by Anthology
“akdd kyoiztou kp tbo eztztkprepd”
“Does it make sense to you?” he asked anxiously.
Gilroy strangled, unable to reply.
“It could be Polish,” the guard explained, “or Japanese.”
The harassed reporter fled.
When he returned an hour later, after having eaten and tramped across town, nervously chewing cigarettes, he found the guard defended from him by a breastwork of heaped papers.
“Does it look any better?” Gilroy asked hoarsely.
The guard was too absorbed to look up or answer. By peering over his shoulder, Gilroy saw that he had plotted another square. The papers on the table were covered with discarded letter keys; at a rough guess, Gilroy estimated that the keeper had made over a hundred of them.
The one he was working with had been formed as the result of methodical elimination. His first square, the guard had kept, changing the positions of the punctuation marks. When that had failed, he altered his alphabet square, tried that, and reversed his punctuation marks once more. Patient and plodding the guard had formed this square:
,
.
;
”
:
z
u
o
j
e
,
y
t
n
i
d
.
x
s
m
h
c
;
w
r
l
g
b
”
v
p
k
f
a
:
Without haste he counted down under the semicolon and across from the side semicolon, stopping at “m.” Gilroy followed him, nodding at the result. He was faster than the old guard at interpreting the semicolon and comma—’“o.” The period and semicolon, repeated twice, came to “ss.” First word: “moss.”
Gilroy straightened up and took a deep breath. He bent over again and counted down and across with the guard, through the whole message, which the old man had lined off between every two symbols. Completed, it read:
;;/;,/.;/.;/ ;,/.:/:,/."/: :/../:,/:./;,/;./ ../";/:,/
m o s s o p e r a t e d o n t h e
:;/::/../::/../;,/;./"./:;/.;/ ../::/;"/;,/../ "./.;/
c a t a t o n i c s t a l b o t i s
":/"./;./::/;./:;/""/ ";/"./;;/ .:/."/;,/:,/:;/../
f i n a n c i n g h i m p r o t e c t
;;/:,/ ":/."/;,/;;/ ../";/:,/;;/
m e f r o m t h e m
“Hm-m-m,” the guard mused. “That makes sense, if I knew what it meant.”
But Gilroy had snatched the papers out of his hand. The gate clanged shut after him.
Returning to the office in a taxi, Gilroy was not too joyful. He rapped on the inside window. “Speed it up! I’ve seen the sights.”
He thought, if the dog’s been bumped off, good-by catatonic story! The dog was his only link with the code writer.
Wood slunk along the black, narrow alleys behind the wholesale fruit markets on West Street. Battered cans and crates of rotting fruit made welcome obstacles and shelters if Talbot’s gangsters were following him.
He knew that he had to get away from the river section. The gangsters must have definitely recognized him; they would call Talbot’s headquarters for greater forces. With their speedy cars they could patrol the borders of the district J he was operating in, and close their lines until he was trapped.
More important was the fact that reporters had been sent out to search for him. Whether or not his simple code had been deciphered did not matter very much; the main thing was that Gilroy at last knew he was trying to communicate with him.
Wood’s unerring animal sense of direction led him through the maze of densely shadowed alleys to a point nearest the newspaper office. He peered around the comer, up and down the street. The black gang car was out of sight. But he had to make an unprotected dash of a hundred yards, in the full glare of the street lights, to the building entrance.
His powerful leg muscles gathered. He sped over the hard cement sidewalk. The entrance drew nearer. His legs pumped more furiously, shortening the dangerous space more swiftly than a human being could; and for that he was grateful.
He glimpsed a man standing impatiently at the door. At the last possible moment, Wood checked his rush and flung himself toward the thick glass plate.
“There you are!” the editor cried. “Inside—quick!”
He thrust open the door. They scurried inside and commandeered an elevator, ran through the newsroom to the editor’s office.
“Boy, I hope you weren’t seen! It’d be curtains for both of us.”
The editor squirmed uneasily behind his desk, from time to time glancing disgruntledly at his watch and cursing Gilroy’s long absence. Wood stretched out on the cold floor and panted. He had expected his note to be deciphered by then, and even hoped to be recognized as a human being in a dog’s body. But he realized that Gilroy probably was still engaged in decoding it.
At any rate he was secure for a while. Before long, Gilroy would return; then his story would be known. Until then he had patience.
Wood raised his head and listened. He recognized Gilroy’s characteristic pace that consumed at least four feet at a step. Then the door slammed open and shut behind the reporter.
“The dog’s here, huh? Wait’ll you take a look at what I got!
He threw a square of paper before the editor. Wood scanned the editor’s face as he eagerly read it. He ignored the vast hamburger that Gilroy unwrapped for him. He was bewildered by Gilroy’s lack of more than ordinary interest in him; but perhaps the editor would understand.
“So that’s it! Moss and Talbot, eh? It’s getting a lot clearer.”
“I get Moss’s angle,” Gilroy said. “He’s the only guy around here who could do an operation like that. But Talbot——
I don’t get his game. And who sent the note—how’d he get the dope—where is he?”
Wood almost went mad with frustration. He could explain; he knew all there was to be known about Talbot’s interest in Moss’s experiment. The problem of communication had been solved. Moss and Talbot were exposed; but he was as far as ever from regaining his own body.
He had to write another cipher message—longer, this time, and more explicit, answering the questions Gilroy raised. But to do that—— He shivered. To do that, he would have to run the gang patrol; and his enciphering square was in the corner of a lot. It would be too dark——
“We’ve got to get him to lead us to the one who wrote the message,” Gilroy said determinedly. “That’s the only way we can corner Moss and Talbot. Like this, all we have is an accusation and no legal proof.”
“He must be around here somewhere.”
Gilroy fastened his eyes on Wood. “That’s what I think. The dog came here and barked, trying to get us to follow him. When we chased him out, he came back with a scrawled note about a half hour later. Then he brought the code message within another hour. The writer must be pretty near here. After the dog eats, we’ll—” He gulped audibly and raised his i bewildered gaze to the editor. Swiftly, he slipped off the edge of the desk and fumbled in the long hair on Wood’s neck. “Look at this, chief—a piece of surgical plaster. When the dog bent his head to eat, the hair fell away from it.”
“And you think he’s a catatonic?” The editor smiled pityingly and shook his head. “You’re jumpy, Gilroy.”
“Maybe I am. But I’d like to see what’s under the plaster.” Wood’s heart pumped furiously. He knew that his incision was the precise duplicate of the catatonics’, and if Gilroy could see it, he would immediately understand. When Gilroy j picked at the plaster, he tried to bear the stabbing pain; but he had to squirm away. The wound was raw and new, and the deeply rooted hair was firmly
glued to the plaster. He permitted Gilroy to try again. The sensation was far too fierce; he was afraid the incision would rip wide open.
“Stop it,” the editor said squeamishly. “He’ll bite you.”
Gilroy straightened up. “I could take it off with some ether.”
“You don’t really think he was operated on, do you? Moss doesn’t operate on dogs. He probably got into a fight, or one of Talbot’s torpedoes creased him with a bullet.”
The telephone bell rang insistently. “I’d still like to see what’s under it,” Gilroy said as the editor removed the receiver. Wood’s hopes died suddenly. He felt that he was to blame for resisting Gilroy.
“What’s up, Blaine?” the editor asked. He listened absorbedly, his face darkening. “O.K. Stay away if you don’t want to take a chance. Phone your story in to the rewrite desk.” He replaced the receiver and said to Gilroy: “Trouble, plenty of it. Talbot’s gang cars are cruising around this district. Blaine was afraid to run them. I don’t know how you’re going to get the dog through.”
Wood was alarmed. He left his meal unfinished and agitated toward the door, whimpering involuntarily.
Gilroy glanced curiously at him. “I’d swear he understood what you said. Did you see the change that came over him?”
“That’s the way they react to voices,” the editor said.
“Well, we’ve got to get him to his master.” Gilroy mused, biting the inside of his cheek. “I can do it—if you’re in with me.
“Of course I am. How?”
“Follow me.” Wood and the editor went through the newsroom on the cadaverous reporter’s swift heels. In silence they waited for an elevator, descended to the lobby. “Wait here beside the door,” Gilroy said. “When I give the signal, come running.”
“What signal?” the editor cried, but Gilroy had loped into the street and out of sight.
They waited tensely. In a few minutes a taxi drew up to the curb and Gilroy opened the door, sitting alertly inside. He watched the corner behind him. No one moved for a long while; then a black gang car rode slowly and vigilantly past the taxi. An automatic rifle barrel glinted in the yellow light. Gilroy waited until a moment after it turned into West Street. He waved his arms frantically.
The editor scooped Wood up in his arms, burst open the door, and darted across the sidewalk into the cab.
“Step on it!” Gilroy ordered harshly. “Up West Street!”
The taxi accelerated suddenly. Wood crouched on the floor, trembling, in despair. He had exhausted his ingenuity and he was as far as ever from regaining his body. They expected him to lead them to his master; they still did not realize that he had written the message. Where should he lead them—how could he convince them that he was the writer?
“I think this is far enough.” Gilroy broke the silence. He tapped on the window. The driver stopped. Gilroy and the editor got out, Wood following indecisively. Gilroy paid and waved the driver away. In the quiet isolation of the broad commercial highway, he bent his great height to Wood’s level. “Come on, boy!” he urged. “Home!”
Wood was in a panic of dismay. He could think of only one place to lead them. He set off at a slow trot that did not tax them. Hugging the walls, sprinting across streets, he headed cautiously downtown.
They followed him behind the markets fronting the highway, over a hemmed-in lot. He picked his way around the deep, treacherous foundation of a building that had been torn down, up and across piles of rubbish, to a black-shadowed clearing at the lot’s end. He halted passively.
Gilroy and the editor peered around into the blackness. “Come out!” Gilroy called hoarsely. “We’re your friends. We want to help you.”
When there was no response, they explored the lot, lighting matches to illuminate dark corners of the foundation. Wood watched them with confused emotions. By searching in the garbage heaps and the crumbling walls of the foundation, they were merely wasting time.
As closely as possible in the dark, he located the site of his enciphering square. He stood near it and barked clamorously. Gilroy and the editor hastily left their futile prodding.
“He must’ve seen something,” the editor observed in a whisper.
Gilroy cupped a match in his hand and moved the light back and forth in the triangular corner of the cleared space. He shrugged.
“Not around there,” the editor said. “He’s pointing at the ground.”
Gilroy lowered the match. Before its light struck the ground, he yelped and dropped it, weaving his burned fingers in the cool air. The editor murmured sympathy and scratched another match.
“Is this what you’re looking for—a lot of letters in a square?”
Wood and Gilroy crowded close. The reporter struck his own match. In its light he narrowly inspected the crudely scratched encoding square.
“Be back in a second,” he said. It was too dark to see his face, but Wood heard his voice, harsh and strained. “Getting flashlight.”
“What’ll I do if the guy comes around?” the editor asked hastily.
“Nothing,” Gilroy rasped. “He won’t. Don’t step on the square.”
Gilroy vanished into the night. The editor struck another match and scrutinized the ground with Deerslayer thoroughness.
“What the hell did he see?” he pondered. “That guy—” He shook his head defeatedly and dropped the match.
Never in his life had Wood been so passionately excited.
What had Gilroy discovered? Was it merely another circumstantial fact, like his realization that Talbot’s gangsters were gunning for Wood; or was it a suspicion of Wood’s identity? Gilroy had replied that the writer would not reappear, but that could have meant anything or nothing. Wood frantically searched for a way of finally demonstrating who he really was. He found only a negative plan—he would follow Gilroy’s lead.
With every minute that passed, the editor grew angrier, shifting his leaning position against the brick wall, pacing around. When Gilroy came back, flashing a bright cone of light before him, the editor lashed .out.
“Get it over with, Gilroy. I can’t waste the whole night.
Even if we do find out what happened, we can’t print it—” Gilroy ignored him. He splashed the brilliant ray of his huge five-celled flashlight over the enciphering square.
“Now look at it,” he said. He glanced intently at Wood, who also obeyed his order and stood at the editor’s knee, searching the ground. “The guy who made that square was very cautious—he put his back to the wall and faced the lot, so he wouldn’t be taken by surprise. The square is upside-down to us. No, wait!” he said sharply as the editor moved to look at the square from its base. “I don’t want your footprints on it. Look at the bottom, where the writer must’ve stood.”
The editor stared closely. “What do you see?” he asked puzzledly.
“Well, the ground is moist and fairly soft. There should be footprints. There are. Only they’re not human!”
Raucously, the editor cleared his throat. “You’re kidding.”
“Gestalt,” Gilroy said, almost to himself, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You get a bunch of unconnected facts, all apparently unrelated to each other. Then suddenly one fact pops up—it doesn’t seem any more important than the others—but all at once the others click into place, and you get a complete picture.”
“What are you mumbling about?” the editor whispered anxiously.
Gilroy stooped his great height and picked up a yellow stump of pencil. He turned it over in his hand before passing it to the editor.
“That’s the pencil this dog snatched before we threw him out. You can see his teethmarks on the sides, where he carried it. But there’re teethmarks around the unsharpened end. Maybe I’m nuts——” He took the dirty code message out of his inside breast pocket and smoothed it out. “I saw these smudges the minute I looked at the note, but they didn’t mean anything to me then. What do you make of them?” The editor obediently examined the note in the gla
re of the flash. “They could be palmprints.”
“Sure—a baby’s,” Gilroy said witheringly. “Only they’re not. We both know they’re pawprints, the same as are at the bottom of the square. You know what I’m thinking. Look’t the way the dog is listening.”
Without raising his voice, he half turned his head and said quite casually, “Here comes the guy who wrote the note, right behind the dog.”
Involuntarily, Wood spun around to face the dark lot. Even his keen animal eyes could detect no one in the gloom. When he lifted his gaze to Gilroy, he stared full into grim, frightened eyes.
“Put that in your pipe,” Gilroy said tremulously. “That’s his reaction to the pitch of my voice, eh? You can’t get out of it, chief. We’ve got a werewolf on our hands, thanks to Moss and Talbot.”
Wood barked and frisked happily around Gilroy’s towering legs. He had been understood!
But the editor laughed, a perfectly normal, humorous, unconvinced laugh. “You’re wasting your time writing for a newspaper, Gilroy——”
“O.K., smart guy,” Gilroy replied savagely. “Stop your cackling and tell me the answer to this——
“The dog comes into the newsroom and starts barking. I thought he was just trying to get us to follow him; but I never heard a dog bark in long and short yelps before. He ran up the stairs, right past all the other floors—business office, advertising department, and so on—to the newsroom, because that’s where he wanted to go. We chased him out. He came back with a scrawled note, saying: ‘I am a man.’ Those four words took up the whole page. Even a kid learning how to write wouldn’t need so much space. But if you hold the pencil in your mouth and try to connect the bars of the letters, you’d have letters something like the ones on the note.
“He needed a smaller system of letters, so he made up a simple code. But he’d lost his pencil. He stole one of ours. Then he came back, watching out for Talbot’s gang cars.
“There aren’t any footprints at the bottom of this square—only a dog’s pawprints. And there’re two smudges on the message, where he put his paws to hold down the paper while he wrote on it. All along he’s been listening to every word we said. When I said in a conversational tone that the writer was standing behind him, he whirled around. Well?”