman outside the Laidlow house flashed his lantern across the lawn. Great, long shadows appeared beneath its gleam. The watchman was used to such shadows. They seemed to move and sway as he walked his course.

He flashed his light against a side window. All was darkness underneath. Shadowy darkness - thick darkness that seemed like something real.

The window was locked, but it was like many other windows in the house - easy to be opened if one would care to perform that action.

The watchman turned away. As his light was withdrawn, the black gloom moved up and obscured the window, and amidst the sable darkness the window opened silently.

It had been unlocked and opened before the watchman had traveled sixty feet.

Something was moving in the Laidlow house; moving silently, invisibly. A mysterious presence had entered the place. A clock struck one.

The tiny, penetrating ray of a pocket flashlight appeared in the library. The shades of the windows were down. The light could not have been seen from outside.

The light flashed along rows of books. There were many such rows in that library. They occupied the walls on two sides, from the ceiling down to the floor.

The light stopped. It came closer to the shelf and was focused on a single book. The volume was an abridged dictionary; one which must have been consulted often, for its leather back bore signs of considerable usage.

Tapering, well-shaped fingers appeared in the little disk of light. They were fingers with smooth-pointed nails. The fingers drew the dictionary from its position. The light disappeared.

A moment later it appeared again, this time shining upon the polished surface of a mahogany table. A hand placed the book beneath the glow; and two slips of paper fell on the table.

One sheet carried this numbered inscription:

“730-16; 457-20; 330-5; 543-26 605-39; 808-1; 457-20; 38-14; 840-28; 877-27; 101-13; 872-21; 838-10.”

The other sheet of paper was blank.

The hand turned the pages of the dictionary; not slowly nor rapidly, but easily. The book lay open at page 730.

An index finger moved down the left column of the page, pausing an instant at each word, checking off the words as a clock might tick. It stopped at the sixteenth word.

The word was “slide.”

This appeared immediately afterward upon the blank sheet of paper. It was printed by the hand, which used a sharp-pointed pencil.

Then the leaves of the dictionary were moved again, and the mystic finger stopped at the twentieth word on page 457. This word was “left.”

The cryptic number 457-20 appeared twice on the sheet that bore the code; so the hand, as though to save excess operation, printed the word “left” two times, allowing proper space for the words that were to come between.

The movement of the hand continued as it went through the pages of the dictionary. The fifth word on page 330 was “frame”; the twenty-sixth word on page 543 was “of.”

The transcribing went on so regularly that each new word appeared as though timed exactly. After a while the complete series of numbers was decoded, forming a message in capital letters which read:

SLIDE LEFT FRAME OF PORTRAIT TO LEFT AND UPWARD WORD BLUSH WILL UNLOCK

In only a few hours after Harry Vincent had copied the code in Ezekiel Bingham’s safe, its secret had been divined and its message had been translated!

The papers were picked up and crumpled by a hand. The light moved along the floor and back to the book case, where the dictionary was carefully replaced in its position on the shelf.

Then the flashlight swept the wall, stopping for a brief moment upon each picture in the library.

It moved through the doorway and along the hall, into a living room where shades were also tightly drawn. Each picture was subjected to the searching ring of brilliant light; and finally the circle of illumination poised on a small painting of a child, which was set in a heavy gold frame that seemed fastened permanently to the wall.

A hand appeared again, and its thumb and index finger touched the frame at the left side of the portrait. They moved to the left, and the frame followed. They pushed upward, and the frame responded to the movement.

A mechanism clicked, and the painting, actuated by hinges beneath its right side, swung open like a little door.

The circular glow revealed a wall safe that had been cunningly concealed behind the portrait. There were five slots on the door of the safe, set in a row. A letter showed in each opening. The fingers started at the left, and touching the letter, caused an interior wheel to revolve.

The letters B, L, U, S, and H came into view.

The fingers reached for a knob; the door of the safe opened outward. It was hinged at the left, opposite from the hinges of the portrait.

The interior of the little safe was entirely illuminated by the radiance of the bulb in the flashlight.

The safe was empty!

The light remained there for half a minute. Some one was thinking behind that flashlight. A mind was working amid the darkness.

Then the hand reappeared and closed the safe The fingers spun the letters. The portrait was shut also, and the frame at the left was brought back to its correct position. A silk handkerchief brushed the frame, removing any marks that might have remained.

The flashlight was out. All was silent for a while then the circle of illumination appeared again above the table in the library. A hand was writing in blue ink. Keen thoughts were finding their cold expression on a sheet of paper:

Joyce discovered the purpose of the code. The house was entered last night and the gems were taken. Bingham has them now. That explains his absence.

English Johnny will meet Bingham - soon. It cannot be tonight. It may be tomorrow night, for it must be soon.

The note that English Johnny wrote was false. It was obviously false. It was done to deceive an unseen watcher who was not deceived.

The crude way in which the note was left on the table partly finished was one proof. The pains that English Johnny took to hide the envelope which he addressed was a second proof.

English Johnny was watched tonight. He will be watched tomorrow night. He will be watched every night. That is one way to find the meeting place.

Bingham must be traced. If discovered, he, too, will lead the way to the meeting place.

For that is where the gems will be.

The writing faded. The sheet of paper was taken between two supple hands. It was torn to tiny fragments, which eventually found their resting place in the palm of the left hand.

The ray of the flashlight disappeared.

Silence continued through the dark, empty house. A window opened noiselessly and shut again. Under the pressure of an unseen blade of steel, the lock was quietly restored to its original position.

The watchman, finishing another round of the premises, threw his lantern so it shone upon the lawn. Again he watched the flitting shadows - shadows of the boughs of trees that swayed back and forth in the light autumn breeze.

Strange - those shadows. He fancied that he saw one glide across the lawn and merge with the darkness that lay beyond the hedge.