"I'd like to try," Nancy said eagerly.

"This will be a good test for your sleuthing mind," her father said teasingly. "If you don't figure out the code, you can always turn this paper over to an expert."

"Not until I've had a fighting chance at it myself," Nancy answered with spirit.

"I'd really like to help you with this mystery," her father said, "but I'm so tied up with this Clifton case I just can't tackle anything else right now."

Immediately after dinner Mr. Drew retired to his second-floor study to work on his law case. Nancy went to her bedroom to read the book on codes. When she finished, the girl detective took out the sheet on which she had copied the numbers and studied the figures intently.

"I'm sure the numbers stand for letters of the alphabet," Nancy told herself. "They must have been arranged in some pattern."

For over two hours Nancy tried combination after combination and applied it to the code. Nothing showed up until she hit upon the plan of four letters of the alphabet in sequence by number, the next four in reverse. Alternating in this manner and leaving two in the end bracket, Nancy scrutinized what she had worked out:

A B C D E F G H I J  K  L  M

1 2 3 4 8 7 6 5 9 10 11 12 16

N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

15 14 13 17 18 19 20 24 23 22 21 25 26

"I've hit it!" she thought excitedly.

CHAPTER IVA Switch in Jobs

  _             ~

1653 112 129 1562 16 882 091 5618

                               --

   C a l  li  ng  m  ee  ti  ng

The numbers with the marks above or below them stymied Nancy completely. Most of the others fell neatly into place and spelled:

"Calling meeting," Nancy repeated. "But where? And by whom?" She yawned, weary from her long concentration. "My brain's too fogged to figure out anything more," she told herself. "I'll tackle this another time."