Charlotte and the Cypher

Part the Third, wherein our heroine attempts a solution

Late the next night, Charlotte laid the note out on the table before the fire. It read:

178-153-247-130 176-153-258-130-310;

219 350-131 169-124 299-139 314-229, 350-131 153-115 314-315 175-250-246-247-119 274 340-261-124.

350-131 153-115 263-299 175-250-246 314-149 350-131 153-115 163-156-311-200-122.

169-353. 235-129. 153-178-124

This was not especially promising. Charlotte hoped it was indeed a love-letter – if the note had any serious import, she would never discern its meaning quickly enough to be of use.

She thought at first that the numbers represented letters; but James always opened his letters with the phrase 'Dearest Charlotte'. There were only four numbers for the seven letters of 'Dearest', and five for the nine letters of 'Charlotte'. Furthermore, he generally signed himself as 'Lt. Jas. Arden' - now, she supposed, 'Capt. Jas. Arden'. Again, there were not enough three-digit numbers to represent each letter.

Charlotte fetched her notebook and a pencil. She copied the numbers into her notebook. She tapped the pencil against the page, thoughtfully. She wrote 'Dearest Charlotte' at the top, and 'Capt. Jas. Arden' at the bottom. She was heartened to see that the punctuation of the last line made sense. But still, there were not enough numbers. Four numbers for seven letters. Five numbers for nine letters. Two numbers for four letters – Charlotte stopped. There were always very nearly twice as many letters! Perhaps – perhaps each number stood for a combination of two letters, save where an odd number of letters in a word made an extra number necessary.

She re-wrote the message, then wrote 'DE' over 178. She glanced down to the bottom of the page, where another 178 hid – yes, the 'DE' in 'Arden' was in exactly the right spot! She went through all the numbers in the salutation and closing in this way. The she turned her eyes to one of the resulting combinations - AR-115 . A three or four letter word starting with 'AR', that James would use many times . . . Charlotte pondered. Why, it was simply 'ARE', she realised, which meant that 350-131 must represent 'YO' – 'U'. She looked over her work:

DEAREST CHARLOTTE;

219 YOU CAN 299-139 314-229, YOU ARE 314-E 175-250-246-ES-T 274 340-261-124.

YOU ARE 263-299 175-250-246 314-149 YOU

ARE 163-156-311-200-122.

CAPT. JAS. ARDEN

Charlotte shook her head. It was all such nonsense! She left the book and the note on the table, and went to bed.

That night she slept fitfully, and dreamed unpleasantly of numbers. She was in a formless void. Black numbers flew by her as a hot wind blew in her face, sickening her. She awoke in the middle of the night, the moon high in the sky, and could not get back to sleep. She tried sleeping on first her right side, then her left, then her back, then her belly; no position was comfortable. Finally, she gave in to the urge that was torturing her. By the light of a single candle, she sat down again to translate her husband's strange note.

At noon, Charlotte was still dressed in her nightgown and cap. The candle had long-since burned down to nothing. In all that time, all she had concluded was that 314 probably represented 'TH', because that made one part of the message read 'YOU ARE THE'. She wondered if she were deceiving herself.

“You are the most foolish,” she muttered, though of course that made no sense. That next word had to end in 'EST'.

With a laugh, Charlotte took the opposite tack and wrote 'CLEVEREST'. “You are the cleverest,” she read aloud, pleased.

'Cleverest', she realized with surprise, actually made sense. Charlotte smiled, and almost as a jest, made the first few words 'IF YOU CAN READ THIS'. She smiled as she put it together - “If you can read this, you are the cleverest”.

The note really was a love-letter, of a sort. Of exactly the sort James Arden was likely to write – short and slightly maudlin and praising her skill rather than her beauty. Charlotte frowned. In a letter he could praise her, but to her face he had the temerity to call her a fool. Besides, the man should not have made her waste so much time on mere complimentary frippery. She would write him, she decided, and somehow manage to ensure her message reached him - her message telling him exactly what she thought of him and his cryptic letter.