Antiques, Codes & Conundrums, page 7
“I’ll be sure to keep you updated,” Evelyn agreed.
Sandy looked toward the alley. “If Philip’s cheating customers, I’ll report him.”
“Right,” Evelyn said, even though she had her doubts Sandy’s boss was only dealing in fake antiques.
“I’ll see you soon.” Sandy bid Evelyn and Roger a hasty farewell.
Evelyn looked at Roger. With what they’d just endured, she felt a strong comradery with him. “Would you like to come to my house?” she offered. “We could look over the photos together.”
“I was hoping you’d ask.” He smiled. “I’m also dying to know what the notes in the ledger mean. Where do you live?”
“Not far.” Evelyn gave him the address. “You can follow me there.”
“Perfect.”
Like a true gentleman, Roger offered to walk Evelyn to her car.
“Hard to believe we actually pulled that off,” he said, shaking his head as they walked side by side. “I haven’t had that much excitement in a while.”
“I thought Philip would catch us for sure.” Thankfully the ordeal was over, and Evelyn could smile now.
The evening was warm as they walked down Main Street. Several people milled outside the local ice cream store. Any other time, Evelyn would’ve suggested they stop so she could get her favorite, butterscotch swirl. But she was too focused on the ledger photos. They reached a parking lot, and Roger walked her to her car and waited until she got in.
“I’m parked over there.” He pointed to the other side of the lot. “I’ll see you at your house.”
“Thank you.”
Evelyn started her car and turned the air conditioner on while she watched Roger get into a silver Mercedes. He followed her out of downtown Brookton, and as she headed home, she laughed out loud. The night’s adventure was exhilarating, and she felt alive in a way she hadn’t since Henry’s passing. However, thinking of him made her focus on the task at hand. Would the ledger photos help explain her husband’s connection to Philip? She hoped so.
***
Ten minutes later, she turned down her street. A few neighbor kids played basketball in their driveway, and a light shone from Margaret’s living room window. Wouldn’t she be surprised to hear what Evelyn had been up to. Evelyn pulled her white Lexus into her garage, and Roger parked on the street.
“What a charming house,” he said as he came up the walk. He studied her home, a red-brick ranch with a covered front porch and a large yard. He took a moment to smell some roses in flower beds. “Your yard looks wonderful.”
“Thanks. I’ve lived here for years. It’s a great area.”
She fumbled with her keys for a moment before unlocking the door and ushering Roger into the kitchen.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” she said, a hint of humor in her voice.
He glanced into a living room with vaulted beamed wood. “It’s beautiful.”
“Henry and I did a lot of work on this place. Sometimes it feels too big for me, but it’s home.”
“I understand that,” he remarked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “I can’t wait to see what we find in those photos.”
“Me, too.”
“Oh, and who are these two?”
Midnight and Lucky appeared, both staring cautiously from around the kitchen island. Evelyn introduced them.
“I have a third, Butterscotch. She’s blind, and probably sleeping in the study.”
Roger bent down and cooed at the two cats. Midnight—the bravest of the felines—swished his tail and approached, then sniffed at Roger’s hand. Evelyn watched, admiring Roger’s way with the animal. It didn’t take long before Midnight was soaking up some petting. Seeing that, Lucky walked over.
“What happened to his leg?” Roger asked.
“The shelter said he’d probably been hit by a car. His leg was beyond repair, so it was amputated. He does just fine with three legs, though.”
“He certainly does.” Roger looked up. “And where’s Butterscotch?”
“Follow me,” Evelyn said.
They headed straight for her study. When Evelyn flipped on the light, she motioned to Butterscotch, who was sleeping at the base of the cat tree.
“Hey, girl,” Evelyn said.
The marmalade cat got up, stretched, and walked to the sound of Evelyn’s voice. She scooped up Butterscotch, who immediately began to purr. Roger put his hand to her nose. She sniffed but didn’t pull back. Roger was soon petting her as well.
“You must be good people,” Evelyn observed. “Normally she’s a little more cautious.”
“I’m glad I met her approval,” he said.
Evelyn sat down at her desk chair and nodded to a folding chair. “You can sit there,” she said to him.
He sat down, and Butterscotch settled into Evelyn’s lap. Evelyn turned on a desk lamp, connected her phone to her laptop, then grabbed the mouse and opened the first ledger photo.
“Let’s see what we can figure out.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Adim glow from the desk lamp cast shadows in Evelyn’s study as she and Roger stared at the first photo. Two sets of whiskers twitched in unison as Midnight and Lucky approached Roger cautiously, sniffing at his shoes.
“Furry detectives,” Evelyn said with a chuckle, her eyes never leaving the photo. Her hand brushed the cat on her lap. “Butterscotch is fast asleep.”
“Hey, boys.” A smile played on Roger’s lips as he gave the other two cats brief pats on the head.
Midnight eyed him, then hopped to his perch on the bookcase. Lucky planted himself near Roger’s feet.
“All right,” Evelyn said as she cracked her fingers. “Let’s see what’s in the ledger.”
They stared at the first photo, and she glanced at Roger. He shrugged.
“Some notes on a table, but not one I looked at.”
She went to the next photo. Both studied it.
“Hmm,” Roger said. “Keep going through the photos.”
Evelyn did, and then he told her to slow down. She began clicking slowly through the rest until she reached the end. Then she went back a few photos and put her finger on a particular entry.
“You saw it?”
He nodded. “Some kind of pattern in the dates and values?”
“I think so. Let’s try applying some standard techniques first. You know, replacing letters and numbers.”
He stared at her. “You have something in mind?”
“Yes. I read a novel once where the detective tried different codes to decipher a message. That whole concept intrigued me, so I did some reading on codes and ciphers.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m impressed.”
“Let’s start with the Caesar cipher.”
“I’ve heard of that one. That’s when letters are shifted by a fixed number of positions in the alphabet,” Roger confirmed, his eyes scanning the numbers and letters before him.
“Exactly,” she nodded. “Let’s give it a shot. However, I’ll bet we could find something online to help us.”
“Good thinking.”
She googled “Caesar cipher,” and sure enough, she found a website that could decode text. She typed in some of the notes from the ledger, but nothing seemed to work. She tried various shifts and combinations, but to no avail. The results were a jumble of nonsense.
“Try some text from other pages.”
She slapped her forehead. “Of course. I should’ve tried that before.”
As she tested text from other photos, Butterscotch moved from Evelyn’s lap to the top of the printer. Roger finally stood up.
“I don’t think we’re on the right track.”
She pushed back from her chair. “Perhaps we need something stronger,” she suggested. “How about a drink? I should’ve offered something earlier.”
“No worries, and a drink sounds great,” Roger said.
They moved to the kitchen, followed by Lucky. Midnight and Butterscotch seemed content sleeping.
“What would you like?” Evelyn asked.
“Scotch and water, if you have it.”
Evelyn fixed his drink and handed it to him. “I hope it meets your standards.”
“Thanks.” He took a sip. “It’s perfect. And what will you have?”
She smiled. “I love Moscow Mules, especially on hot summer nights.”
“My wife used to drink those.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how long has she been gone?”
“Five years.”
“That’s about how long for Henry.”
He looked around the kitchen. “You have a lovely home.”
“Feel free to look around.”
As she fixed her Mule, he wandered about the kitchen, then moved down the hall.
“You have exquisite taste, and an interest in antiques,” he called from the living room.
“That old gramophone belonged to my mother.”
“It still works?”
“Yes. My grandson, Colton, thinks the old music is funny to listen to.”
“I’ll bet. So different than what kids listen to now, or even what we listened to.”
“So true,” she said.
Evelyn finished preparing her drink, and she found Roger taking a close look at framed photos she had hung on the hall wall. Once she had her drink, she joined him.
“You have a son and grandkids?” he asked.
“Vince.” She straightened a photo. “That’s his wife, Penny, and my grandsons, Colton and John. Vince travels a lot with his work. He’s in tech, and a lot of times when he talks about what he does, it goes over my head.” She laughed. “And here,” she indicated another photo, “is my daughter, Kyra.”
“She’s not married?”
“Divorced, no kids.”
“I don’t have any kids.” He gestured with his glass at a photo of her and Henry in front of the Colosseum in Rome. “You two look happy.”
“We were,” she said.
“I liked to travel with Janet.” He sighed. “She had cancer. Gone too soon.”
Evelyn murmured an apology. “Henry had a heart attack. Too soon as well.”
He gave a brief shrug. “But we move on, right?” He clinked her glass. “Shall we get back to work?”
They took their drinks back to the study, ready to continue. Lucky sprawled in the hallway, and Midnight stretched and groaned from his place on the bookcase. Butterscotch hadn’t moved a muscle.
“What other kinds of codes are there?” Roger asked as he sank into his chair.
“Let’s see what Google says.”
Evelyn typed for a moment. “We could try an Atbash cipher.” She read from the screen, “That’s a substitution cipher where the first letter of the alphabet is replaced with the last, the second with the second to last, and so on. Here’s a site that will do the work for us.”
He took a long sip from his glass. “Good idea. Save my brain power.”
She laughed as she entered some of the ledger notes into the decoder. Then she shook her head. “Still nothing.”
“Try other pages.”
“Oh, right.”
She took a sip of her Mule, then tried text from various pages from the photos. However, the results were the same. If there were hidden messages in Philip’s ledger, they remained stubbornly concealed, taunting the two with their elusive nature. Lucky got up and wandered into the room, then sprawled on the floor and promptly went back to sleep.
“Vigenère cipher?” Evelyn proposed as she read from a Google search.
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a more complex polyalphabetic substitution cipher. Oh my stars,” she said.
His lips twitched. “You used that expression at the antique store.”
“I know I sound old-fashioned, but it’s something I picked up from my mother. She didn’t like to swear, and that was a different way to express her frustration, or . . . whatever.”
“I like it.”
She focused on the screen. “Each letter of the text is encoded with a different Caesar cipher, whose increment is determined by the corresponding letter of another text.” She studied the screen. “The explanation goes on from there, but I think I need a code decipher to understand that.”
Roger chuckled. “I wouldn’t accuse you of cheating if you found another site to help us.”
“Already on it,” she said as she navigated search results and clicked open a website.
She plugged text into the decoder, trying various keyword combinations, including words related to the antique store, and Philip. This, too, failed to produce any meaningful information.
“Let me try a few others,” Evelyn said.
“Give it a shot,” Roger agreed, rubbing his eyes.
Evelyn attempted a few things, but even more complex methods failed to reveal any hidden messages. The minutes ticked by. Roger finished his Scotch while he watched. Tension hung heavy in the room, threatening to suffocate their enthusiasm.
He ran a hand through his hair. “If we were able to google codes and ciphers, so could Philip.”
She sipped more of her drink. “He’d worry about his code being discovered.”
“Yes. But what would he do then? Or are we completely on the wrong track?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe the ledger is meaningless.”
“You don’t believe that.”
He sighed. “No, I don’t. And I don’t know about you, but I’m tired, and the letters and numbers on those photos are blurring. Maybe we should call it a night,” he suggested, glancing at the dozing cats scattered around the room.
“Let’s sleep on it,” she said, standing up. “We’ll regroup tomorrow.”
Roger sighed and picked up his empty glass. “Well, I did notice that some of the antiques in the store are fakes. Now to find out if Philip knows he’s purchasing fakes.”
“Thanks for everything tonight,” Evelyn said as she walked him to the door. She appreciated his efforts more than he knew.
“It was a treat, Evelyn. Just promise me you won’t stay up all night trying to crack this thing.”
“Can’t make any promises,” she responded with a small smile, her determination still burning bright despite the exhaustion creeping in.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Thanks for the drink and company, too.”
He handed her his glass, and with a final nod, he stepped into the warm night air, leaving Evelyn alone with her thoughts—and her cats. She closed the door behind him, took the glasses into the kitchen, then went back into the study. Butterscotch had rolled on her back, perilously close to falling off the printer. Lucky still lay sprawled on the floor, snoring softly. Midnight’s tail twitched as he dreamed. Their feline world was filled with simple pleasures, unfazed by the complexities of ledgers and codes.
Evelyn sighed, rubbing her temples “I can’t give up now,” she murmured to the cats. They remained oblivious as she sank onto the chair in front of her desk. It was after midnight, and she knew she should go to bed, but she just couldn’t. “There has to be something we missed.”
Her gaze flitted across the screen as she stared at the photos, the cryptic text of the ledger taunting her at every turn. The room seemed to shrink around her as she focused her remaining energy on deciphering the elusive code. Finally, as she squinted at one of the photos, she sat up and peered closer at a page, reading through the dates and values once more. And there—a pattern emerged that she hadn’t noticed before.
“Could it be that simple?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Evelyn tapped the arm of her chair and stared at the screen, the single desk lamp casting shadows like lurking secrets. She thought back to her old math days and muttered to herself. Then she grabbed a piece of paper and began jotting notes. After a minute, she got onto the Internet and checked a website to see if she was on the right track. A sudden rush of clarity washed over her as the pieces fell into place.
“Oh my stars!” she exclaimed, her voice barely a whisper. “All the amounts consist of prime numbers. A numerical cipher.”
She took some of the figures and focused on extracting the digits as a prime number sequence. Then she converted the digits to their corresponding letters in the alphabet. “A equals two. B equals three. C equals five,” she muttered.
It was slow, meticulous work, even when she tried to use an online decoder. But then a couple of words formed: Old Kent. Near that was a date, approximately six months ago. She stopped decoding and googled it. Old Kent Road was a street name. She stared at the numbers previous to the name, and then checked a map. The address was an old building, a nondescript place. She spent a few minutes googling the area and found it wasn’t the best part of London. She couldn’t imagine Philip buying antiques there.
“I figured out his code!” Evelyn exclaimed with a clap of her hands.
Midnight bolted from his perch on the bookcase, clumsily kicking some paperback books, sending them cascading to the floor. As cats do, he glared at his owner.
“I’m sorry,” Evelyn cooed as she picked him up. “Oof. You are a big boy, aren’t you?” He pushed his paws against her, and she laughed. “Okay, you don’t want to be held.”
She put him on the desk and began petting him. He didn’t run, but he didn’t purr, either. She absentmindedly stroked his fur as she pondered the address she’d discovered. The significance of the details eluded her, but she understood that the stakes had just been raised.
“What on earth is Philip up to?”
Butterscotch seemed to sense the change in the room, and she sat up on the printer, her fur bristling. She carefully stepped off it, then jumped off the desk with an indignant yowl. Lucky, usually the most composed of the trio, rolled onto his back and stared at Evelyn, wide-eyed and questioning.
“Sorry,” Evelyn apologized. “But I’ve stumbled upon something big here.”
Even though it was late, she worked on. A lot of the text she tried to decode seemed like gibberish, prime numbers within non-primes.
“So, these must be actual numbers and dates,” she mused. “Legit transactions, I suppose.”
