Moriarty

4 The Letter

‘Do you really believe,’ I said, ‘that there is some sort of secret message contained on this page?’

‘I not only believe it. I know it to be the case.’

I took the paper and held it up to the light. ‘Could it be written in invisible ink?’

Jones smiled. He took the page back again and laid it between us on the white tablecloth. For the moment, all thoughts of our dinner had been forgotten. ‘You may be aware that Mr Sherlock Holmes wrote a monograph on the subject of codes and secret writings,’ he began.

‘I was not,’ I said.

‘I have read it, as I have read everything that he has, generously, allowed to come to the public attention. The monograph examines no fewer than one hundred and sixty forms of concealed communication and, more importantly, the methods by which he was able to bring them to light.’

‘You will forgive me, Inspector,’ I interrupted. ‘Whatever the relevance of this letter, it cannot be in code. We both recognise the contents. You said as much yourself. It was written, word for word, by Dr John Watson.’

‘That is indeed the case. But there is of course one peculiarity. Why do you think it has been copied in this way? Why has the writer taken such care with his presentation of the text?’

‘I’d guess it’s obvious, isn’t it? To disguise his handwriting!’

‘I think not. After all, Moriarty knew who the letter had come from. There was no need for disguise. No. I believe the capital and the small letters go to the very heart of the matter and there is nothing indiscriminate about them. The moment I set eyes on the passage, I saw that it had been written slowly and methodically. You can observe the heavy indentation of the pen on the paper. This is more than an exercise in copying. It is a deliberate attempt to communicate something to Moriarty that will remain secret should it fall into the wrong hands.’

‘So there is a code!’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you were able to crack it!’

‘Through trial and error, yes.’ Jones nodded. ‘I take no credit for it, mind. Where Holmes has gone, I have merely followed.’

‘Then what does it say?’ I glanced once again at the page. ‘What can it possibly say?’

‘I shall explain it to you, Chase. I trust you will forgive the familiarity but I am beginning to think that you and I may be united in a common pursuit.’

‘I very much hope so.’

‘Very well. As you rightly say, the letters alone cannot mean anything for they are exactly as Dr Watson set them down. We are therefore left with the seemingly random scattering of small and capital letters. But let us suppose it is not random.

There are three hundred and ninety letters on the page. That in itself is an interesting number in that it is exactly divisible by five. So let us begin by separating the letters into groups of that length—’

‘Wait a minute. It’s also divisible by six.’

‘Six would create far more combinations than are actually required.’ He scowled. ‘Anyway, I tried six without success—trial and error. I am no Sherlock Holmes and so it is sometimes necessary to take the long way round.’ He took out a second sheet of paper and laid it beside the first. ‘We must ignore the spaces between the words. We must ignore everything apart from the question of whether the letter is large or small. And in that event, the text will look like this:

LsLsL LLsLL sLsLs LLLLL sLLLL LsLss LsLss sLsLs LLsLL ssLsL sLsLs LLsLL LLsss sssss LLsLL sLsLL LsssL ssLsL sLLLL sLLLL sLsLL ssLsL sLLLL sssss sLsLL sLsLL LLLss sLLLL sssLL sssss LLLLL sLLLL LLsLL sLsLs LsssL sssss LLLsL LLLsL sLsLs LLsLs ssLLL sLsLs LLsLs sLsLs LLsLs sLLLL sLsLs sssLL LLLsL sLsLs sssLL sssLs ssLsL sssss LsssL sLsLL LLLss sLLLL sLsLL LsLLs sLLLL LLLsL LLLLL sLsLL LLLss LsLLs sLLLL sssss LLsLL sssss LLsLL sLLLL ssLLL sLsLL sLLsL LLLsL LLsss LsLsL

Jones had carefully written the groups of letters across the page. I stared at them. ‘It’s the electrical telegraph system!’ I exclaimed.

‘It is something very similar,’ the detective agreed. ‘Morse code, with each group representing a single letter! And you will see, Chase, that certain groups repeat themselves. “sLLLL”, for example, appears no fewer than eleven times.’

‘A vowel?’ I suggested.

‘Almost certainly, and “sssss” might be another, appearing seven times. But set out this way, the groups are confusing. My next step was to assign each one of them a number, making it simpler to see what it was in fact we had before us. We are helped by the fact that only nineteen of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet have actually been used.’

He withdrew a third sheet of paper. On this, he had written as follows:

1 2 3 4 5 6 6 3 2 7 3 2 8 9 2 10 11 7 5 5 10 7 5 9 10 10 12 5 13 9 4 5 2 3 11 9 14 14 3 15 16 3 15 3 15 5 3 13 14 3 13 17 7 9 11 10 12 5 10 18 5 14 4 10 12 18 5 9 2 9 2 5 16 10 19 14 8 1

‘You understand,’ he explained, ‘that each number merely stands for a group. So one equals LsLsL, two equals LLsLL and so on…’

‘I see that. Yes.’

‘And what does it tell you?’ This was a very different Athelney Jones from the one I had seen earlier, exhausted after the walk from the church. There was no escaping the energy and the sense of excitement that glimmered in his eyes.

‘Each number now stands for a single letter,’ I said. ‘But there are a lot of numbers—nineteen, as you correctly say—and we are not helped by the fact that there are no spaces. We have no way of telling where one word ends and the next begins.’

‘That is indeed the case,’ Jones agreed. ‘However, at the very least we can see now which numbers—3, 5 and 10, for example—crop up the most frequently. These must be vowels or perhaps the more commonly used letters such as T, R or S. Unfortunately, you are correct in saying that without spaces, we cannot spot the shapes of common English words such as “the” or “a”. That is very much to our disadvantage.’

‘So how were you able to continue?’

‘With a combination of diligence and good luck: I began by asking myself if there might be a single word appearing in this communication which I would be able to recognise simply from its shape. Several came to mind. SHERLOCK HOLMES, for example, was one. PINKERTONS was another. But in the end I settled on MORIARTY. If it was he for whom the message was intended, then it was surely not unreasonable to suppose that his name might appear. I therefore searched for a sequence of eight digits in which one—and only one—was repeated in the third and sixth position as is the case with the R in MORIARTY. For example, at the very beginning of the message we come upon 6 6 3 2 7 3 2 8 where the 3 might be an R. But that cannot be MORIARTY because of the double 6 and the repeated 2. Later on in the text we see 5 3 13 14 3 13 17 7 where the figure 13 might stand for R. But this time it is the repeated 3 that defeats us.

‘In fact, in the entire message, the correct formulation appears only once—near the beginning of the first line we have 7 3 2 8 9 2 10 11. In this instance, the number 2 stands for R and—as in the name itself—no other letter is repeated. And if we assume that this stands for MORIARTY, something very interesting happens. For if we then examine the letters that appear before it, this is what we read…’

1 R O 4 5 6 6 O R

‘It could be more than one word,’ I said.

‘But I do not think it is more than one word,’ returned he. ‘Look at the repeated R, the repeated O—and whatever letter is represented by the repeated 6. As far as I can tell, there is only one word in the English language with a shape like that. And consider also the context. This is a salutation to the receiver of the message.’

‘Professor!’ I exclaimed.

‘Exactly. Professor Moriarty—the first two words of the communication. And, using that information, many more of the letters contained in the code are revealed.

PROFESSOR MORIARTY—M E E T M E A T T 12 E 13 A F E R O Y A 14 14 O 15 16 O 15 O 15 E O 13 14 O 13 17 M A Y T 12 E T 18 E 14 F T 12 18 E A R A R E 16 T 19 14 I P

‘“Professor Moriarty, meet me at…”’ I began. My voice trailed off. ‘There is not very much more after that,’ I said.

‘I do not agree. “Meet me at” is followed by “T 12 E”. What else can that be but “the”? You will see that the same formulation is repeated in the third line after MAY. And that provides us with another letter. 12 is H! And looking at the second line, you will see the letters ROYA all together. Again, the fifth letter is obvious. It can only be one word.

‘Royal?’

‘Precisely. Meet me at the something Royal…’

‘What can that be?’

‘It can only be the Café Royal!’ Jones explained. I looked blank so he continued. ‘It is a famous restaurant in the heart of London. Like yourself, Clarence Devereux might not have heard of it but it would be easy enough to find.’

‘And what of the word that follows?’ I asked.

‘That is not so difficult. We now have the L. So—L O 15 16 O 15. The repeated 15 gives us another clue if we need it.’

‘London,’ I said. ‘The Café Royal, London. It can be nothing else.’

‘I agree. That is the meeting place. And now let us see what comes next.’

ONE O C L O C 17 MAY THE T 18 E L F T H

‘It is perfectly obvious,’ I cried. ‘One o’clock, May the twelfth!’

‘That is three days from now. You see how quickly the code unravels itself. But let us proceed to the end.’

W E A R A R E 16 T 19 L I P

‘We are…’ I stopped, confused.

‘It is not “we are”. It is “wear a”. From what you told me, it is almost certain that Moriarty and Clarence Devereux have never seen each other face to face. Both pride themselves on the fact that nobody knows their appearance. So Moriarty is being instructed to wear something that will identify him. That something is contained in the last eight letters.’

R E 16 T 19 L I P

I said nothing and with a smile, Jones finished his work for me. ‘It can only be a red tulip,’ he said, ‘a buttonhole. And there you have it, Chase…’

PROFESSOR MORIARTY. MEET ME AT THE CAFÉ ROYAL, LONDON. ONE O’CLOCK, MAY THE TWELFTH. WEAR A RED TULIP.

‘We were lucky. Professor Moriarty was the key to the entire thing. Had the sender omitted the salutation, we would have been stuck.’

‘But you are remarkable, Inspector Jones! I cannot express my admiration strongly enough. I wouldn’t have known where to begin.’

‘Pshaw. It was not so very difficult. I’m sure Mr Holmes would have achieved the same in half the time.’

‘This is exactly what I had been hoping for,’ I said. ‘It’s the vindication of my long journey to Europe—and the costs involved, for that matter. Clarence Devereux is coming to this place, the Café Royal, three days from now. He will approach a man wearing a red tulip and in doing so he’ll identify himself.’

‘If he knows that Moriarty is dead, he will not come.’

‘That’s true.’ I fell silent, then thought again. ‘But suppose you were to issue a statement to the effect that you believe Moriarty to be alive? After all, you were sent to enquire into what had taken place at the Reichenbach Falls. You could easily say that you had found fresh evidence that Moriarty had not been involved in the attack.’

‘And the body in the crypt?’

I paused. ‘Couldn’t we pretend that it was somebody else?’ At that moment, our hostess approached the table to remove the plates. ‘Mrs Steiler,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me the name of the chef whose mother was ill?’

‘Franz Hirzel.’ She looked at my soup, barely touched. ‘Not good?’

‘It was excellent,’ I replied. I waited until she had gone back into the kitchen. ‘There’s the name for you, if you need one. The dead man can be our wandering chef. He was on his way back, he got drunk and fell into the falls. It’s just a coincidence that the two incidents occurred at about the same time. Tell the papers that Moriarty is still alive and let Devereux walk into a trap.’ Jones looked down with his lips tightly pursed, so I went on. ‘I haven’t known you very long and yet I can see you don’t like the idea of doing something dishonest. I feel the same. But trust me when I say that you have no idea what sort of disease has arrived in your city. You owe it to your fellow citizens to do everything you can to purge it. Believe me, Inspector. With Moriarty gone, this meeting is our only hope. We have to be there. We have to see what comes of it.’

Mrs Steiler returned with the main course, two plates of roast lamb. I picked up my knife and fork, this time determined to eat.

Jones nodded slowly. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I will send a telegram to Scotland Yard and we can leave tomorrow. If the trains are kind to us, we will just arrive in time.’

I raised my glass. ‘To the capture of Clarence Devereux,’ I said. ‘And—if I may—to the two of us, Scotland Yard and Pinkerton’s, working together.’

We drank and in this way our association began. And yet how bitter that wine might have tasted and how reluctant we might have been to continue if we had only known what lay ahead.