War of the World Records by Matthew Ward Page B

Langston Appreciation Society into the shipping box, then closed the package and sealed it shut with a strip of packing tape.
    He left the café, dropping the parcel addressed to Ruby and the envelope addressed to D.S. Greenley into a nearby post-box, then made his way back to the car to rejoin his family.
    After returning home later that evening, Arthur concealed his other sketch of the Treasurer’s note inside one of the ceramic rocks he had received for his birthday and stole away to the outskirts of the Goldwin estate. He scaled the wall and planted the rock beside the 137th iron spike as he had described in his message.
    There was nothing left to do but wait.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    On Tuesday, after three days with no word from Ruby, Arthur finally received a letter.
    He ran up to his room and shut the door behind him, then tore open the envelope and unfolded the enclosed piece of paper. Unfortunately, it was not a message from Ruby. It was, however, the next best thing.
    The note read as follows:
    A.W.—
    Communication received. Meet in the city—Friday, 21:00 at the Broken Record. Ask for a “Mr. Green.” Will discuss further.
    â€”D.S.G.
    Arthur smiled. The investigation was back on. Now he only had to retrieve his partner.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    When Friday morning arrived, Arthur had yet to hear from Ruby.
    He waited at the graveyard for nearly an hour before finally accepting the fact he’d be meeting Sergeant Greenley alone that night. Arthur rose from his lookout spot with a frown, brushed himself off, then turned around—and practically collided with a dark-haired, green-eyed girl.
    â€œSo, how’s the investigation going, Detective Whipple?” Ruby asked nonchalantly, as if two full weeks had not passed since their last meeting.
    â€œWhat?” Arthur said with a start. “Where did you come from? Where have you—?”
    â€œSorry it took me so long to get away. Ever since the hide-and-seek disaster, Rex and Rita have had the house on lockdown. Nonstop training every day. They’ve only just eased up enough to let me out for an ‘oxygen renewal session.’ Honestly, I’d almost rather be back on the compound. It’s been absolutely killing me not being able to get out here to the graveyard, which, I might add, is even better than the one in
Manslaughter Park
—though, of course, you can’t really beat the one in
Southanger Cemetery
. It’s good to see you, by the way.”
    â€œWh—yeah,” Arthur stammered, still recovering from the shock of Ruby’s abrupt appearance, “it’s good to see you too. I was starting to wonder if I’d ever see you again . . . but, I take it you deciphered my message?”
    â€œYep—though I think my baby brother could have figured that one out. You might want to work on your ciphers a bit.”
    â€œWell,” said Arthur in an injured tone, “I had to make it simple, didn’t I? How else could I be sure you’d get the message, since we hadn’t established a set code language? I know lots of codes. Have you heard of the one where you list the letters of the alphabet in one column, then reverse their order in a second column and then use the corresponding letters to write a hidden message? Yep? Just an example. What about the one where you assign a letter to each key of the piano and then record a tune with a secret message encoded in it? Didn’t think so. That’s a good one. Maybe next time you won’t be so hasty to judge someone on his knowledge of ciphers without taking a look at his codebook first.”
    By this time, an impish grin had formed on Ruby’s lips.
    â€œWhat?” Arthur demanded.
    â€œI’m only teasing, Arthur,” Ruby giggled. “You did great. I mean, I’m here, aren’t I? I got
this
, didn’t I?”
    With that, she held up Arthur’s hand-sketched copy of the