Hello guys,
Here is the seventh episode of our story, retold by Anne Collins.
Enjoy!

Episode 7: Holmes Explains the Mystery
After the boy had left, Holmes gave some instructions to the
servants.
‘If anybody comes and asks for Mrs Cubitt,’ he said, ‘do not
tell the person that she is ill. Show the person straight into the sitting-room.
‘There are some things I want to explain,’ Holmes said. Then
he told the Inspector about Hilton Cubitt’s visits to us in London and the
pictures of the dancing men.
‘These drawings are a kind of secret writing,’ said Holmes. ‘They
look like children’s drawings, but they are messages. Each picture of a dancing
of a dancing man is a letter of the alphabet. Let me show you how it works.
The letter of the alphabet which appears most often in
English is “E”. the picture of the dancing man which appeared most often was
So I knew that this picture was “E”.
‘Some of the dancing men were holding flags. I guessed that
a figure with a flag was the last letter of a word.’
‘But how did you find out what the other pictures meant?’ I asked.
‘On Hilton Cubitt’s second visit,’ went on Holmes, ‘he
brought three different messages with him. The last message was:
‘In this message, there was no flag. So the message had to
be one, single word. What could it be?
‘The word had five letters, and the second and fourth
letters were “E”. It might be “SEVER” or “LEVER” or “NEVER”. But the most
probable of these words was “NEVER”.
So I knew the pictures
, and
were “N”, “V” and “R”.’
‘Excellent, Holmes, ’I knew Mrs Cubitt’s first name was
Elsie. I noticed that there was another word which had five letters and began
and ended with “E”.
So I guessed that
‘In one message, the word “ELSIE” was written twice. In this
message, the word before “ELSIE” had four letters and ended with “E”. I guessed
the writer was asking Elsie to do something.
‘So now I looked for an English word of four letters ending
in “E”. The best word I could think of was “COME”.
‘So now I knew that
, and
were “C”, “O and “M”.
‘The I looked again at the first message which Hilton Cubitt
brought us:
‘I used the figures holding flags to divide the message into
words. I wrote out the message, putting dots for the letters I didn’t know.
.M .ERE ..E SL.NE.
‘The first missing letter had to be “A” and the second
letter had to be “H”.
AM HERE A.E SLANE.
‘Clearly, the two missing letters were part of somebody’s
name. so it must be:
AM HERE ABE SLANEY
‘Then I looked at the second message again:
A.
ELRI.ES
‘Here, I worked out that the missing letters could be “I”
and “G”.
AT ELRIGES
‘I decided to find out if there was a place near Riding
Thorpe Manor that was called Elrige’s. if there was, then I knew that this was
where the writerof the message was staying.’
Inspector Martin and I looked art Holmes. It was wonderful
how my friend had found out the meaning of the dancing men.
‘What did you do then, Mr Holmes?’ asked the Inspector.
‘I guessed that Abe Slaney was an American. “Abe” is an
American name and Mrs Cubitt had recently received a letter from America. This letter
had upset her very much.
‘So I sent a telegram to a friend in the New York Police,
asking about Abe Slaney. This was the reply:
THE MOST DANGEROUS CROOK IN CHICAGO
‘The same evening, I received Hilton Cubitt’s final message.
The message worked out like this:
‘I knew the Cubitts were in terrible danger. Abe Slaney was
saying he was going to kill Mrs Cubitt. So Dr Watson and I hurried immediately to
Norfolk, but, unfortunately, we were too late. Hilton Cubitt was dead.’
‘But what about Abe Slaney, Mr Holmes?’ asked Inspector
Martin. ‘If he is the murderer and he’s ay Erige’s, he may escape.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Holmes. ‘He won’t escape. He’s coming
here.’
‘Here?’ said Inspector Martin, in surprise. ‘Why should he
come here?’
‘Because I have written and asked him to come here.’
Holmes stood up and walked to the window. ‘Look, here he is!’
(to be continued)
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire