The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1906-03-29

chair up 70 the table. and spreading
out In front OF him the various papers
upon which were recorded the antics
OF the dancing men. AS to you. friend
| Watson, ! owe every atonement for
having allowed your natural curiosity
/ To remain so long unsatisfied. To you.
| Inspector, the whole incident may APP
peal as 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-
| capltulated the facts which have al
| ready been recorded. Il have here In
front OF me these singular productions.
| nj which one might smile. had they no,
proved themselves to be the forerunners
| OF 80 terrible n tragedy. I am fairly
familiar with all forms of secret writ
ings. and am myself the author OF n
trining monograph upon the subject.
| In which I anaiyze one hundred and
! sixty separate ciphers. but I CONFESS
THAI this In entirely new to me. The
! object OF those who invented the sys-
tenn has apparently been to conceal
that these characters convey 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 no
short that II was impossible for
me TO do more than to say. with
some confidence. that the symbol a.
stood for r. An you are aware. v
y IT, the most common letter I'm a
the English alphabet. and IL pre- ~
dominates to so marked an ex-
tent that even I'm n short sentence
one would expect tn ind ~ most often.
out OF fifteen symbols I'm the first mes
sage, four were the same. so II was
reasonable TO set this down as r. IL In
true that In some cases the figure was
bearing fag, and In some cases not.
but Il was probable, from the way In
which the Tags were distributed. that
they were used TO break the sentence up
into words. I accepted this as n hypothe-
sis.and noted Ewas represented by a.
But now came the real diff
nculty OF the inquiry. The order "A
OF the English letters after T. ~
In by no means well marked.
and any preponderance which may
be shown I'm an average OF
printed sheet may be reversed In a
single short sentence. Speaking rough
~. I. A, o, i. ~. =. III. X. ID and l. are
the numerical order In which letters
occur: but I. A. q and are very near
~ abreast OF each other. and IL would
be an endless task To try each combin-
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-sincc there was no
nag-to be single word. Here are
the symbols. Now. I'm the single word
have already got the two Els coming
second and fourth I'm "a word OF five
letters IL might be sever or lever
or never There can be no question
that the latter rs reply to an appeal
Is far the most probable and the cir
CumStances pointed To It's being n re-
ply written by n lady. Accepting
II nsNcorrect. we are now able To
say that the symbols
~, v and II. ~ - -
In considerable dim 80
Guilty. but happy thought put me
In the possession of several other
letters. IL occurred TO me that IL thes.
appeals came. as l expected, from
someone who had been intimate with
the lady I'm her early life. "A combination
which contained two Els with three
letters between might very well stand
for the name ELSIE on examination
l found that such a combination
formed the termination OF the message
which was three times repeated. IL
was certainly some appeal TO Elsie
In this way had got my J.. = and j.
But what appeal could IL be? There
were only four letters In the word
which preceded Elsie and IL ended
in T.. Surely the word must be COME
I tried all other four letters ending In
T.. but could ind none To 1T the case
So now | was In possession OF G. o and
NJ, and ! was In a position 60 attack
the first message once more. dividing
IL into words ana putting dots for each
symbol which was SIN unknown. So
treated. IL worked out in this fash
lon:
M ERE e ST. NE.
Now the first letter can only be A.
which II n most useful discovery. sine"
IL occurs no fewer than three times In
this short sentence. and the III is also
apparent in the second word. Now IL
becomes:
AM HERE A. r sLANE.
or. filling In the obvious vacancies in
AN HERE ABE sLANEY.
I had so many letters now that could
proceed with considerable confidence
TO the second message. which worked
out In this fashion:
A. ELRI ES.
Here I could only make sense by put
ting 7 and q for the missing letters.
and supposing that the name was that
OF some house or inn at which the
writer was staying"
Inspector Martin and i 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 din
culties.
What did you do then. sir?' asked
the inspector.
Il had every reason To suppose that
this Abe Slancy was an American
since Abe IL an American contraction.
and since a letter from America had
been the starting point OF all the trou-
BILE. had also every cause to think
that there was some criminal secret
In the matter. The lady's illusions to
her past. and her refusal TO take her
husband into her confidence. both
pointed In that direction. I therefore
cnblcd TO my friend. Wilson Hargreave.
of the New York police bureau, who
has more than once made use or my
knowledge of London crime. I asked
him whether the name OF Abe Siansy
was known TO him. Here II his reply: