They were lovely and quick
to learn--and their only
faults were little ones!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Up until the moment when he first looked into Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's
_History of English Literature_, Herbert Quidley's penchant for old
books had netted him nothing in the way of romance and intrigue.
Not that he was a stranger to either. Far from it. But hitherto the
background for both had been bedrooms and bars, not libraries.
On page 21 of the Taine tome he happened upon a sheet of yellow copy
paper folded in four. Unfolding it, he read:
_asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Cai: Sities towms copeis wotnid. Gind snoll doper nckli! Wilbe
Fieu Dayol fot ig habe mot toseo knwo--te bijk weil en snoll
doper--Klio, asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj_
Since when, Quidley wondered, refolding the paper and putting it back
in the book, had high-school typing students taken to reading Taine?
Thoughtfully he replaced the book on the shelf and moved deeper into
the literature section.
He had just taken down Xenophon's _Anabasis_ when he saw the girl walk
in the door.
Let it be said forthwith that old books were not the only item on
Herbert Quidley's penchant-list. He liked old wood, too, and old
paintings, not to mention old wine and old whiskey. But most of all he
liked young girls. He especially liked them when they looked the way
Helen of Troy must have looked when Paris took one gander at her and
started building his ladder. This one was tall, with hyacinth hair and
liquid blue eyes, and she had a Grecian symmetry of shape that would
have made Paris' eyes pop had he been around to take notice. Paris
wasn't, but Quidley's eyes, did the job.
After coming in the door, the girl deposited a book on the librarian's
desk and headed for the literature section. Quickly Quidley lowered
his eyes to the _Anabasis_ and henceforth followed her progress out of
their corners. When she came to the O's she paused, took down a book
and glanced through it. Then she replaced it and moved on to the
P's ... the Q's ... the R's. Barely three feet from him she paused
again and took down Taine's _History of English Literature_.
He simply could not believe it. The odds against two persons taking an
interest in so esoteric a volume on a single night in a single library
were ten thousand to one. And yet there was no gainsaying that the
volume was in the girl's hands, and that she was riffling through it
with the air of a seasoned browser.
Presently she returned the book to the shelf, selected
another--seemingly at random--and took it over to the librarian's desk.
She waited statuesquely while the librarian processed it, then tucked
it under her arm and whisked out the door into the misty April night.
As soon as she disappeared, Quidley stepped over to the T's and took
Taine down once more. Just as he had suspected. The makeshift bookmark
was gone.
He remembered how the asdf-;lkj exercise had given way to several lines
of gibberish and then reappeared again. A camouflaged message? Or was
it merely what it appeared to be on the surface--the efforts of an
impatient typing student to type before his time?
He returned Taine to the shelf. After learning from the librarian that
the girl's name was Kay Smith, he went out and got in his hardtop. The
name rang a bell. Halfway home he realized why. The typing exercise had
contained the word "Cai", and if you pronounced it with hard c, you got
"Kai"--or "Kay". Obviously, then, the exercise had been a message, and
had been deliberately inserted in a book no average person would dream
of borrowing.
By whom--her boy friend?
Quidley winced. He was allergic to the term. Not that he ever let the
presence of a boy friend deter him when he set out to conquer, but
because the term itself brought to mind the word "fiance," and the word
"fiance" brought to mind still another word, one which repelled him
violently. I.e., "marriage". Just the same, he decided to keep Taine's
_History_ under observation for a while.
* * * * *
Her boy friend turned out to be her girl friend, and her girl friend
turned out to be a tall and lissome, lovely with a Helenesque air of
her own. From the vantage point of a strategically located reading
table, where he was keeping company with his favorite little magazine,
_The Zeitgeist_, Quidley watched her take a seemingly haphazard route
to the shelf where Taine's _History_ reposed, take the volume down,
surreptitiously slip a folded sheet of yellow paper between its pages
and return it to the shelf.
After she left he wasted no time in acquainting himself with the second
message. It was as unintelligible as the first:
_asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai:
Habe wotnid ig ist ending ifedererer te. T'lide sid Fieu Dayol po
jestig toseo knwo, bijk weil en snoll doper entling--Yoolna. asdf
;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj_
Well, perhaps not quite as unintelligible. He knew, at least, who Cai
was, and he knew--from the reappearance of the words _wotnid_, _Fieu
Dayol_ and _snoll doper_--that the two communications were in the
same code. And certainly it was reasonable to assume that the last
word--_Yoolna_--was the name of the girl he had just seen, and that
she was a different person from the _Klio_ whose name had appended the
first message.
He refolded the paper, replaced it between the pages, returned the book
to the shelf and went back to the reading table and _The Zeitgeist_.
Kay didn't show up till almost closing time, and he was beginning
to think that perhaps she wouldn't come around for the pickup till
tomorrow when she finally walked in the door. She employed the same
tactics she had employed the previous night, arriving, as though by
chance, at the T-section and transferring the message with the same
undetectable legerdemain to her purse. This time, when she walked out
the door, he was not far behind her.
She climbed into a sleek convertible and pulled into the street. It
took him but a moment to gain his hardtop and start out after her.
When, several blocks later, she pulled to the curb in front of an
all-night coffee bar, he followed suit. After that, it was merely a
matter of following her inside.
He decided on Operation Spill-the-sugar. It had stood him in good stead
before, and he was rather fond of it. The procedure was quite simple.
First you took note of the position of the sugar dispensers, then you
situated yourself so that your intended victim was between you and the
nearest one, then you ordered coffee without sugar in a low voice, and
after the counterman or countergirl had served you, you waited till
he/she was out of earshot and asked your i.v. to please pass the sugar.
When she did so you let the dispenser slip from your fingers in such a
way that some of its contents spilled on her lap--
"I'm terribly sorry," he said, righting it. "Here, let me brush it off."
* * * * *
"It's all right, it's only sugar," she said, laughing.
"I'm hopelessly clumsy," he continued smoothly, brushing the gleaming
crystals from her pleated skirt, noting the clean sweep of her thighs.
"I beseech you to forgive me."
"You're forgiven," she said, and he noticed then that she spoke with a
slight accent.
"If you like, you can send it to the cleaners and have them send the
bill to me. My address is 61 Park Place." He pulled out his wallet,
chose an appropriate card, and handed it to her--