“Old Tom lied,” said Winifred, again with the heartless devotion to her purpose. I was beginning to regret my choice of compeers for the night assault on the hermit’s cabin. But it was too late now. We slipped soundlessly out of the house. The hermit was busy in the garden, so we crept across the fields by moonlight and didn’t turn on our flashlights until we got to the woods.

The woods at night are a different thing. Full of shadows and rocks and roots to trip you up. It took twice as long as usual to reach the hermit’s and often one or the other of us wanted to turn back, but we persevered, driven by Winifred’s terrible anxiety for her father. And when finally we got there we were glad we had come, for we went immediately into his cabin and the letters sat on a table, not even hidden. We read them in the order we found them:

1. NOW IS THE TIME.

“Oh,” said Winifred, “Mother said that Daddy was going to do something stupid. She must have known it was the time for a stupid thing. I should never have doubted her. I’m an idiot.”

“You are not an idiot, Winifred,” I said staunchly. “You were merely a person with insufficient information. Now let’s read the rest of the letters and figure out what is being communicated between Zebediah and your father that is such a big secret.”

2.  BE CAREFUL.

3.  KEEP IT TO YOURSELF BUT FIND OUT MORE.

4.  ASK HIM TO TELL YOU THE CODE.

5.  MONDAY IS THE DAY. IF I DON’T SEE YOU AGAIN, TELL EVERYONE I LOVE THEM.

Winifred just stood holding the last as if turned to stone.

I was the one who spoke. “It’s worse than we thought.”

Radio Reports

RADIO REPORTS

We shot out of the cabin, clutching the letters and stumbling down the dark path. Luckily, the hermit was still working in the garden, so we didn’t run into him.

“Why a code? What code?” I said over and over. “Ask who for the code?”

“How should I know?” said Winifred. “None of it makes sense. There’s no point asking Zebediah again. If he read that last letter and it awoke no terror in his heart, then I think it’s safe to say we will never find out anything from him. There is only one thing to do. Wilfred and I will have to call Mother. We can pass on what we know and alert her to the dangers ahead. And, most important, we can tell her that tomorrow is the day, whatever that means. Unless this is all just some kind of big joke or big make-believe game between Father and Zebediah.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “Surely it is only that.”

“You don’t know Father,” said Winifred worriedly. “But we can tell Mother and let her sort it out.”