Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-25

that happened mere during the night.
Maybe not sir.
Holmes thought for a little and then
curious smile played over his face
Saddle horse. my lad said he Il
shall wish you TO take a note TO Elrlse
farm"
He took from his pocket the various slips
of the dancing men. With these in front
of him he worked for some time at the
study table. Finally he handed note 10
the boy. with directions to put 1t INTO the
hands of the person TO whom it was adj
dressed and especially to answer no ques-
lions of any sort which might be put TO
him. | saw the outside of the note, ad-
dressed in struggling, irregular characters
very unlike Holmes usual precise hand IL
was consigned to Mr.. Abe Slaney, Elriges
farm. East Ruston, Norfolk
II think, inspector, Holmes remarked
that You would do well to telegraph for an
escort as If my calculations prove to be
correct. you may have particularly GAN
gerous prisoner to convey to the county
gao1. The boy who takes this note could
no doubt forward your telegram If there
Is an afternoon train to town. watson,
think we should do well to take 1t. as
have q chemical analysis OF some interest
to finish. and this investigation draws rap
idly to close.
When the youth had been dispatched with
the note Sherlock Holmes gave his instruc-
tons to the servants. If any visitor were
to call asking for Mrs. Hilton tuoltt' no
information should be given as to her
condition. but he to be shown at
once into the drawing room. He impress
ed these points upon them with the utmost
earnestness. Finally he led the way into
the drawing room, with the remark that the
business was now out of our hands. and
that we must while away the time as best
we might until we could see what was In
store for us. The doctor had departed TO
his patients, and only the inspector ana my
self remained
Il think that l can help you to pass an
hour in an interesting and profitable man
ner," said Holmes. drawing his CHAIR up 10
the able and spreading out in front OF MN
the various papers upon which were record
ed the antics of the dancing men AS TO
you. friend Watson, l owe you every atone
ment for having allowed your natural curl
osity to remain so long unsatished 10 YOU
inspector. the whole incident may appeal as
a remarkable professional study. L must
tell you, first of all, the interesting cfrcum-
stances connected with the previous con-
situations which Mr.. Hilton Cubitt has had
with me in Baker street He then shortly
recapitulated the facts which have already
been recorded. Il have here in front OF me
these singular productions, at which one
might smile had they not proved themselves
to be the forerunnerS of terrible trag-
cdy l am fairly familiar with all forms of
secret writings. and am myself the author
of a trifng monograph upon the subJect' IN
which anaIyze one hundred and sixty sep
arate ciphers, but | confess that this Is en-
tirely new to me. The object of those who
invented the system has apparently been to
sage, and to give the idea that they are the
mere random sketches of children.
Having once recognized, however that
the symbols stood for letters. and having
applied the rules which guide us in all forms
of secret writings, the solution was easy
enough. The first message submitted to me
was so short that it was impossible for me
to do more than to say, with some conf
dence. that the symbol stood for T..
AS you are aware, h is the most
common letter in the A English al
phabet, and 1t predOmi mates to so
marked an extent that even in a short SEN
tence one would expect to find it most often
Out of fifteen symbols in the first message
four were the same. it was reasonable to
set this down as E. 1t is true that in some
cases the figure was bearing a flag, and in
some cases not, but 1t was probable, from
the way in which the flags were distributed
that they were used to break the sentence
up into words l accepted this as hypo-
thesis, and noted that E was represented by
But now came the real difficulty
y of the inquiry. The order of the
A English letters after E is by no
means well marked, and any pre-
ponderance which may be shown in an
average of a printed sheet may be reversed
in single short sentence. Speaking rough
". L. A o. l. n. S. H. r, D and l. are the
order in which letters occur; but
T. A, and l are very nearly abreast of
each other and it would be an endless task
to try each combination until meaning
was arrived at. l therefore waited for
fresh material. In my second interview
with Mr. Hilton Cubitt he was able to give
me two other short sentences and one mes
sage, which appeared-since there no
hag-to be a single word. Here are the
symbols. Now, in the single word l have
already got the two Els coming second and
fourth in a word of five letters. 1t might
be sever or lever or never There can
be no question that the latter as a reply to
an appeal is far the most probable and the
circumstances pointed to Its being reply
written by the lady. Accepting it as cor
rect, We are now able to say that the sym
N v, y d7T IN and eP On EzSn nov DIM
Guilty, but a thought put me in possession
of several other letters. 1t occurred to me
from some one who had been intimate with
the lady in her early life combination
which contained two Els with three letters
between might very we'll stand for the
name ELSIE On examination I found
that such combination formed the termi-
ton of the message which was three times
repeated. L was certainly some appeal to
Elsie In this way had got my l.. ana
l. But what appeal could it be? There
were only four letters in the word which
preceded Elsie, and 1t ended in e. Surely
the word must be COME l tried all other
four letters ending in f, but could find none
to fiji the case. So now | was in possession
of C, and NJ. and L was in a position to
attack the first message once more, divid
ing II INTO WORDS anu putting uOlS LOT tdCl
symbol which was still unknown. SO treat
ed il worked out in this fashion:
NJ ERE e ST.. NE.
Now the first Letter can only be A, which
is most useful discovery since it occurs
no fewer than three times in this short
sentence. and the II is also apparent in
the second word. Now 1t becomes:
AM HERE a. + SLANE.
Or, filing in the obvious vacancies in the
name
AM HERE ABE SLANEY.
/ had so many letters now that I could pro-
coed with considerable confidence to the
second message, which worked out in this
fashion:
4 ELRIE Els.
Here ] could only make sense by putting
T and q for the missing letters, and sup
posing that the name that of some
house or inn at which the writer was
staying"
Inspector Martin and l had listened with
the utmost interest TO the full and clear
account OF how my friend had produced
results which had led to so complete a
command over our difficulties.
What did you do then, sir?" asked the
inspector.
II had every reason to suppose that this
hn 4 no