"If he ain't heard of them securities all this time they've been lyin' forgotten in the bank, it's safe he won't hear of 'em now unless you tell him," retorted his shrewder half, dryly. "Of course, if he's lived straight, as he has for near twenty years as far as we know, and he finds it out, he'll grab everything for himself. Why shouldn't he? But s'pose the bulls are after him for somethin', and the bank's hood-winked as well as us, where are we if we mix up in this? Tell me that!" "There's another side of it, too, Mame." Pennold walked to the window, and regarded the sordid lines of washed clothes contemplatively. "What if Jimmy has been up to somethin' on the quiet, that the bulls ain't on to, and this bunch of securities is on the level? If I went to him on the square, and offered him a percentage to play dead, wouldn't he be ready and willin' to divide?" "Of course he would; he's no fool," returned Mrs. Pennold shortly. "But let me tell you, Wally, I don't like the look of that 'See Walter Pennold of Brooklyn,' on the note in the bank. S'pose they was trying to trace him through us?" "You're talkin' like a blame' fool, Mame. Them securities has been there for years, forgotten. Everybody knows that me and Brunell was pals in the old days, but no one's got nothin' on us now, and he give up the game years ago." "How d'you know he did?" persisted his wife doggedly. "That's what you better find out, but you've gotter be careful about it, in case this whole thing should be a plant." "You don't have to tell me!" Pennold grumbled. "I'll write him first and then wait a few days, and if anyone's tailing me in the meantime, they'll have a run for their money." "Write him!" "Of course. You may have forgotten the old cipher, but I haven't. You know yourself we invented it, Jimmy and me, and the police tried their level best to get on to it, but failed." "You can't address it in cipher, and if you're tailed you won't get a chance to mail it, Wally. Better wait and try to see him without writing." For answer Pennold opened a drawer in the table, drew forth a grimy sheet of paper and an envelope, and bent laboriously to his task. It was long past dusk when he had finished, and tossed the paper across the table for his wife's perusal. This is what she saw: [Illustration: An image of a coded message is shown here in the text.] When she had gazed long at the characters, she shook her head at him, and a slow smile came over her face. "You've forgotten a little yourself, Wally. You made a mistake in the _k_." He glanced half-incredulously at it, and then laid his huge, rough hand on her thin hair in the first caress he had given her in years. "By God, old girl, you're a smart one! You're right. Now listen. You've got to do the rest for me, the hardest part. Mail it." "How? If we're tailed--"