message four
were the same, so it was reasonable to set this down as E. It is true
that in some cases the figure was bearing a flag and in some cases not,
but it was probable from the way in which the flags were distributed
that they were used to break the sentence up into words. I accepted this
as a hypothesis, and noted that E was represented by XXX.

"But now came the real difficulty of the inquiry. The order of
the English letters after E is by no means well marked, and any
preponderance which may be shown in an average of a printed sheet may be
reversed in a single short sentence. Speaking roughly, T, A, O, I, N, S,
H, R, D, and L are the numerical order in which letters occur; but T,
A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each other, and it would be an
endless task to try each combination until a meaning was arrived at. I,
therefore, waited for fresh material. In my second interview with Mr.
Hilton Cubitt he was able to give me two other short sentences and one
message, which appeared--since there was no flag--to be a single word.
Here are the symbols. Now, in the single word I have already got the
two E's coming second and fourth in a word of five letters. It might
be 'sever,' or 'lever,' or 'never.' There can be no question that
the latter as a reply to an appeal is far the most probable, and
the circumstances pointed to its being a reply written by the lady.
Accepting it as correct, we are now able to say that the symbols XXX
stand respectively for N, V, and R.

"Even now I was in considerable difficulty, but a happy thought put me
in possession of several other letters. It occurred to me that if these
appeals came, as I expected, from someone who had been intimate with the
lady in her early life, a combination which contained two E's with
three letters between might very well stand for the name 'ELSIE.' On
examination I found that such a combination formed the termination of
the message which was three times repeated. It was certainly some appeal
to 'Elsie.' In this way I had got my L, S, and I. But what appeal could
it be? There were only four letters in the word which preceded 'Elsie,'
and it ended in E. Surely the word must be 'COME.' I tried all other
four letters ending in E, but could find none to fit the case. So now I
was in possession of C, O, and M, and I was in a position to attack the
first message once more, dividing it into words and putting dots for
each symbol which was still unknown. So trea