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Fiction. © Copyright 1997, Jim Loy
Holmes was bent over one of his chemical experiments. I was reading a letter from a nephew of my late wife. I heard the distant sound of the doorbell. Soon Mrs. Hudson knocked at our door, and informed us that a young man wearing a mask wished to speak with Mr. Holmes.
The man was tall, energetic, dressed in black, wearing a black mask and black gloves, had black hair and a black mustache. His chin was clean-shaven. He sat in the offered chair. He said, "I apologize for wearing this disguise, gentlemen. But, it's important that I remain anonymous."
Holmes replied, "Be assured that I know nothing about you, except that you are married, are of Scottish descent, are of the upper class, and have blond hair, not black."
Our visitor was visibly startled. I searched for clues from his head to his toes and saw nothing. "Something of a Scottish accent?" I guessed.
"Excellent, Watson. The accent is diluted by years of English education. But it is faintly detectable. You see nothing else?"
I had to admit defeat.
Holmes walked over to my chair, and chuckled. "Ah, I see. You cannot see his blue eyes from where you sit. The shadows of the mask hide the color." He resumed his chair. "Blue eyes are usually accompanied by blond hair. Also, our young guest keeps rubbing his left ring finger with the fingers of his right hand. And that finger of his glove is slightly thicker just where a ring would be. Either he has injured that finger, or he wears a ring. He apparently wears a wedding ring.
Our visitor nodded. "And why do you say that I am of the upper class?"
"I asked myself, 'who would visit me in disguise?' The average person has no need of disguise. His very averageness is disguise enough. A criminal may need a disguise. But criminals seldom seek me out. So I must deduce that you are of the upper class."
Our visitor laughed. It was a pleasant laugh. "Very good. You are correct in every particular."
Holmes sat back in his chair, "Why have you come to visit us?"
"I am the originator of a secret society. We have taken upon ourselves the task of exposing corruption in government. We investigate corrupt politicians, and expose their corruption to the newspapers. We have brought down a few mighty men." He said this last with some pride.
Holmes interrupted, "Have you destroyed any innocent men?"
"We are very careful. But, it is possible that we have made mistakes."
"What is the name of your society?"
"We have no name. It reflects our efforts to remain humble, and not claim credit for our successes." I thought that our visitor seemed rather proud of his humility.
"Go on," said Holmes.
"Recently, one of the members of our society noticed that he was being followed. And one of my coded letters had been opened and sloppily resealed. We communicate with each other with letters written in code. Some of the other members are sure that our code has been broken. I have tried to reassure them that the code is unbreakable. But they won't listen. I'm afraid that our society will break up soon, unless I can convince them of the security of our code."
He added, "Mr. Holmes, I've heard that you are an expert in ciphers and codes. I was hoping that you might be able to reassure our members. I can pay you well."
Holmes said, "Tell me about your code."
"We each carry a code book. It consists of two dictionaries. One dictionary has English words on the left, in alphabetic order, and a corresponding 5-letter random code on the right. The word "Parliament," for example, may become "YMXTE," using the code book. The second half of the code book has these same code words, in alphabetic order, on the left, and their English equivalent on the right."
"How did you choose the five-letter codes?"
"We wrote a few thousand of these codes onto separate strips of paper. We put them all into a large container and pulled them out, one at a time, entering them into the right-hand side of the code book, as we went."
Holmes asked, "And how do you deal with common words like 'the' or 'a'?"
"We actually have several different code words for words like those."
Holmes said, "Very good." He thought awhile, then said, "I would like to give a little demonstration to the members of your society. Can they be assembled together?"
Later in the week, Holmes and I were taken, blindfolded, in a cab, to an unknown location. There we found ourselves in a room with no windows and one door. There were 12 chairs, occupied by 12 men in blindfolds, facing a chalk board. On the board were written several lines of a coded message. I sat to the side. Holmes gave his demonstration much as a professor would lecture to college students."
Holmes spoke loudly to the masked men who sat facing him. "The founder of your society has offered me 500 pounds if I can decode this message." He pointed to the chalk board. "I have convinced him to lend me the 500 pounds, for the purposes of this demonstration. I have asked that each of you carry his own code book with him, during this demonstration. Now, in the first part of this demonstration, I must speak with each of you in private. Now if you will all please wait outside this door, I will interview each of you one at a time, here in this room."
They filed out the door, then one of them re-entered the room.
Holmes said to the first masked man, "Here is a 100 pound note." He placed it on the table in front of the man. "It is yours if you let me use your code book for just a minute." The man refused.
Holmes said, "Are you positive? Watson and I will pretend that you didn't accept my offer. Someone else is likely to accept. It might as well be you." The man again refused.
Holmes said, "Please say nothing of my offer, and ask the next man to come in."
All in all, three men accepted 100 pounds, and we decoded the coded message. It said, "If you can solve this, you must be Sherlock Holmes." Holmes commented that if he were to guess at the solution, that his guess would have been very close to the actual solution.
After interviewing every masked man, Holmes again spoke before the secret society. "I have decoded your message. And I think I have shown you what your principle weakness is."
We left.
Later, at Baker Street, "Holmes, why didn't you tell our guest which of the men betrayed his code?"
"Watson, you shock me. I promised each of them that I would not."
"But one of them was a traitor."
"I think not. A traitor would not have exposed himself, even for 100 pounds. No, it is even likely that those who took my 100 pounds were honest men who wanted to see an end to their secret society. They were getting too powerful. They were bound to hurt innocent people eventually, if they hadn't already. I suspect that the secret society will not last much longer."
"What if all twelve had shown you their code books?"
"Oh, I brought along a few extra 100 pound notes, just in case."