In Secret | Page 2

gazing with preternatural sagacity at nothing at all.
Possibly his pretty affianced was the object of his deep revery--he had
her photograph in his desk--perhaps official cogitation as D. C. of the E.
C. D.--if you understand what I mean?--may have been responsible for

his owlish abstraction.
Because he did not notice the advent of the yellow haired girl until she
said in her soft, attractive voice:
"May I interrupt you a moment, Mr. Vaux?"
Then he glanced up.
"Surely, surely," he said. "Hum--hum!--please be seated, Miss Erith!
Hum! Surely!"
She laid the sheets of the letter and the yellow envelope upon the desk
before him and seated herself in a chair at his elbow. She was VERY
pretty. But engaged men never notice such details.
"I'm afraid we are in trouble," she remarked.
He read placidly the various memoranda written on the yellow slips of
paper, scrutinised! the cancelled stamps, postmarks, superscription. But
when his gaze fell upon the body of the letter his complacent
expression altered to one of disgust!
"What's this, Miss Erith?"
"Code-cipher, I'm afraid."
"The deuce!"
Miss Erith smiled. She was one of those girls who always look as
though they had not been long out of a bathtub. She had hazel eyes, a
winsome smile, and hair like warm gold. Her figure was youthfully
straight and supple--But that would not interest an engaged man.
The D. C. glanced at her inquiringly.
"Surely, surely," he muttered, "hum--hum!--" and tried to fix his mind
on the letter.

In fact, she was one of those girls who unintentionally and innocently
render masculine minds uneasy through some delicate, indefinable
attraction which defies analysis.
"Surely," murmured the D. C., "surely! Hum--hum!"
A subtle freshness like the breath of spring in a young orchard seemed
to linger about her. She was exquisitely fashioned to trouble men, but
she didn't wish to do such a--
Vaux, who was in love with another girl, took another uneasy look at
her, sideways, then picked up his unlighted cigar and browsed upon it.
"Yes," he said nervously, "this is one of those accursed code-ciphers.
They always route them through to me. Why don't they notify the
five--"
"Are you going to turn THIS over to the Postal Inspection Service?"
"What do you think about it, Miss Erith? You see it's one of those
hopeless arbitrary ciphers for which there is no earthly solution except
by discovering and securing the code book and working it out that
way."7
She said calmly, but with heightened colour:
"A copy of that book is, presumably, in possession of the man to whom
this letter is addressed."
"Surely--surely. Hum--hum! What's his name, Miss Erith?"--glancing
down at the yellow envelope. "Oh, yes--Herman Lauffer--hum!"
He opened a big book containing the names of enemy aliens and
perused it, frowinng. The name of Herman Lauffer was not listed. He
consulted other volumes containing supplementary lists of suspects and
undesirables--lists furnished daily by certain services unnecessary to
mention.
"Here he is!" exclaimed Vaux; "--Herman Lauffer, picture-framer and

gilder! That's his number on Madison Avenue!"--pointing to the
type-written paragraph. "You see he's probably already under
surveillance-one of the several services is doubtless keeping tabs on
him. I think I'd better call up the--"
"Please!--Mr. Vaux!" she pleaded.
He had already touched the telephone receiver to unhook it. Miss Erith
looked at him appealingly; her eyes were very, very hazel.
"Couldn't we handle it?" she asked.
"WE?"
"You and I!"
"But that's not our affair, Miss Erith--"
"Make it so! Oh, please do. Won't you?"
Vaux's arm fell to the desk top. He sat thinking for a few minutes. Then
he picked up a pencil in an absent-minded manner and began to trace
little circles, squares, and crosses on his pad, stringing them along line
after line as though at hazard and apparently thinking of anything
except what he was doing.
The paper on which he seemed to be so idly employed lay on his desk
directly under Miss Erith's eyes; and after a while the girl began to
laugh softly to herself.
"Thank you, Mr. Vaux," she said. "This is the opportunity I have
longed for."
Vaux looked up at her as though he did not understand. But the girl laid
one finger on the lines of circles, squares, dashes and crosses, and, still
laughing, read them off, translating what he had written:
"You are a very clever girl. I've decided to turn this case over to you.
After all, your business is to decipher cipher, and you can't do it

without the book."
They both laughed.
"I don't see how you ever solved that," he said, delighted to tease her.
"How insulting!--when you know it is one of the oldest and most
familiar of codes--the 1-2-3 and _a-b-c_ combination!"
"Rather rude of you to read it over