Very carefully Strong explained it all to Mrs. Marsh.
“It is important that these people should not suspect that he is coming to see me, only that he is coming home, nothing more. It may even be, that one of them will be here to see you, sometime today. They surely will if they find out anything about his coming, and where you live. I will say this, that I feel I am speaking for Mr. Dean when I say it will be a great service to him and to his country.”
“I shall be glad to do anything for Mr. Dean. You can count on me. I think I understand and perhaps will be able to help. Perhaps, too, my daughter, Helen, even more so.”
“Will you have your daughter come and see me right after supper. The train comes in at 9:10 tonight, and she will meet you afterward at the station. She will go there from my office. Possibly, as you say, she can help.”
He left Mrs. Marsh, confident that she understood and that she had the ability and willingness to carry her part through.
[A] Readers will find it interesting to study out the simplicity of this code. There is special pleasure in their working it out for themselves. It is simple and unweaves itself once you have the key. For those who do not wish to decipher the code, they can use the following method. The first syllable of any word of more than one syllable is attached to the third word following. Of one syllable words the first letter is found by itself after the second word. In no case is a single letter considered a word.
CHAPTER XVI
TED ARRIVES IN CHICAGO
BETWEEN the hours of seven and nine that night many things were happening. Helen had gone down to see Strong. A man, who may have been a Dane or a German, boarded Ted’s train at Milwaukee, and O’Reilly was preparing to meet that same train, as was John Strong. At home Mrs. Marsh was leaving to meet the train. We shall follow the man who boarded the train. He entered one of the Pullmans, but no boy seemed to be there; another one, and there were two boys, but both seemed to be with parents.
But he was successful in the third car. It was Ted he saw and as he sat down very near him he pulled out a Danish newspaper and started to read.
Pretty soon he looked up. He seemed a very pleasant man. He spoke to a man in the seat in front of him, then he turned to Ted. “Have you come from far?” he asked innocently.