“Ever hear of anything like a code in the office—a secret code?” asked the m. e., who had held his desk for only two years. Managing editors come and go.

“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. ‘Muffled 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 something 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 drag-net 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 investigator 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.”