The Washington herald., 1912-02-04

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printed sheet may be reversed in a
single short sentence. Speaking roughly,
7, A, o, !, N, S, ii, X, d, and l. are
the numerical order in which letters oc.
Cur; but I, A, 0, and are very nearly
abreast OF each other, and 1t would be
an endless task to try each combination
until a meaning was arrived at / there
fore waited for fresh material. In my
second interview with Mr. Hilton Gu
bitt he was able to give me two other
short sentences and one message, which
appeared-since there was no flag-to
be single word. Here are the SYM
bols, Now, in the single word / have
already got the two rs coming second
and fourth in word of FIVE letters.
II might be sever or lever or never
There can be no question that the lat
ter, as a reply to an appeal, is far
the most probable, and the circum-
stances pointed to its being reply
written by the lady. Accepting il
as correct, we are now able A. -
to say that the symbols o7F
stand respectively for N, v, and R.
Even now | was in considerable diff
hculty, but happy thought put me in
possession of several other letters. 1t
occurred to me that II these appeals
came, as | expected, from some one
who had been intimate with the lady in
ber early life, combination which con-
tanned two Es with three letters be-
tween might very well stand for the
same ELSIE On examination
found that such combination formed
the termination of the message which
was three times repeated 1t was GER
tainly some appeal to Elsie In this
II no
appeal could It be? There were only
four letters in the word which pre-
ceded Elsie and il ended in Z. Surely
the word must be COME | tried ali
other four letters ending in Z, but
could find none to fit the case So now
/ was in possession of c, o, and M.
and l 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 fashion:
m ERE ....E ST.. NE.
Now, the first letter eau 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 it
becomes:
AM HERE A..E SLANE..
Or, filling in the obvious vacancies in
the name:
AM HERE. ABE SLANEY.
l had 50 many letters now that could
proceed with considerable confidence to
the second message, which worked out
in this fashion:
A.. ELRI. .ES.
Here | could only make sense by put
ting I and G 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 / 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 diff
culties.
What did you do then, SIR" asked
the inspector.
Il had every reason to suppose that
this Abe Slaney was an American, since
Abe is an American contraction, and
since letter from America had been
the starting-point Of all the trouble. I
had also every cause to think that there
was son'c criminal secret in the mat
ter. The lady's illusions to her past,
and her refusal to take her husband
into her confidence, both pointed in
that direction. therefore cabled to
my friend, Wilson Hargreaye, of the
New York police bureau, who has
more than once made use of my knowl-
edge of London crime. l asked him
whether the name of Abe Slaney was
known to him. Here is his reply: The
most dangerous crook in Chicago On
the very evening upon which | had his
answer, Hilton Cubitt sent me the last
message from Slaney Working with
known letters, II took this form:
ELSIE RE. ARE TO MEET
THY CO..
The addition of P and a d completed
a message which showed ME that the
rascal was proceeding from persuasion
to threats, and my knowledge of the
crooks of Chicago prepared me to find
that he might Very rapidiy Dut his