In Secret | Page 3

my shoulder, Miss Erith. It isn't
done--"
"You meant to see if I could! You know you did!"
"Did I?"
"Of course! That old 'Seal of Solomon' cipher is perfectly transparent."
"Really? But how about THIS!"--touching the sheets of the Lauffer
letter--"how are you going to read this sequence of Arabic numerals?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said the girl, candidly.
"But you request the job of trying to find the key?" he suggested
ironically.
"There is no key. You know it."
"I mean the code book."
"I would like to try to find it."
"How are you going to go about it?"
"I don't know yet."
Vaux smiled. "All right; go ahead, my dear Miss Erith. You're
officially detailed for this delightful job. Do it your own way, but do
it--"

"Thank you so much!"
"--In twenty-four hours," he added grimly. "Otherwise I'll turn it over
to the P.I."
"Oh! That IS brutal of you!"
"Sorry. But if you can't get the code-book in twenty-four hours I'll have
to call in the Service that can."
The girl bit her lip and held out her hand for the letter.
"I can't let it go out of my office," he remarked. "You know that, Miss
Erith."
"I merely wish to copy it," she said reproachfully. Her eyes were hazel.
"I ought not to let you take a copy out of this office," he muttered.
"But you will, won't you?"
"All right. Use that machine over there. Hum--hum!"
For twenty minutes the girl was busy typing before the copy was finally
ready. Then, comparing it and finding her copy accurate, she returned
the original to Mr. Vaux, and rose with that disturbing grace peculiar to
her every movement.
"Where may I telephone you when you're not here?" she inquired
diffidently, resting one slim, white hand on his desk.
"At the Racquet Club. Are you going out?"
"Yes."
"What! You abandon me without my permission?"
She nodded with one of those winsome smiles which incline young
men to revery. Then she turned and walked toward the cloak room.

The D. C. was deeply in love with somebody else, yet he found it hard
to concentrate his mind for a while, and he chewed his unlighted cigar
into a pulp. Alas! Men are that way. Not sometimes. Always.
Finally he shoved aside the pile of letters which he had been trying to
read, unhooked the telephone receiver, called a number, got it, and
inquired for a gentleman named Cassidy.
To the voice that answered he gave the name, business and address of
Herman Lauffer, and added a request that undue liberties be taken with
any out going letters mailed and presumably composed and written by
Mr. Lauffer's own fair hand.
"Much obliged, Mr. Vaux," cooed Cassidy, in a voice so suave that
Vaux noticed its unusual blandness and asked if that particular Service
already had "anything on Lauffer."
"Not soon but yet!" replied Mr. Cassidy facetiously, "thanks
ENTIRELY to your kind tip, Mr. Vaux."
And Vaux, suspicious of such urbane pleasantries, rang off and
resumed his mutilated cigar.
"Now, what the devil does Cassidy know about Herman Lauffer," he
mused, "and why the devil hasn't his Bureau informed us?" After long
pondering he found no answer. Besides, he kept thinking at moments
about Miss Erith, which confused him and diverted his mind from the
business on hand.
So, in his perplexity, he switched on the electric foot-warmer, spread
his fur overcoat over his knees, uncorked a small bottle and swallowed
a precautionary formaldehyde tablet, unlocked a drawer of his desk,
fished out a photograph, and gazed intently upon it.
It was the photograph of his Philadelphia affianced. Her first name was
Arethusa. To him there was a nameless fragrance about her name. And
sweetly, subtly, gradually the lovely phantasm of Miss Evelyn Erith
faded, vanished into the thin and frigid atmosphere of his office.

That was his antidote to Miss Erith--the intent inspection of his
fiancee's very beautiful features as inadequately reproduced by an
expensive and fashionable Philadelphia photographer.
It did the business for Miss Erith every time.
The evening was becoming one of the coldest ever recorded in New
York. The thermometer had dropped to 8 degrees below zero and was
still falling. Fifth Avenue glittered, sheathed in frost; traffic police on
post stamped and swung their arms to keep from freezing; dry snow
underfoot squeaked when trodden on; crossings were greasy with glare
ice.
It was, also, one of those meatless, wheatless, heatless nights when the
privation which had hitherto amused New York suddenly became an
ugly menace. There was no coal to be had and only green wood. The
poor quietly died, as usual; the well-to-do ventured a hod and a stick or
two in open grates, or sat huddled under rugs over oil