Chapter 183 – Secret Code

Wynn left the jail and then stood on the porch for just a moment. He was glad that Bernardi was behind bars, but he was worried about the real Captain Campbell. As Wynn looked around Hope Valley, it was just waking up and he wondered what the rest of the day would bring. As Wynn stood there looking around, he saw Ned sweeping the steps of the mercantile and knew he needed to wire headquarters about the arrest, so Wynn headed toward Ned.

When Wynn approached Ned, he had to stop for a moment and think about what he was going to say. Ned saw Wynn coming and knew that he needed something. Ned stopped and watched Wynn approach him. When Wynn got to him, Ned looked at his face and realized something had happened.

"Need something?" Ned asked.

"I need to send a couple of wires." Wynn said. "Urgent Mountie business."

"Katie is inside already." Ned said. "I will be in in a moment."

Wynn headed inside and wrote out the messages after Katie gave him the pad. Wynn waited a moment and then handed the slips back to Katie. She took them and went to send them out. Wynn waited for the slips back from Katie. When Katie returned, she gave the slips back to Wynn.

"If you get a reply, please bring it over to the mayor's office." Wynn said.

"Yes, Sir." Katie said. "I will try. It is only Dad and I today. Lucy is with the girls."

Wynn left and headed down the steps. He tipped his hat to Ned and went across the street and opened up the office. Wynn had been in the office about twenty minutes, when Abigail knocked on the door and came in. She brought a basket in and set it down in front of Wynn.

"Your wife figured that you wouldn't stop to eat." Abigail said. "So she made up a basket with fresh biscuits and some jam. She put in a couple slices of bacon as well."

"Thank you." Wynn said.

Wynn took the basket and started unpacking it while Abigail made him a cup of coffee. Once it was ready, she set it in front of Wynn.

"If you need me." Abigail said. "I will be over at the cafe."

"Thank you." Wynn said. "Don't forget that the auditors could show up this afternoon."

"I know." Abigail said. "The supply wagon should also be here sometime today. I am caught up here until the auditors get here."

"Okay." Wynn said. "Can you send Jacobs over when he comes in."

"I will." Abigail said.

Abigail left Wynn to eat and get back to work. She wasn't sure what was going on and Wynn didn't share. She figured she would hear when she heard. After Abigail left, Wynn ate his breakfast while he read through Cook and Bill's statements.

After Jacobs left Wynn, he got the cadets going for their morning run. He had gone to change to run with them. After they ran five loops, Jacobs sent them to get washed up as he went to do the same. Once they were washed up, Jacobs got the cadets for breakfast. He sent them to the cafe with instructions on who was on kitchen duty and gave the others their chores for the day. After he saw the cadets head to the cafe, he stepped in the jail to speak to Bill for a moment.

Jacobs sat at the desk for a bit while Bill finished getting ready for the day. He saw the same thing that Wynn had seen – the two men intently staring at each other without speaking. Once Bill came back out, they spoke for a moment and Jacobs learned that the men had been that way since Bernardi had been locked in the cell. Bill assured Jacobs that he was fine and as long as he sent some food over for all three of them, that he didn't need anything else, but also didn't want the cadets in and out of the jail. Jacobs understood what Bill was getting at. Jacobs let him know that he would speak to the cadets and if there was a problem he would deal with them.

Jacobs left and headed to the cafe to get some breakfast as well. It was not how he thought the day was going to start. As Jacobs walked to the cafe, he started making a mental list of everything that needed to be done. He wondered if Wynn had already contacted headquarters. He knew that he would have to speak to him, but knew that he needed coffee and some food first.

When Jacobs got to the cafe, he spoke to the cadets and informed them that the jail was off limits until further notice. They were to go about their chores and guard duty as assigned. Otherwise they were to stay in their tent as before. After speaking to the cadets, Jacobs sat down with a large cup of coffee and Patty immediately brought him biscuits and gravy. She sat down for a moment with him.

"Slow down and eat." Patty said. "Everything else will come. Elizabeth Rose and I will be here to help Abigail until lunch. We will take a couple of cadets to help with dishes through the rush."

"You have Peters and Harvey." Jacobs said. "Edwards is on guard duty."

"Thank you." Patty said. "If you need anything else from me, let me know."

"Thank you." Jacobs said. "I will let you know, but your first job is to protect Mrs Delaney."

"I know." Patty said. "But whatever is going, just know I have your back if needed."

Jacobs nodded and finished his breakfast. Patty left him to eat. After Jacobs was done eating, he took his dishes to the kitchen, thanked the ladies and then left to go to the office.

As Dee reached town, he didn't see anything amiss. People were coming and going from the cafe. The mercantile was busy. Lee, Hickum and several other men were having coffee and speaking on the front porch of Lee's office. Dee waved to them and they waved back. Dee decided to stop at the mercantile and see if there were any messages before heading to the office to see what was going on.

When Dee walked in, he saw Katie was busy with a customer and there was another waiting. Dee stood there waiting his turn. Katie saw him waiting and indicated to the back room. Dee took that to mean that Ned was in the back at the telegraph and there were possible messages for him. Dee waited while Katie helped the ladies that had come in early to shop.

While Dee was waiting, Ned came out, looked around and saw Dee. Ned immediately waved him over and handed him the message he was holding.

"There are a couple others for your dad as well." Ned said.

"I will take them." Dee said.

While Dee waited for Ned, he looked at the message that he had been handed. It didn't make sense off the top of his head. Dee could tell it was some code, but he didn't recognize it right away. When Ned came back, Dee looked at him.

"Where did this come from?" Dee asked.

"Union City Mounties." Ned said. "It didn't make sense to me. I questioned it and got the reply that Jack would understand."

"Thank you." Dee said. "Any more messages please bring them to the office as soon as possible."

"Okay." Ned said.

Dee left the mercantile with several messages and headed across the road. He wasn't surprised to find Jacobs and his father with their heads down going over papers.

"What is going on?" Dee asked.

Jacobs looked up.

"Jack." Jacobs said.

"I left him at the house resting." Dee said. "When you didn't come, he told me to come in and see what was going on. We figured something happened."

"Yes." Wynn said. "We will explain. I take it there are messages (pointing to Dee's hand)."

"Yes." Dee said. "One for Jack in code. I am assuming it is from McGinty. I don't recognize the code off hand."

"How about you two head back to the house." Wynn said. "Take care of Jack and see if he can crack the code. Then come back here and we will deal with everything else. I will take the other messages."

Dee handed the other messages to his father, then he and Jacobs left to head back to the house. As Jacobs and Dee were heading to the house, Jacobs explained a little what was going on.

"Sorry." Jacobs said. "We were waiting to hear from headquarters. I knew I needed to help Jack, but your dad thought it could wait a bit."

"I figured." Dee said. "Beth got off to school. Jack had a cup of the medicated tea this morning and then I let him rest when I came in. He said his breathing is better, but his ribs really hurt."

"I kind of figured." Jacobs said. "I think he is past the worst of the breathing issues. Now it is just going to be letting him heal."

"I basically told him that." Dee said. "He agreed that the wrapping was helping."

"Good." Jacobs said.

When they got to the house, Dee knocked and then went inside. Jacobs immediately went to the kitchen to get the water heating. Dee went to the bedroom to wake Jack. It took a couple of minutes for Jack to wake up, but when he did Dee helped him to the kitchen table.

"Jack." Dee said. "While the water is heating, we need your help."

"Okay." Jack said. "What do you need?"

"This message came in." Dee said. "When Ned went to confirm it the response came back that you would understand."

"Who is it from?" Jack asked.

"Union City Mounties." Dee said.

"Let me see." Jack said. "It was probably McGinty. If he found something of importance, he would have sent it in code."

Jack took the message from Dee and looked at it. To anyone else it would have just been a jumble of letters. The message read:

Thornton 2 mpvw zvreqpww jvyp rvshm qmpvn xk zvjp lxww piewvxk lopk mpgdmk vmnpjg yvnp zvreqpww gmvkjehmg hk gop lvf rztxkgf.

"Here." Jack said. "I will show you the code in case you need to use it in the future."

Jacobs sat down to see as well. Dee handed Jack his notebook.

"The number after my name tells which code to use." Jack said. "We came up with these in the academy. There are a total of five. Let me write it out and then you can translate."

Jack wrote out the code and then handed everything back to Dee to translate the message. Since the water was still hot from the morning it didn't take long to heat. Jacobs quickly got up when the kettle whistled to get Jack going on the steam. Dee looked at the message and took a moment to translate it.

"Genius." Dee said. "I will have to keep this in mind. I might have to use it with McGinty or you in the future. How did you come up with this anyway?"

"Just talk to him first." Jack said. "This was something that he and I came up with together. We were playing around with the codes that we were taught in the academy. I then remembered something from when I was growing up. Dad had told me that he and a couple of other Mounties had come up with their own code for emergencies. It was something that only they knew and only used when they needed to communicate something extremely important and they didn't trust others."

"Anyone else know it?" Jacobs asked.

"We taught them to the third member of our group." Jack said.

"Doug Burke, right?" Dee said. "You said there were five different ones.

"Yes." Jack said. "We haven't used it in a couple of years, but we know that we can pull it out at any time to use with each other. One is the easiest and five is the most complicated. The level of difficulty also relayed the importance of the message. I have only ever used level five once. We mostly used one and two. So what did the message say?"

"Real Campbell safe." Dee read. "Major break in case. Will explain when return. Arrest fake Campbell. Transport on the way. McGinty."

"Good." Jack said. "The key to the code is to always use the number after the name and that is the only thing that is not in code."

"Got it." Dee said. "I will talk to McGinty when he gets back and let him know that you told me and ask if he is willing to include me on the code."

"Just remember." Jack said. "The point is to limit the number of people that know, so we can use it."

"Got it." Dee said. "But if McGinty is okay with me knowing it and using it with you two, are you okay with it?"

Jack nodded because he knew that Dee would probably never forget it and it was another way that he could send messages to headquarters in code.

"Maybe you should head back into town." Jacobs said. "I am sure that your father will want to know that right away. I mean we already arrested the fake Campbell for other reasons. If transport is already on the way, they could be here just after lunch."

"Will you be alright alone?" Dee asked.

"Yes." Jacobs said. "I will be back in when I am done here."

"Go." Jack said. "This is important and Wynn will need you. I am sure there will be a ton of messages back and forth that need to be dealt with."

Dee looked between the two men. To make his point, Jack waved his hand for Dee to go.

"Okay." Dee said. "But send a guard if you need anything."

"I will." Jacobs said.

With that, Dee left and headed back to town. After Dee left, Jacobs talked to Jack a little about how he was doing with the pain. He also told him about the early morning arrest and that was why he hadn't come out. It didn't take long for Jacobs to do the treatment for Jack. Once he was done, he got Jack settled in the bed downstairs with a glass of water. Jack realized that it was better to have the tea before the treatment and give it a little time to work. He told Jacobs as much. When Jacobs left, he sent one of the guards inside to sit as before.