The Dancing Men (7)

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   

,    

 

and     

 

probably were “L”, “S” and “I”.

‘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:

 ‘This message worked out like this:

     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:

 ELSIE .RE.ARE TO MEET THY GO.

 Clearly, the missing letters had to be “P” and “D”.

 ELSIE PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD

‘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)