The French Powder Mystery

“Yes.”

“The book marked for Wednesday, then, was placed on the same shelf as all the others on Tuesday evening. The Thursday book on Wednesday evening the week following, and so on. What could this possibly mean? Obviously, that Springer didn’t allow too much time to elapse between the evening he prepared the book with the address and the time it was to be picked up!”

“Picked up?” demanded the Inspector.

“Of course. Everything points to a well-constructed plan of operation in which Springer’s main job was to inform some one of an address through the medium of a book. If Springer could inform that problematical person or persons by word of mouth, why the complicated book-code system? No. The probability is that Springer knows the people who come in to pick up his doctored volumes, but that they, being mere pawns, don’t know him. But this is really beside the point. The crux of the matter is that Springer would not allow the prepared book to linger on the shelf too long. It might be purchased; the address in it might inadvertently be noticed by a stranger. Dad, if you were in Springer’s place, how would you arrange the time when the book should be picked up?”

“Seems clear. If Springer prepared it, at night, then he would have it picked up in the morning.”

Ellery smiled, “Exactly. What risk then does he run? He writes the address in the book after hours, when the book cannot be removed that night in a legitimate way by an outsider; and the very next morning the appointed messenger takes it from its place on the shelf — a place of course set definitely when the plan was originally concocted. The chances are, in fact, that the messenger arrives as early as possible the next morning — perhaps as soon as the store opens, at nine o’clock. He browses around, goes over to the shelf finally, picks up the book he knows about in advance through a sign which I’ll explain in a moment, pays for it in the regular way and walks out with his information under his arm — safe, clean and ridiculously easy.

“Now! There are a few inferences to be drawn. We must suppose that when the messenger arrives in the morning he has no contact with Springer — really, everything points to this complete alienation between Springer and the messenger, with one or both ignorant of the other’s identity. Then the only clue the messenger has to the book fixed the night before is a code, or system, arranged beforehand. That’s just common sense. But what could the code be? And that is the beautiful part of the plan.

“Why, I asked myself, was it necessary to the plan to have the author’s name — at least its first two letters — coincide with the first two letters of the day on which the book was to be picked up by the messenger? The question is answered if we suppose complete ignorance of detail on the part of the messenger. If, when he got his job, his first instructions, he was told the following, then the whole procedure becomes clear: ‘Every week you are to call at the French Book Department for a book which will contain an address. The book will be on the top shelf of the fourth tier of book-racks situated in such and such a place in the Department. The book will always be on that shelf... Now. Every week you are to call on a different day. Eight days apart, to be exact. Except when Sunday intervenes, and then it will be nine days — from the proceeding Saturday to the following Monday. Let us say the morning you are due to call for the book is a Wednesday. Then the book you should pick up will be by an author whose last name begins with a WE, to correspond to the WE of Wednesday. To make identification absolutely positive, and to get you out of the Book Department as quickly as possible, so that you will not be compelled to rummage through every book on that shelf, a light pencil-mark will appear on the first two letters of the author’s name, positively identifying the proper volume. You pick up the book, look at the back liner leaf to make sure the address is there, then buy the book and walk out of the store.’... Does that sound plausible?”

There was a vehement chorus of assents from the three men.

“It’s a devilishly ingenious scheme,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “if a little complicated. Really, though, the complications iron themselves away with the passage of time. The beauty of the plan is that the messenger needs his instructions only once, the first time, and he can carry on indefinitely, for months, without a slip-up... The next Thursday he has to look for a pencil-mark on a book whose author’s name begins with TH; the Friday following, an FR; and so on. What the messenger does with the book when he gets it is debatable. From the looks of things, this is a highly centralized society of drug distributors, with the pawns in the game knowing as little as possible about the business at hand, probably being kept in complete ignorance of the ringleader or leaders. The question naturally arises—”