O' Artful Death - By Sarah Stewart Taylor Page 0,104
the right idea. When I was a boy, I was obsessed with codes. The thing about a code is you have to find the key, the clue to how you’re going to decipher the whole thing. So, if it’s a nonsense sentence hiding the real message . . . Let’s see, the first letters don’t make a word, but the key could be a particular letter or, how about this . . .?”
He wrote something down on the paper and Sweeney, who couldn’t see it, said, “What? What? Let me see it.”
Ian pushed the paper over to her. “One of the simplest kinds of codes has to do with word placement. ‘Deed’ is the operative word here and it comes fourth in its sentence,” he said. “So if we take all of the third words in their lines, what do we come up with?”
Sweeney turned the paper around and read the words written on it. “When Deed thief of.” “What does that mean?”
Ian grinned. “I don’t know. I just decipher them.”
“What if we start it with ‘Deed’? No, that doesn’t work either.”
She was suddenly dejected. It had seemed so promising. She had been expecting it to tell her that the deed could be found in safety deposit box number 56 at the Byzantium Bank, or in the third drawer of the bureau in the dining room of the Kimballs’ house.
For the next fifteen minutes, Ian worked on the epitaph, trying different combinations of letters or words and coming up with nothing.
“Where would you hide something like a deed?”
“If I didn’t want anyone to be able to find it?”
“Well . . . no. He did leave the message. If you wanted someone to have to work hard to find it. If you wanted to make a game of it.”
“I’d hide it somewhere where it would be safe, maybe in something that would never be thrown away or damaged. Something in plain sight. Something that could be pointed to in the hidden message.”
Sweeney stared at him. An idea was beginning to form in her mind. “Ian, you don’t think that the burglaries . . . Remember how Patch described the burglaries. That the burglar took an assortment of things, statuettes, knickknacks, but also a variety of paintings.”
“You mean that whoever is responsible for the burglaries was looking for the deed. But the only person who wants the deed is Patch.”
“I know. But . . . actually, that isn’t necessarily true. Everyone in the colony wanted to stop Ruth Kimball from selling her land to put up the condos. It could have been anyone. And come to think of it, the Kimballs had a reason, too. They might have wanted to find it before Patch did. Maybe Carl Thompson was looking for the deed. He was taking things from the houses . . .. what?”
He looked skeptical. “It just seems kind of far-fetched. And he’s been in jail, so we know he didn’t kill Sabina.”
“You’re right. Damn.” They were walking back to the house when Sweeney said, “Look. I just feel like the burglaries are the missing link here. If Carl was responsible for them, then who killed Sabina? And if he wasn’t responsible for them, then where did he get the stuff? See, there’s got to be someone else involved. Someone from the colony who would know when people were going to be out, who would know what was in the houses.”
She thought for a moment. Her thoughts were swimming around madly in her head.
She put a hand in her pocket.
“You okay?” He was watching her, concerned.
“Yeah. Listen, I’ll be back at the house soon. There’s something I have to go do.” She tried not to look at him. She didn’t want him to know.
“Well, let me . . .”
“No. I want to go on my own.” The only way to dissuade him was to be rude.
He flinched and said, “All right. Will you be back soon?”
“I don’t know, Ian. Look, just go. I’ll be back.”
THIRTY-ONE
ON HER WAY to the Kimballs’ house, Sweeney took the little bankbook out of her pocket again and looked at the slip of paper that had been stuck between the back cover and the last page. She read the dates to herself. They were scrawled with different pens—one blue and one black—but all in the same hand. “7/1. 8/9. 11/28. 12/10,” the writing read.
It hadn’t struck her the first time she’d seen them because she hadn’t been to the library yet, but the dates corresponded exactly with