The Press., 1917-08-30

have ms QOscFlpIIouS dAN WE AAO" l that he carried a large black handbag
 That bag doubtless contained $8,OOt and more of Uncle Sam's money. He
 had sense enough not to run, and Billy
 Stern, the letter carrier, who was the
 han that saw him, had no idea that
 here was anything wrong with the fel low until after be heard that Allen had been seen running in the other d1rec' ttion empty handed. Then the meaning
 of the man with the big bag flashed
 upon Stern's mind, and he told me"
 Does the description fit anybody hereabouts?" asked Graham.
 Except for a beard, which might have been false, of course" said Bax- fer. fit would ht Stuart Farnsworth the postmaster's son, fairly well. And llthere's a point: Young FarnsWorth
 might have known of the unusual sum of money in the postOf1ce safe. But he seems to have a fair alibi. He was EucallIng that evening on a young lady named Annie Davenport"
 Ut lies in my mind that the robbery was past 12," said Graham, ''and the | young man WOUIO nOL UO SboJ ALB ~e Miss Davenport's so late"
 we learn that he left about Il, re- sponded Baxter, ''but the thieves were at work in the postoff1ce by 10 at the latest. It was better than two hours fob on that safe. And now, MT. Ora ham," he continued, Twill you help me read this letter? It Is in cipher, and we can't make anything of it. We have reason to assume that Allen has sent several to Miss Davenport since the robbery, and we think that we are ] justified in trying to get at the bottom of this puzzle. The young lady may be entirely innocent, of course. It's prob able that she knows nothing of Aliens connection with the robbery or that he is suspected There's doubtless some trick by which she is made to hand on these letters to the right party"
 "I'd say the same to her if was vou." said Graham. "Then you'll be in the way of learning the insides of all this."
 Baxter baked at this suggestion, but we succeeded in persuading him, and he set out for the house where Miss Davenport lived with her widowed mother. I gave him a note of intro ductiOn to the young lady and some rather severe admonitions as to his be- haviOr, for I could see that he vaguely suspected her of some (perhaps uncon- scious) complicity in this affair. He was gone about two hours and return- ed both pleased and puzzled.
 "This is a queer business" said he. "I'll be hanged If I understand it. But here's the story: A few days after the robbery Miss Davenport got a note from Allen. He told her some sort of a faked up story about being bothered by his debts and the noble resolve that he had made to pay them all. It was necessary, he wrote, that he should communicate secretly with friend in this town. Would Miss Davenport re ceive the letters and simply hold them until the friend should come and claim them? She need not answer; he would take it for granted that she would do this small service for one whom she had once been gracious enough to count among her friends. Since then she has received five letters and has held them unopened on the theory that they were not for her. The friend has not appeared. made her understand mighty clearly that this was a part of the pOstof1ce robbery, and naturally she didn't like the idea. Here are the letters and her written permission for MT. Graham to read them if he can."
 hot rl1 found on the street." said Graham And Baxter laid it before him. It was brief typewriter note consisting of single string of jumbled letters and figures, as follows:
 S12fqpv sf2vq3p pdn h4e2 o g l u m 1rvjf fu2q W uJnf2y 3frph.
 You didn't show anything like that in your article" said Baxter, grinning.
 T was writing for grown folk" re- joined Graham. "This is child's play. It's a mere shift of the alphabet. The figures divide off the words and also show the extent of the shift, which is different for each word. How simple! 8 l'-l is the third letter after i; 2 p vi is the second letter after d, q is the second after o. The whole reads this way: I don't dare to make move yet. Keep quiet. Our time will come.'"
 "That doesn't give us much light" said Baxter, ''but we have the other letters, and there's no doubt they were intended for Aliens pal. If the same cipher is used we've got''-
 He paused as if stricken with paraly- sis. One of Miss Davenport's letters was open in his hand. The contents were blank paper!
 It was the same with all of them; not ! scrap of writing.
 "WOll, this knocks my eye outy said Baxter. And then, with sudden ener- yy: These envelopes have been open 1d. see the whole game Stuart FarnSWOrth is the man. These letters were not kept under lock and key; they were scarcely out of plain sight-in a | Ira wer of writing desk in the Daven- ports sitting room. Farnsworth could 1 get at them without the girls knowl- l sdge." ..- f.~
 Now, this looked reasonable enough, | except that partnership In burglary | between two bitter rivals in love would | 1e somewhat of a novelty, especially with the young woman an unconscious in the nefarious schemes. My was hardly equal to the de-
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