The volume was a loose-leaf diary, with each page dated, and of letter size. It covered more than the current year, however, running back for nearly eighteen months. It was as scrupulously edited as a lawyer's engagement book, and curiously enough it was entirely written in typewriting!
Most surprising of all, however, was the curious code in which the entire matter was transcribed,—the most unusual one which Shirley had ever read.
Here was the first page to which he opened, letter for letter and symbol for symbol:
“THURSDAY: JANUARY SEVENTH, 1915. ;rstmrfagtp,ansmlafrav;rudyrtaftreadocayjpi dsmfaoma,ptmomha,pmlassdohmrfaypayscoae ptlagptayrsadjomrasddohmrfagocahrmrsypta ,sthoragsotgscafsyraeoyjafrav;rudyrtasyagobra djomrasmfalprajse;ruavobrtomhas,rakslras smffanrmasddohmrfan;svlavstagpta,raqsofaqj o;apmrajimftrfavpbrtomhadqrvos; aeptlakpn agomodjrfatobrtdofraftobrasyarohjyoayjotfad ocadjstqafrqpdoyr famohjyasmfaffuagpitayjpi dsmfadsgrafrqpdoyagogyrrmajimftrfa; rmyaf p;;ua,stopmayepajimfrtgptaftrddagptaqstyua eoyjabsmv;rgyamrcyasgyrtmppmasfbsmvrfad jomrapmrayjpidsm daypavpbrtapqyopmapga usvjyadimnrs, aqsofaypantplrtayjsyamohjyapt frfaqtpbodop,dayr;rqjpmragptausvjyayepa,p myjabtiodra, pmlasddohmrdagptkpnamrcyafs uasfbs mvrfadjomragojimftrfapmasvvpimyae ptlapmaer;;omhypmadrtts;a,syyrtatrqsitdan; svla,svjomra”
and so it ran on, baffling and inspiring a headache!
Shirley went over and over the lines of this bewildering phalanx of letters with no reward for his absorbed devotion to the puzzle.
“Let me see,” he mused. “Thursday, January seventh, was the date upon which Washington Serral was murdered, according to Doctor MacDonald. Any man who will maintain a record of the days in such a difficult code as this must not only be extremely methodical, but is certain to have much to put upon that record worth the trouble. Here may lay the secret of the entire case.”
At the end of the hour he had allowed himself, there was no more proximity to solution than at the inception of his effort. It was almost half-past eleven, and he knew that it was time to go to Warren's apartment. He sent a messenger with the book, carefully wrapped up, to his rooms at the club on Forty-fourth Street. It was too interesting a document to risk taking up to that apartment again, after Helene's exertions in obtaining it.
The Somerset was not dissimilar from the hundreds of highly embellished dwellings of the sort which abound in the region of the Park, causing out-of-town visitors to marvel justly at the source of the vast sums of money with which to pay the enormous rentals of them all.
The elevator operator smirked knowingly, when he asked for Warren's apartment. “You-all can go right up, boss. He's holdin' forth for another of dem high sassiety shindigs to-night. Dat gemman alluz has too many callin' to bother with the telephone when he has a party. You don't need no announcin'.”