3. The Secret Code

Chapter 3 The Secret Code Brian, Nate, and Lucy came sprinting across the street. Bradley told them what Ellie had said and showed them the note. "The woman dropped it," he said. "What woman?" his brother asked.

Bradley pointed at the two strangers, who were now passing the post office. "The short one is a woman. I saw her lipstick!" Nate squinted. "Or it's a man pretending to be a woman!" he said. "Thieves are so tricky!" "And they both have tans," Bradley added. "I'll bet it's makeup!" Nate said. "To fool the police!" Brian, Nate, and Lucy huddled around Bradley, peering at the paper. WLK N 2 G.L.E.S. E ON WDY 2 D&H N ON FRM LN 2 P "This is just a bunch of initials," Nate said. "It might as well be written in a foreign language!" Lucy took the note from Bradley. "Do you think they're staying at the Shangri-la Hotel?" she said. "I don't think thieves stay at hotels in the same town where they're robbing houses," Nate said. "They just steal stuff, then take off!" "But if they're not staying at the hotel, how did they get this Shangri-la Hotel paper?" Brian

asked. "Maybe they stole it!" Bradley said. "Mr. Linkletter keeps some on his desk." "What does it mean?" Nate asked. "It's like a word puzzle," Lucy said. "I have a book of these. See, most of the vowels are missing." "The D, H, and P are underlined," Brian said. "But none of the other letters are." "It's a burglar's code," Bradley whispered. "Guys, they're walking toward the bank!" Brian said. "We have to keep following them!" Lucy gave the mysterious note back to Bradley, and he slipped it into his pocket. The four kids followed slowly, keeping the two strangers in sight. "That tall guy is weird," Brian said. "Before, his left leg was limping, but now it's his right leg!" "Are you sure?" Lucy asked. Brian tapped his head. "I never forget a limper!" he said. "Hold it!" Bradley whispered. The kids crouched behind a row of bushes in front of the post office. "They're stopping at the bank!"

The two strangers put their faces against the bank windows. Then the man in the cowboy hat pulled a notebook and pencil from a pocket in his backpack. He wrote something and put the notebook away. The woman took a picture of the bank. "They're taking more pictures!" Nate said. "We have to do something!" "Like what?" Lucy asked. "All they're doing is looking." "Yeah, looking in bank windows and writing stuff in a notebook and taking pictures," Nate said. "That's what thieves do when they're making a plan!" The bank clock now read three-thirty. "At least the bank is closed," Brian said. "They can't get in." "The doors were locked at Mrs. Wong's house, too," Nate said. "But they still got in!" "We don't know that for sure," Lucy reminded him. "Someone else could have stolen her computer." "They're on the move again," Nate said. "Let's go."

The kids followed the limping man and the woman in the ski mask farther down Main Street. The strangers stopped in front of the elderlyhousing building. The woman snapped a picture, and the man wrote something in his little notebook. Then they went in.

"Oh my gosh, they're going to rob those old people!" Brian said. "The police station is next door," Bradley said. "Maybe we should tell Officer Fallon what's going on!" "But nothing is going on," Lucy said. "Officer Fallon would get mad if we asked him to arrest two innocent people!" Bradley shook his head. "He'd get madder if they robbed his whole town!" he said. "So what should we do?" Nate asked. "Let's just wait a minute," Brian said. "But if we hear anyone scream, we run to the police station, okay?" They waited, and no one screamed. Three minutes later, an old man and woman came out. They had white hair and walked stooped over. One carried a big shopping bag, and they held on to each other as they walked down the steps. The four kids watched the old couple shuffle down Main Street. At the Shangri-la Hotel, one of them opened the bag, took out a camera, and aimed it at the hotel's entrance.