The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery by Catherine Bailey Page A
Authors: Catherine Bailey
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King’s cipher, it ought to be possible to crack it.
John had filed the ‘Key to Cyphers’ below the rows of files containing his correspondence with Charlie. The two volumes beside it were also important: ‘Transcripts made by Captain Lindsay of a volume of original letters from Charles I in the feigned hand whilst prisoner at Carisbrooke in 1648’ and ‘Letters in Cypher’. Both were bound in crimson leather; the titles, and the edging on the volumes, were embossed in gold.
I pulled down the ‘Letters in Cypher’ and turned to the first page. There were two inscriptions on the inside cover. The first was written in Charlie Lindsay’s hand:
This volume contains transcripts of letters (Reign of Charles I & Interregnum) which are written either wholly or partly in cipher, none of which to my knowledge (after enquiry and research) has ever yet been deciphered.
Some of them I have been able to decipher without difficulty, either by applying the various ‘Keys’ of the period which I have collected, or by comparing them with other letters in the same cipher which possess the contemporary decipherment.
With regard to others I have been fortunate enough to work out the ‘Key’ myself.
A considerable number still remain undeciphered, in spite of some labour already spent over them.
On the page opposite, John had added his own inscription:
Left to me by Captain Charles Lindsay 1925 now at Belvoir Castle and I hope and wish that as long as the Castle remains the property of a Manners, this book will be kept and carefully preserved as part of the Belvoir archives.
I took the three volumes over to the sofa and spread them out, together with the bundles of his letters from Rome.
13
Outside, the sky had darkened. The afternoon was warm and close; I could hear the sound of the wind in the trees along the battlements and the low, nagging rumble of distant thunder.
Several hours had gone by and I was still struggling with the cipher. John, I had quickly discovered, had not used the King’s cipher. The numbers did not match. The volume ‘Key to Cyphers’ lay open in front of me. Besides the King’s cipher, it contained the keys to some seventy others. It was an extraordinary historical document. Here were the secret codes of the leading figures of the English Civil War and the Interregnum: Oliver Cromwell, Archbishop Laud, the Earl of Strafford, Charles II, and the Earls of Northumberland and Leicester.
The keys ran to 195 pages. I was sure that John had used one of them. But which? In the hope of identifying his cipher, I had tried comparing the blocks of numbers in his letters with those in the different keys – so far, without success. I had reached page 27 , Cipher no. 10. It was the cipher that Charles I’s adviser, Sir Edward Nicholas, had used in his letters to Lord Jermyn.
In the spring of 1646, Lord Jermyn had been with Queen Henrietta Maria in exile in France. He was her closest confidant; later, in the winter of 1649, it would fall to him to break the terrible news of her husband’s execution.
The key to Sir Edward’s cipher ran to eight columns:
I stared helplessly at the page, scanning the numbers against the ones in John’s encrypted letters. Yet again, they did not appear to match. It would take hours to go through the rest of the book. I decided to photograph the pages and show them to a cryptologist.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon; with the sky heavy outside, the room was almost dark. I got up from the sofa to put the light on. The switch was at the top of the stairs, by the entrance to Room 2. Turning to come back down them, I paused, struck by the fall of light across the room. Illuminated by the naked bulb, the sofa on which I had been sitting, and on which John had died, now seemed to dominate the room. It bore the marks of its long service; the springs protruded from the faded chintz cover; one end of it sagged heavily. It was at this end, presumably, that John had sat so
John had filed the ‘Key to Cyphers’ below the rows of files containing his correspondence with Charlie. The two volumes beside it were also important: ‘Transcripts made by Captain Lindsay of a volume of original letters from Charles I in the feigned hand whilst prisoner at Carisbrooke in 1648’ and ‘Letters in Cypher’. Both were bound in crimson leather; the titles, and the edging on the volumes, were embossed in gold.
I pulled down the ‘Letters in Cypher’ and turned to the first page. There were two inscriptions on the inside cover. The first was written in Charlie Lindsay’s hand:
This volume contains transcripts of letters (Reign of Charles I & Interregnum) which are written either wholly or partly in cipher, none of which to my knowledge (after enquiry and research) has ever yet been deciphered.
Some of them I have been able to decipher without difficulty, either by applying the various ‘Keys’ of the period which I have collected, or by comparing them with other letters in the same cipher which possess the contemporary decipherment.
With regard to others I have been fortunate enough to work out the ‘Key’ myself.
A considerable number still remain undeciphered, in spite of some labour already spent over them.
On the page opposite, John had added his own inscription:
Left to me by Captain Charles Lindsay 1925 now at Belvoir Castle and I hope and wish that as long as the Castle remains the property of a Manners, this book will be kept and carefully preserved as part of the Belvoir archives.
I took the three volumes over to the sofa and spread them out, together with the bundles of his letters from Rome.
13
Outside, the sky had darkened. The afternoon was warm and close; I could hear the sound of the wind in the trees along the battlements and the low, nagging rumble of distant thunder.
Several hours had gone by and I was still struggling with the cipher. John, I had quickly discovered, had not used the King’s cipher. The numbers did not match. The volume ‘Key to Cyphers’ lay open in front of me. Besides the King’s cipher, it contained the keys to some seventy others. It was an extraordinary historical document. Here were the secret codes of the leading figures of the English Civil War and the Interregnum: Oliver Cromwell, Archbishop Laud, the Earl of Strafford, Charles II, and the Earls of Northumberland and Leicester.
The keys ran to 195 pages. I was sure that John had used one of them. But which? In the hope of identifying his cipher, I had tried comparing the blocks of numbers in his letters with those in the different keys – so far, without success. I had reached page 27 , Cipher no. 10. It was the cipher that Charles I’s adviser, Sir Edward Nicholas, had used in his letters to Lord Jermyn.
In the spring of 1646, Lord Jermyn had been with Queen Henrietta Maria in exile in France. He was her closest confidant; later, in the winter of 1649, it would fall to him to break the terrible news of her husband’s execution.
The key to Sir Edward’s cipher ran to eight columns:
I stared helplessly at the page, scanning the numbers against the ones in John’s encrypted letters. Yet again, they did not appear to match. It would take hours to go through the rest of the book. I decided to photograph the pages and show them to a cryptologist.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon; with the sky heavy outside, the room was almost dark. I got up from the sofa to put the light on. The switch was at the top of the stairs, by the entrance to Room 2. Turning to come back down them, I paused, struck by the fall of light across the room. Illuminated by the naked bulb, the sofa on which I had been sitting, and on which John had died, now seemed to dominate the room. It bore the marks of its long service; the springs protruded from the faded chintz cover; one end of it sagged heavily. It was at this end, presumably, that John had sat so
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