Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-02-15
TIE PERPLEXING CIPHER.
HOW A WOMAN LHFT THE BULK or
HER FORTUNE.
A Cipher which Could BE Correctly
Interpreted i'm Two Ways-Settlin3
the Difficulty.

Cipher which Could BE Correctly
Interpreted i'm Two Ways-Settlin3
the Difficulty.
The following curious Renaissance ap-
pears in Romantic Stories of the Legal
Profession" Miss Bridgeta Molloy was
the possessor of large fortune in her own
right, the same having been left to her
by her father. She had two sisters, Lucis
and Judith, who had incurred the old
gentlemans displeasure by running off
and marrying two scapegraces, and so
they were not remembered in his will.
One of these sisters had a son, Ferentz
Steldil, and the other a daughter, Lucis
Bidigita O'Birn. When it happened to
Bridgita Molloy to die, unwedded and
without issue, they found will under
her pillow, which was in the strictest
sense conundrum. 1t read plainly
enough so far as minor bequests were con-
cerned, including 1000 each to the
nephew and niece, and shilling each to
the brothers .in-law, "to buy mourning
rings" but when it came to the bulk of
| the fortune, here is what it said:
And all the residue OF my proper
ty, whether real or personal, give, 6s49eHatnh n
and devise to G X D N w NJ d b u .
WV D M H It'd X YE
That was all, and of course it was
simple nonsense as it stood. But while
they were examining it note dropped
out, in which they were told to lift up
the carpet in certain corner OF the
room. They did so and found there
another note telling them to consult
certain page of a certain book. They
did that also and found there third
note saying: "Key behind wainscot,
three inches toward cupboard from
dressing-room window" 1t was the
work of few moments only to remove
a loose board at the point indicated, and
there they came upon few half-eaten
scraps of paper, and nothing more. The
mice had swallowed the key There
could be no doubt that the whimsical
collection of letters was good and
Sufficient cipher, if they could only get a
clew to it. The parents of Bridgita's
nephew felt sure it could be made to spell
his name, and the parents of the niece
were equally confident that it meant her.
AS q result each party brought in an ex-
pert; and, strange to tell, each expert
solved the mystery to suit the party that
had employed him, and each was able to
prove the correctness of his reading.
The one retained in the interest Of the
nephew began by explaining that per
son like Miss Molloy, presumably igno-
rant of cryptography as a science, would
be almost certain to adopt the device OF
, making one letter do duty for another.
!, "Now, you know" he continued, "the
, commonest English letter is e, so that
ten to ono, tho oornmonoot lettOr an the
cipher will represent e. That letter is d
:, 1t comes no fewer than five times II
the twenty five. So, ten to one, stands
: e. Well, if d means e, it is likely enough
:, would be b, b would be C, and so on
taking the letters following" Putting
: for and for m, he went INTO show
and assuming that y might stand for p,
, for h, and o for W, it was easy to spell
e nephew. Then he showed that the ciphe
= and the "Steldi" both ended in lette
20 between pair of letters-zxz: ldl
= Therefore, he argued, would mean
~ ~ and would mean d. And with SO mucl
. determined, it must be clear that tn
= substitution of letter for letter, and neve
y y mixing them, would give my dea
= nephew, Ferentz Steldi. Only there wa
20 q i in "Ferentz, which should have bee
- d to represent an e. But the lawye
~ who had drawn up all of the will but thi
10 perplexing clause recollected that Mis-
80 80 Moiloy had insisted upon having tn
20 80 boys name spelled "Firentz," and thu
. the must stand for i, and there We
- - special confirmation of the experts pr'
I cess.
- - Then came the other expert. His pr'
y, cess was quite as convincing aud eve
!; - more simple, and yet the outcome WI
- entirely irreconcilable with that in IL
first case. When old women NAL
,ciphers, he explained, as his rival ha
done before him, they commonly chang
o0 the letters by counting forward or bacl
w ev mard. So he had first counted one 10
q ward, then two, three, four and final
~ live-and there he found a starting poin
% ,to According to that rule, G would be /,
10 would be u, (making follow y wou
a' be C. Next came d, which would be
~ then II, which would be s. and so o
,"t ,"t the true letter being always the fifth lt
'"o So ter from the cipher forward-and t
,~t Tt expert smiled as the cipner was tn
u@ NJ, found to spell out plainly, letter for IL
aSf ter: Lucis Bridgita O'Birn, my nice
nd There could be no more cavil over Il
ax than over the other one. The cipf
of Of meant two distinct and opposite thin:
on equally and at the same time, be
eot ,e demonstrable by processes equally
he he vious and equally sound. What was
,rn ,,rO be done9 1t must go to the chance
90 court, certainly; that was the only thi
os 80 left to do. But it never got there. I
So nephew and niece met, fell in 10
az. ~ and got married; and thus, after al
I'D o may it not be believed9 the will of NJ
orn ore Molloy was finally carried out exactly
OF at she had planned and desired.