The Final Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Volume 1 by John A. Little Page B

exploit, Watson. Watson?’
    â€˜Hhmm. This bacon is delicious, Holmes. You really must try it.’
    No sooner had we finished breakfast than Holmes was back to the tedious French–sounding cipher, his energy re-doubled. I just wanted to snooze for a while.
    â€˜Now, Watson, the quickest way to break this code is to guess the keyword, using trial and error. We should know enough about our friend’s childish mindset by now to do this successfully. Do try to stay awake, old chap, will you?’
    â€˜Whu… oh, yes. Oh, indeed. I agree. Is there time for another pipe, perhaps?’
    â€˜No time. A man’s life may depend upon the next few hours. Let us try the following sample keywords, to start with: SHERLOCK, HOLMES, HAMISH, WATSON, MYCROFT, MORAN, PROFESSOR, MORIARTY, SEBASTIAN, RALPH, PARTRIDGE, DIOGENES, EDWARD, SIGER, FITZGERALD, MUSICAL, MURDER, IGNATIUS, DOYLE, CONAN, ARTHUR. I’ll show you how to do it, and then we can split the work-load. We’ll know very quickly whether something works or not, as the first few letters will make sense. If they don’t, then we’ll move on to the next one immediately.’
    Holmes set about this seemingly impossible task with his customary zeal.
    â€˜Let us start by dividing the cipher text into sets of five letters:
    GFHKU EDIXH XPNZV LYRSP MPGVT VLA
    Using SHERLOCK as a sample keyword, we must now move from the top row to the row of the key letters, cycling around the keyword again. First of all, G = Y in line S, F = M in line H, H = L in line E, K = B in line R, U = F in line L. I’ll stop there, as my Christian name is obviously not the keyword, the result being YMLBF, a meaningless combination of letters in the English language.’
    â€˜Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.’
    â€˜Watson! Wake up!’
    â€˜Eh? What? Where am I? Take that, you fuzzy-wuzzies! Oh, dear me, yes. Sorry, Holmes.’
    â€˜Now I shall have to repeat the lesson for you, using the keyword HOLMES.’
    Believe it or not, I did manage to concentrate for long enough to understand how to translate the first 5 letters of the gobbledy-gook back into a different gobbledy-gook. At least, that is what happened to both of us over the following hour or so. Only when Holmes came to the keyword ARTHUR, did we make some form of progress. And he got very excited by it.
    â€˜We have it, Watson. We have it. Using ARTHUR as the keyword, the ciphertext
    GFHKUEDIXHXPNZVLYRSPMPGVTVLA
    translates into
    GOODANDREADYNICEEASYTIMETEST
    So our clue to the fourth murder is:
    GOODANDREADYNICEEASYTIMETEST
    Or, ‘Good and ready, nice easy time test.’ What do you make of that clue, Watson?’
    â€˜Absolutely no sense whatsoever, apart from the keyword itself, which suggests that your theory of the childhood friend might be spot on. Is he playing games with us? It occurs to me, Holmes, that these murders must all have been planned well in advance, as otherwise how could the killer create all these complicated cipher-clues in the time between murders?’
    â€˜Good point. So they always planned to kill Ralph Partridge, even though he might not be musical.’
    â€˜Oo migh’ no’ be mewsical?’
    â€˜Oh, there you are, Lily. Never mind that. Come over here and see what you can make of this. It has us foxed completely.’
    I was delighted that Holmes had considered asking Lily to examine our clue, but not half as delighted as she was. Instead of removing the breakfast tray, she sat down at the table, beaming, yet striving to look serious at the same time, as though she was about to sit an important examination.
    â€˜We are chasing a serial killer, Lily. He has already killed three people, each time leaving a clue. It usually tells us the name of the next victim. Here it is. Good and ready, nice easy time test . What does it mean?’
    Holmes passed the piece of paper over to Lily, who sat gazing at it for about fifteen seconds. Then