In their hotel room, the girls spent an hour attempting to decipher the strange jargon of letters appearing on the paper. At the end of that time. Penny tossed aside her pencil in disgust.
“This is a job for an expert,” she declared. “I certainly don’t classify as one.”
The telephone jingled. Penny answered it and was delighted to hear Jerry’s familiar voice. He was down in the lobby and had been told that the girls wished to see him.
“We certainly do!” Penny answered gaily. “Hold everything! We’ll be with you in a jiffy.”
The elevator being entirely too slow, the girls raced down the stairs. Breathlessly they started to tell Jerry what they had learned.
“Not here!” he said quickly. “Let’s go outside where we won’t be overheard.”
Once out in the open with no one close by, Jerry lent an attentive ear to Penny’s tale of their afternoon adventure. He did not have much to say in return, but he studied the jade green elephant and the paper with deep interest.
“You don’t think it’s anything?” Penny asked in disappointment.
“On the contrary, it may be something of very great importance,” he returned soberly. “I’ll take this to Headquarters. We have an expert on codes who should be able to break it in a short while.”
The girls hoped that Jerry would invite them to accompany him, but he did not do so. Instead he said: