Have you seen it?'
'No. But it's a cryptogram, all right.'
The chief constable tossed the paper across to him.
'Righto, then. Tell us what it means. `How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun; Great Homer's tale of Troy?' It's a lot of rubbish… Hold on, though!' muttered Sir
Benjamin, rubbing his cheek. 'I've seen those puzzles in the magazines. And I remember in the stories — you take every other word, or every second word, or something — don't you?'
'That won't work,' said Rampole, gloomily. 'I've tried all the combinations of first, second, and third words. I've tried it as an acrostic, down the whole four verses. The first letters give you 'Hgowatiwiowetgff.' With the last letters you produce 'Nynyfrdrefstenen.' The last one sounds like an Assyrian queen.
'Ah,' said Dr. Fell, nodding again.
'In the magazines?' began Sir Benjamin.
Dr. Fell settled himself more deeply into his chair, blowing an enormous cloud of smoke.
'By the way,' he observed, 'I have a quarrel to pick with those puzzles in the magazines and illustrated papers. Now, I'm very fond of cryptograms myself. (Incidentally, you will find behind you one of the first books on cipherwriting: John Baptist Porta's De Furtivis Literarum Notis, published in 1563.) Now, the only point of a good cryptogram is that it should conceal something which somebody wanted to keep a secret in the first place. That is, it is really a piece of secret writing. Its message should be something like, `The missing jewels are hidden in the archdeacon's pants,' or, 'Von Dinklespook will attack the Worcestershire Guards at midnight.'-But when these people in the illustrated papers try to invent a cryptogram which will baffle the reader, they don't try to baffle you by inventing a difficult cryptogram at all. They only try to baffle you by putting down a message which nobody would ever send in the first place. You puzzle and swear through a gigantic mass of symbols, only to produce the message: `Pusillanimous pachyderms primarily procrastinate procreative prerogatives.' Bah!' stormed the doctor. 'Can you imagine an operative of the German secret service risking his life to get a message like that through the British lines? I should think that General Von Googledorfer would be a trifle nettled when he got his dispatch decoded and found that cowardly elephants are in the habit of putting off any attempt to reproduce their species.'
'That isn't true, is it?' inquired Sir Benjamin, with interest.
'I'm not concerned with the natural history of the statement,' returned the doctor, testily; 'I was talking about cryptograms.' He took a long pull at his beer-glass, and went on in a more equable tone:
'It's a very old practice, of course. Plutarch and Gellius mention secret methods of correspondence used by the Spartans. But cryptography, in the stricter sense of substituting words, letters, or symbols, is of Semitic origin. At least, Jeremiah uses it. A variant of this same simple form is used in Caesar's 'quarta elementorus littera,' where?'
'Put look at the blasted thing!' exploded Sir Benjamin, picking up Rampole's copy from the hearth and slapping it. 'hook here, in the last verse. It doesn't make sense. `The Corsican was vanquished here, Great mother of all sin.' if that means what I think it does, it's a bit rough on Napoleon.'
Dr. Fell took the pipe out of his mouth. 'I wish you'd shut up.' he said, plaintively. '1 feel like lecturing, I do. I was going on from Trithemius to Francis Bacon, and then?'
'I don't want to hear any lecture,' interposed the chief constable. 'I wish you'd have a look at the thing. I don't ask you to solve it. But stop lecturing and just look at it.'
Sighing, Dr. Fell came to the centre table, where he lighted another lamp and spread the paper out before him. The pipe smoke slowed down to thin, steady puffs between clenched teeth.
'H'm.' he said. There was another silence.
'Wait a bit.' urged Sir Beniamin, holding up his hand as the doctor seemed about to speak. 'Don't begin talking like a damned dictionary, now. But do you see any lead there?'
'I was about to ask you,' replied the other, mildly, 'to pour me out another bottle of beer. However, since you mention it… the old-timers were children to, our modern cryptographers; the war proved that. And this one, which was written in the late eighteenth or early
nineteenth century, shouldn't be so difficult. The rebus was a favorite form then; it isn't that, I know. But it's a bit more difficult than the ordinary substitution cipher Poe was so fond of. It's something like a rebus, only…'
They had gathered round his chair and were bending over the paper. Again they all read the words:
Dr. Fell's pencil worked rapidly, making unintelligible symbols. He grunted, shook his head, and returned to the verses again. Reaching to a revolving bookshelf beside him, he took down a black-bound volume labelled, 'L. Fleissner, Handbuck der Kryptographik,' and glanced at the index, scowling again.
'Drafghk!' he snapped, like one who says 'damn.' 'That works out to 'drafghk,' which is nonsense. I'll swear the thing isn't a substitution cipher at all. I'll try Latin as well as English on the tests. I'll get it. The classical background always triumphs. Never, young man,' he said, fiercely, 'forget that…. What's the matter, Miss Starberth?'
The girl was leaning both hands on the table, her dark hair gleaming under the light. She let out a small laugh as she glanced up.
'I was only thinking,' she returned, in a puzzled way, 'that, if you disregarded punctuation…,'
'What?'
'Well… look at the first verse. `Homer's tale of Troy.' That's the Iliad, isn't it? `Country of the midnight sun.' That's Norway. If you took each of the lines separately, and put down the definition for each — I hope I'm not being silly,' she hesitated, 'and put down the definition for each as a separate word….'
'My God!' said Rampole, 'it's a cross-word puzzle!'
'Nonsense!' shouted Dr. Fell, growing more red in the face.
'But look at it, sir,' insisted Rampole, and bent over the paper suddenly. 'Old Anthony didn't know he was doing a cross-word puzzle; but, in effect, that's what it is. You said it was, a form of the rebus?'
'Come to think of it,' rumbled Dr. Fell, clearing his throat, 'the process was not unknown?'
'Well, work it!' said Sir Benjamin. 'Try it that way. `What called the dwellers of Lyn-dun?' I supposed that means, `What were the dwellers of Lyn-dun called?' Does anybody know?'
