FORTUNATELY, GLADYS comes with us when we go to Baltimore the next day to talk to Harriet and Kent Stirling’s only known descendant.
“So far I’ve come up with squat,” Gladys says. “The few pages I’ve run through my decryption program are still gibberish. I don’t think there’s a code there at all.”
“Maybe it is a code,” Nate says, “but it’s so complex, only she knew how to read it. Maybe it’s like the Voynich manuscript.”
“No, Bae,” Gladys says. “It’s nothing like the Voynich manuscript. I’m telling you, there’s no code.”
“If there’s no code, then why did she write it?”
“I don’t know, Nate,” she exclaims. “She did have mental problems. Maybe she was just cuckoo for cocoa puffs!”
“That’s awfully insensitive, Gladys.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re about to drive me crazy with this coded manus
