Because tomorrow was Thursday—the fifth day of September—it was the date the "letter" mentioned by Detective Spyro before his death was due to arrive. On Wednesday night, after seeing Galina and Tifa off, Shade had been speculating about what the contents of that letter might be.
As his thoughts wandered, his guesses grew increasingly bizarre; eventually, he even wondered if it wasn't a letter at all, but a package that would trigger a steam bomb upon being opened.
Because he had been thinking too much, he had a strange dream after falling asleep on Wednesday night. At the end of the dream, he actually saw Mr. Spyro Hamilton. The gentleman in the dream didn't mention the task he had left for Shade, but instead scolded him for keeping a cat in St. Delan Square and making the house dirty.
"What a weird dream."
Shade woke up suspiciously, only to find it was only five-thirty.
Staring at the ceiling in the darkness, he lay there for ten minutes but found he had no desire to sleep, so he sat up in bed. With the arrival of autumn, sunrise came later and later, and since the bedroom curtains were drawn, the room was pitch black.
However, perhaps startled by Shade's movement, the cat curled up in a ball beside the pillow alertly opened its eyes. After glancing at Shade and realizing it was him, it meowed a few times and fell back into a deep sleep.
It wasn't time for this cat to wake up yet.
Since he couldn't sleep, Shade got up early, changed into clothes he didn't usually wear, and headed straight out. He didn't go far, but instead sat down by the fountain statue of a girl holding a water jar in the center of St. Delan Square, feeding pigeons with some breadcrumbs.
These pigeons always seemed to be here.
His behavior was very suspicious; even a passing patrolman gave him a couple of glances. But as the time reached six o'clock, other people gradually appeared in St. Delan Square, and he no longer seemed so conspicuous.
Shade wanted to see exactly who delivered the mail to St. Delan Square.
Starting from six-thirty, the mail carriers and milk deliverymen arrived one after another. Letters and newspapers were delivered through the slots at the bottom of the doors into the hallways, while milk and goat's milk were placed in the milk boxes to the right of the doors.
Shade remained motionless, which resulted in Mia—who woke up promptly at six-thirty—standing on the windowsill and staring at him with piercing eyes after spotting him from the bedroom window.
Shade waited until seven. Seeing that no one else lingered at his door, he scattered the remaining breadcrumbs to the pigeons.
As he stood up, the pigeons fluttered over his head. Shade walked to his front door and used the key to open the milk box. After taking out the glass milk bottle and opening the door, he saw his subscribed newspaper on the doormat, along with two stamped letters.
"Could this kind of letter be sent through the post office? Are they that bold?"
Shade wondered suspiciously.
He first prepared breakfast for himself and the cat, then opened the letters at the dining table.
Of the two letters, one was an official letter from the Seer Association, inviting Shade to attend the opening ceremony of the "1853 Great City Player Rhode Card Tournament," which would be held tomorrow at the Seer Association on Silver Cross Avenue.
Since Shade had accepted money as a specially invited player, he would naturally be present tomorrow.
The other letter was from a gentleman named Griel Ego. The return address listed a street in the north of the city, but there was no specific house number; it had likely been dropped directly into a mailbox at the street corner.
"I have a strange feeling that this is the one," Shade thought to himself, feeling a bit excited. "This is a puzzle that's lasted over two months. I wonder what it is?"
Opening the envelope, he found only a single folded sheet of stationery. The back was blank, and the front had neat Delarion script written in blue-black ink. But it was only a short single line, without even a greeting or a signature—
【Same as always.】
"How rude. But what does this mean?"
Shade was extremely curious.
【Didn't you want to burn this letter?】
She asked softly in his ear.
"Burning the letter doesn't conflict with me figuring out its contents. This is a two-month-old puzzle," Shade responded. He held the letter up to the sunlight from the window, but there was no reaction. Seeing Mia lean in curiously, he handed the paper to her.
The cat sniffed it, then turned back to its breakfast.
"How interesting."
Shade was certain this letter wasn't that simple, and having nothing to do today combined with an intense curiosity wouldn't allow him to give up now.
"I just want to know what this is; I don't want to get mixed up in Detective Spyro's troubles."
Thus, after breakfast, Shade took the letter to the Dawn Church and found Priest Augustus. The priest had already received his specific departure time and planned to tell everyone about his journey on Saturday.
Seeing Shade arrive, the priest even asked for his help in thinking about what else he needed to bring, as the climate in the southeastern part of the kingdom was entirely different from that of Tobesk.
"I wanted to ask if there's a way to make invisible writing appear," Shade said, waving the letter in his hand. "It might have been written with special ink, but I don't know what kind."
If it was indeed as Shade suspected, Detective Spyro would have likely destroyed the reagent used to reveal the ink long ago; a dying spy would have no reason to leave behind something that could expose his identity.
"A letter from a Ring-caster? Hidden with occult arts?" Priest Augustus asked.
"No, just a letter from an ordinary person. I suspect special ink."
"Ordinary people are easy to deal with."
The priest didn't even take Shade to his potion workshop; instead, in his own room at the church, he found a small, dust-covered glass bottle. Inside was a black liquid that looked exceptionally thick.
"Try this: Revealing Solution. It's generally used to detect objects that can be touched but cannot be observed with the naked eye or other methods. This bottle of mine has expired, but it's still useful for ink. This doesn't reveal things through a chemical reaction; it makes things that 'exist but are unseen' visible on a conceptual level."
Invisible ink is still ink; there must be traces of ink on the page.
This simple potion formula required a specific ritual to work; using it to crack a secret letter was like using a steam bomb to kill a mosquito.
Priest Augustus hadn't brought the ritual materials into the church, so he told Shade to take the revealing solution home and do it himself.
Shade immediately offered to pay for the potion, but the old priest waved him away.
"It might have been worth some money if it hadn't expired, but this bottle is past its prime. Just consider it as helping me take out the trash. I've been thinking about throwing it out for ages, but I've been too lazy to pull it out from under the bed."
After bidding farewell to the priest, Shade first went to Old John's Pawnshop and spent 3 shillings and 9 pence on the ritual materials. Because the price was cheap, Shade didn't even haggle, leaving Father John—who had been eagerly waiting for him to mention a "cane"—very disappointed.
"Sometimes I feel that the pleasure of doing business with you is greater than the pleasure of earning those few coins from your pocket."
After returning home, Shade simply set up the ritual on a blank piece of paper and placed the letter from this morning on top. After pouring the potion from Priest Augustus over it, there was no reaction on the stationery.
"Hmm, guessed wrong?"
Shade thought for a moment at his desk, removed the paper with the short line of text, and placed the envelope on top instead. After pouring the potion again, dense rows of numbers appeared on the inside of the envelope.
"Very good."
An excited smile appeared on his face, but the numbers, when put together, had no meaning at all.
"A musical score? Doesn't look like a code. Detective Spyro's code..."
Shade turned to the bookshelf and took down the detective's belongings: *The Queen and Her Lovers*, *The Silver Knight*, and *All Quiet on the Western Front*.
These three novels were the only ones Detective Spyro owned in his lifetime, and they showed many signs of having been flipped through. Shade had previously speculated that these were a spy's codebooks; now he finally had a chance to verify it.
"But why didn't he destroy these three books before he died?"
He wondered suspiciously while flipping through the books, then realized that compared to strange ink, these three novels were unremarkable. Anyone suspecting his identity would eventually notice missing books from the study even if he had destroyed them; anyone who didn't suspect him wouldn't care that these three books were on the shelf.
"But how do I compare those numbers with these three books..."
Looking at the items on his desk, Shade fell into deep thought.
The numbers revealed on the envelope weren't completely continuous; a clear space appeared every few numbers. With the spaces as dividers, each group consisted of eight numbers.
"These three books all have three-digit page numbers, and the binding specifications are similar. Looking at the number of digits on the envelope, it's impossible for each group of numbers to correspond to a single letter; they should correspond to words. And the number of lines and columns of words on each page are only two digits. That is to say, if one wanted to point to a word on a certain page, line, and column, it would only take 3+2+2=7 digits. But now there are eight digits per group. What does the extra one point to?"
Mia jumped from the floor onto Shade's lap, and then from his lap onto the desk. Seeing the three books on the table, she immediately extended her paw, only to be picked up and moved away by Shade.
"Could it be a pointer to the book? The codebook isn't a single book, but composed of multiple books?"
He compared all the numbers on the envelope again and found that the last digit of every group was either "1," "2," or "3." No other numbers appeared.
"That makes it simple. The last digit of each group refers to the book."
Shade smiled.
But this created a new problem: even if this guess was correct, he didn't know the numerical assignment for the three novels.
"But that's fine; I can try them one by one. I'll translate the first ten groups of numbers; if they form a coherent, meaningful sentence, it means my idea is correct."
【Three numbers for three books, you'll have to guess many times.】
The voice sounded in his ear.
"It's fine, only six possible permutations."
Shade thought to himself, took his notebook, and began recording the letters corresponding to the numbers. Ten groups of numbers meant ten words, and although there were six permutations, in reality, each group of numbers only needed to be checked three times.
(End of Chapter)