And there we must leave him; for the rest of the story belongs to Vesey, a sixteen-dollar-a-week reporter on the Enterprise.
Calloway’s cablegram was handed to the managing editor at four o’clock in the afternoon. He read it three times; and then drew a pocket mirror from a pigeon-hole in his desk, and looked at his reflection carefully. Then he went over to the desk of Boyd, his assistant (he usually called Boyd when he wanted him), and laid the cablegram before him.
“It’s from Calloway,” he said. “See what you make of it.”
The message was dated at Wi-ju, and these were the words of it:
Foregone preconcerted rash witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted parlous beggars ye angel incontrovertible.
Boyd read it twice.
“It’s either a cipher or a sunstroke,” said he.
“Ever hear of anything like a code in the office—a secret code?” asked the m. e., who had held his desk for only two years. Managing editors come and go.
“None except the vernacular that the lady specials write in,” said Boyd. “Couldn’t be an acrostic, could it?”
“I thought of that,” said the m. e., “but the beginning letters contain only four vowels. It must be a code of some sort.”
