The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1906-03-29

chair up to the table, and spreading
out in front of him the various papers
upon which were recorded the antics
of the dancing men. las to you, friend
Watson, L owe every atonement for
having allowed YOU natural curiosity
to remain so long unsatisfied. TX you.
Inspector, the whole incident may ap-
peal as a remarkable professional
study. I must tell you, first of all, the
interesting circumstances connected
with the previous consultations which
Mr.. Hilton Cubitt has had with me in
Baker street" He then shortly re-
~capitulated the facts which have al
ready been recorded. II have here in
front of me these singular productions,
at which one might smile, had they not
proved themselves to be the f~orerunners
of so terrible a tragedy. I an fairly
familiar With all forms of secret writ
ings, and am myself the author of a
trifling monograph upon the subject,
in which ] analyze one hundred and
sixty separate ciphers, but l confess
that this is entirely new to me. TIE
object of those who invented the sys-
TEN has apparently been to conceal
that these characters my a mes
sage, and to give the idea that they
are the mere random sketches Of chill
dren.
Having once recognized, however,
that the symbols stood for letters, and
having applied the rules which guide
us in all forms of secret writing, 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 confidence, that the symbol q
stood for e. AS you are ware "
e is the most common letter in
the English alphabet, and it pre- n
dominates to so marked an eX-
tent that even in a short sentence
one would expect to find it most often.
Out of fifteen symbols in the first mes
sage, four We're the same, SO 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 it was probable, from the way in
which the flags were distributed, that
they were used to break the sentence up
into words. I accepted this as a hypothe-
sis, sand noted L was represented by >o<
But now came the real diff
ficulty of the inquiry. The order
of the English letters after E N
is by no means we'll marked,
and any preponderance which may
be shown in an average Of a
printed sheet may be reversed in a
single short sentence. Speaking rough
ly, T, A, Q, I, N, S, II, r, D and L are
the numerical order in which letters
occur; but r, A, o and I are very near
| - t'yl NaApt VI 'fiNh otlI|Is GIN IL "oulu#
be an endless task to try each conbin-
alton until a meaning was arrived at.
| 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 message,
which appeared-since there was no
tag-tO be a single word. Here are
the symbols. Now, in the single word
1 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, ana the cir
cumstances pointed to its being Il re-
ply written by a lady. Accepting
it as correct, we are now able to
say that the symbols
n, Y and r.. - 49,
in considerable difi-
Guilty, but q happy thought put me
in the possession of several other
letters. 1t occurred to me that if these
appeals came, as l expected, from
someone Who had been intimate with
the lady in her early life. a combination
which contained two Els with three
letters between might very we'll stand
for the nalne ELSIE On examination
/ found that such a combination
formed the termination of the message
W men Ndo lllIcc IElllSS icpStLSh. II
was certainly some appeal to Elsie.
In this way | had got my l.. S and /.
But what appeal could it be? There
We're only four letters in the word
which preceded Elsie and it >ended
in L. Surely the word must be COME
1 tried all other four letters ending IN
E, but could find none to fit the case.
SO now I was in possession orc, Q and
NJ, and I was in a position to attack
the first message once more, dividing
it into words and putting dots for each
symbol which was still unknown. SO
treated, it worked out in this fash
ion:
M ERE Z 81 . NE.
d "Now the first letter can only be a,
which is a most useful discovery, since
it occurs no fewer than three time in
n this short sentence, and the Fl is also
V apparent in the second word. Now it
+ becomes:
AM HERE A.E sLANE.
Or, filing in the obvious vacancies ii
the name:
AN HERE ABE SLANEY.
I had SO many letters now that I could
Y proceed with considerable confidence
II to the second message, which worked
Y out in this ashton:
= A. IlLRI ES.
: Here 7 could only make sense by put,
k ting Z and G. for the missing letters
e and supposing that the name was tina
o OF some house or inn at which thG
IS writer was staying"
Inspector Martin and I had Listened
"A with the utmost interest to the full
and clear account of how my frient
~ had produced results which had led t
so complete a command over our diff
"a culties.
- What did you do then, sir?" askec
~ the inspector.
" Il had every reason TO Suppose tina
g this Abe Slaney was ali American
70 since Abe is an American contractor
l. and since a letter from America ha'
I'd been the starting point Of all the trou
az BILE. ! had also every cause to hin
ri that there vas some criminal secre
"a in the matter. The lady's illusions t
10 her past, and her refusal to take he
husband into her confidence, bot
&C pointed in that direction. I therefor
10 cabled to my friend, Wilson HargreaVt
is Of the New York police bureau, VIII
has more thar once made use of m
knowledge of London crime. | aske
him whether the name of Abe Slane