The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories

or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:

 

the tree thr+?3h the.

 

“Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:

 

the tree thr…h the,

 

when the word ‘through’ makes itself evident at once. But this discovery gives us three new letters, o, u, and g, represented by +, ?, and 3.

“Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this arrangement,

 

83(88, or egree,

 

which plainly, is the conclusion of the word ‘degree,’ and gives us another letter, d, represented by !.

“Four letters beyond the word ‘degree,’ we perceive the combination

 

;46(;88.

 

“Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown by dots, as before, we read thus:

 

th.rtee,

 

an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word thirteen,’ and again furnishing us with two new characters, i and n, represented by 6 and .

“Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the combination,

53+ +!.

“Translating as before, we obtain

.good,

which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the first two words are ‘A good.’

“It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand thus:

5 represents a ! ” d 8 ” e 3 ” g 4 ” h 6 ” i * ” n + ” o ( ” r ; ” t ? ” u

“We have, therefore, no less than eleven of the most important letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the rationale of their development. But be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as unriddled. Here it is:

“‘A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death’s head a bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.’”

“But,” said I, “the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon about ‘devil’s seats,’ ‘death’s heads,’ and ‘bishop’s hostels’?”

“I confess,” replied Legrand, “that the matter still wears a serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the cryptographist.”

“You mean, to punctuate it?”

“Something of that kind.”

“But how was it possible to effect this?”