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