Barby ran for a dictionary and leafed through the pages quickly. "I have it," she said. "Listen. It's from the Latin for 'shadow,' and it means 'a shade or shadow.'"
"Shadow it is," Rick said, and wrote it down. Then, slowly, he read the full message to the serious group around him.
COME BOTH. BAD TROUBLES. AM IN DANGER. MY BOSS, CARL BRADLEY, DISAPPEARED. GOVERNMENT WILL ASK SCIENTIFIC FATHER DO SPECIAL WORK. MUST TAKE. GET JOBS, MEET ME HONG KONG GOLDEN MOUSE. WATCH CHINESE WITH GLASS EYE, HE DANGEROUS. AND BEWARE LONG SHADOW.
CHAPTER III
Heavy Water
Hartson Brant walked swiftly to the telephone and picked it up.
"What's the matter, Dad?" Rick asked quickly. The scientist had a strange look on his face.
"Give me the telegraph office," Hartson Brant said. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "I'll tell you in a moment. I want to get a wire off immediately." He spoke into the phone again. "Western Union? This is Spindrift, Brant speaking. I want to send a straight telegram. Yes. To Steven Ames."
Rick gasped. Steve Ames was the young intelligence officer of JANIG, the secret Army-Navy group charged with protecting the security of American government secrets. The Spindrift group of scientists had worked with Steve in solving The Whispering Box Mystery.
Scotty's fingers bit into Rick's arm.
Hartson Brant gave the address. "Here's the message. 'Have reconsidered your request basis of new information just received here. Urge you come or phone at once.' That's it. Sign it 'Brant, Spindrift.' Yes. Charge to this number."
He waited until the telegraph office had read back the message, then hung up and turned to the waiting group.
"Three days ago I had a phone call from Steve Ames. He asked if I could undertake a special job for the government that would require me to go overseas at once for an indefinite time. I was forced to decline because obviously I can't leave now with these staff changes about to take place."
The scientist knocked the ashes out of his pipe, his face thoughtful.
"Steve wouldn't take no for an answer. He insisted that the job was of the utmost importance, and he added that it concerned an old college chum of mine." He paused. "His name is Carl Bradley."
Rick's eyes met Scotty's.
"He said it was an urgent job, but that he would give me a few days to think it over, to see if I couldn't rearrange my affairs in some way. I assured him it was no use, that I couldn't possibly leave, but he said to take until Saturday to consider it. That's tomorrow."
Rick whistled. "Some timing."
"It's a lot more than mere coincidence," Hartson Brant said. "But I don't know any more about it than what I've told you."
"Who is Carl Bradley?" Weiss asked.
"I'm surprised you haven't heard of him, Julius. He has a considerable reputation as an ethnologist. He and Paul Warren and I were in school together. We lost track of him for a while, then he wrote from China. He had spent several years inland, living with the Chinese, as one of them. He produced some immensely valuable studies. Those, and his rather remarkable ability to speak and act like a Chinese earned him the nickname of 'Chinese Bradley.' He had lived most of his life since school in one part of Asia or another. But I'm sure I can't guess what his connection is with this special job of Steve's, or how he happened to become Chahda's boss."
"Or why he's missing," Barby added.
The cable had created a mystery that demanded a solution, but no amount of discussion answered the questions it raised. Finally, Mrs. Brant broke up the debate by pointedly remarking on the lateness of the hour. Reluctantly, the family started for bed.
As Rick undressed, he continued the discussion through the door connecting his room and Scotty's. "Chahda's pretty sure we'll hurry to Hong Kong."
"Is he wrong?" Scotty demanded.
"I don't know," Rick said. "It depends on a lot of things. We can't go unless we get jobs, and Steve evidently didn't say anything to Dad about the rest of the staff, including us."
"Dad hasn't even said he'll go," Scotty reminded.
"Doesn't saying he has reconsidered mean that he'll go?"
"Could be. Or maybe it just means he's willing to talk some more about it. We should have pinned him down."
"We will," Rick said. "In the morning."
He lay awake for long hours, staring into the darkness and trying to piece together Chahda's references to a golden mouse, a Chinese with a glass eye, and a long shadow. It was no use. But there was no mistaking the urgency of his friend's plea.
Where was Chahda now? At a guess, somewhere between Singapore and Hong Kong. But whether by land or sea or air, Rick couldn't imagine. Nor could he even venture a wild guess at what kind of danger Chahda faced.
After a long time he fell asleep, but it was fitful sleep broken by frequent awakenings.
In the morning, the discussion resumed over breakfast, bringing forth wild speculations from Barby. Rick had to grin at her flights of fancy.
"One thing seems sure," Scotty offered. "Chahda was in a big hurry."
"What makes you think so?" Mrs. Brant asked. "Barby! Please stop feeding Dismal at the table."
Dismal turned beseeching eyes to Rick in a plea for moral support, but his young master was listening to Scotty.
"The words he used. Like putting together an atomic symbol and Russian money to make 'troubles,' and using 'umbra' instead of shadow. I'm sure in a big book like The World Almanac troubles and shadows are mentioned somewhere. But he didn't have time to search. He took the first possibilities that came along."
Rick nodded approval. "That figures. But why didn't he have time?"
Scotty shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe better."
Julius Weiss, who had tired of the discussion and started to the lab, ran back into the house. "There's a plane heading this way," he announced. "I'm sure it's coming here, because it's down pretty low."
The conversation ended abruptly. Rick and Scotty were first out on the lawn. The engine noise of the plane was loud.
Rick saw it first, a sleek, four-place cabin job, circling wide out over the water, losing altitude. In a few moments it banked sharply behind the lab building, straightened out, and cut the gun. Rick was running toward the end of the grass strip even before the plane settled smoothly to the ground.
"Steve Ames," he said to himself. "I'll bet it is." The JANIG officer had wasted no time!
Sure enough, Steve was the first out of the plane. Rick saw that he was the only passenger. The pilot got out then, and Rick recognized him as one of the JANIG operatives who had chased the Whispering Box gang across Washington.
Steve and Rick shook hands, grinning at each other, then Rick greeted Mike, the pilot.
"Didn't think we'd be needing Spindrift again so soon," Steve said. He walked to meet the others and shook hands all around. "Let's get busy," he said to Hartson Brant.
Rick, Scotty, and Barby followed the two into the library. Mrs. Brant took the pilot into the dining room for coffee while Professor Weiss excused himself and went on to the laboratory. His apparent lack of interest would have amazed anyone who didn't know him, but Rick knew that when Julius Weiss was wrapped up in one of his theoretical math problems, nothing else on earth could find room in his mind.
Steve looked at the scientist. "What caused you to reconsider?"
"This." Hartson Brant handed him the translation of Chahda's cable, then the original. "We broke the code last night. It was a book code, using The World Almanac. Chahda knew we'd be able to puzzle it out."
Steve scanned the number groups briefly. "Clever," he commented. He read through the