Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1922-11-10


the facts which have already been re-
cor.'ed. IL have here in front of me
these singular productions, ut which |
one might smile, had they not proved |
themselves to be the forcrunners of |
so terrible q tragedy. / am fairly ia
miliar with all forms of secret writings,
and am myself the author of trifling
monograph upon the subject in which
| analyze one hundred and sixty separate
ciphers, but | confess that this is en-
tirely new to me. The object of those
who invented the system has apparently
been to conceal that these characters
convey a message, 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 con-
fidence, that the symbol stood for
T.. As YOU are aware, n. Il is the
most common letter in the the English al
phabct, and it prcdominates to so
marked an extent that even in short
sentence one would expect to find it
most often. Out of fifteen symbols in
he first message, four were the same,
so it was reasonable to set this down rs
+. 1t is true that in some cases the
| figure was bearing flag, and in some
eases not, but ii was probable, from
the way in which the flags were dis
| tributcd, that they were used TO break
| the sentence up into words ac- "
copied this as a hypothesis, and
| noted that T. was represented by ~
| but now came the real difficulty OF
the inquiry The order OF the English
letters after l. is by no means we'll
marked and any prcpondcrance which
may bc shown in an average of n
printed sheet may I've reversed in SIN
Gle short sentence. Speaking roughly,
+, 4, O, |, \, :, II. r, ID, and l. are the
| numerical order in which letters occur,
but i, \. O and | are very nearly
abreast of each other, and It would he
an endless task 20 try each combination
until n meaning was arrived ut. |
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
appcared-Since there was no flag TO
he single word Here are the SYM
bcls Now, in the single word have
already got the two E'S coming second
and fourth in n word of five letters. 1t
might he severe or lever or never.
There can he no question that the latter
rs a reply to an appeal is far the most
probable, and the circumstances pointed
to its being q reply written Ivy the lady,
Accepting IT as correct,
we are now able TO say & IL
the symbols stand re- =
spcctivcly for n, Y. and r.
Even now | was in considerable dit
fculty, but a happy thought pue me IN
possession of several other letters. II
occurred to me that if these appeals
came, rs | expected, from someone who
had been intimate with the lady in her
early life, combination which con-
tanned two Es, with three letters be-
tween might very we'll stand for the
name ELSIE On examination found
that such combination formed the
termination of the message which was
three times repeated. 1t was certainly
some appeal to Elsie In this way
had got my l., :, and ]. But what APP
peal could il he? There were only four
letters in the word which preceded
Elsie and 1t ended in J.. Surely the
word must bc'COME.' tried all Other
four letters ending in +, but could fine
none to fit the case. so now | was II
possession of c, O, and NJ, and | was IL
position to attack the first message
d. once more, dividing II into words anC
putting dots for each symbol which Wa.
: still unknown. so treated, 1t WORKED
!, out in~this fashion:
NJ ERE # SINE.
: "Now the first letter can only be 4
] which Is a most useful discovery, since
, ut occurs no fewer than three timc'
! in this short sentence, and the II i
: also apparent in the second word. Nov
il becomes:
:. AM HERE A Z SLANE
I Or, filling in the obvious vacancies II
the name:
: AM HERE ABE SLANEY.
. | had so many letters now that ! coulC
= proceed with considerable confidence t,
the second message, which worked GU
! in this fashion
A. ELRLES.
; Here ! could only make sense by put
! ting r and q for the missing letters
q and suppo>ing that the name was tina
of some house or inn at which tn,
writer was staying
: Inspector Martin and | had listened
( with the utmost interest to the full anC
: clear account of how my friend ha'
y produced results which had let to s.
L complete q command over our diff
( culties.
: What did you do then, sir?" aske
j the inspector.
Il had every reason to suppose tina
l. this Abe Slaney was an American sine
> Abe is an American contraction. an
since a letter from America had bee
= the starting-point Of all the trouble
< had also every cause to think that theT
i was some criminal secret in the matte
The lady's illusions TO her past, an
, her refusal to take her husband into he
confidence, both pointed in that direc
ton. l therefore cabled TO my fricnc
Wilson Hargreave Of the New Yor