Author's Note: SORRY! Things have been crazy, etc. etc. But I'm halfway through the next chapter already, so maybe another update tomorrow or Wednesday?

Chapter XIV

It was still early afternoon when I returned to Baker Street, book clutched uneasily in my hands, and Holmes was absent. I deduced that he was investigating Irene Adler. After all, whatever catastrophes plague us, the rent must be paid and reputations must be maintained. I indulged in a bitter sigh before I remembered that the entire point of investigating alone was, in fact, to be alone.

Watson sat reading in the parlor. I was loathe to reveal my task to him, yet the idea of spending another afternoon ensconced in my closet with only the light of a candle suddenly seemed claustrophobic. I casually wandered in and set the book and a few sheets of paper on the desk beneath the window.

Watson looked up. "Ah, Mary! Holmes tells me you had a bit of a frightening experience this morning."

Damn him. "I wouldn't say frightening, but the murder scene was quite… disturbing. I was merely taken aback by the killer's enthusiasm."

The man nodded sympathetically. "I certainly understand that! One never knows what one will see when investigating with Holmes. I've seen my share of brutality."

I gestured to the desk. "Do you mind if I join you? I think some analysis is the best thing for me to occupy myself."

"Of course! Go right ahead."

I settled into the chair and selected a pen from the eclectic collection spread across the desk. I neatly aligned my papers and expectantly cracked open the cover of the book.

If I had been expecting a neat encrypted list on the title page, I was sorely disappointed. The first ten pages were completely blank. On page eleven, faintly scribbled in pencil, was Ujhangqe AB.

I scowled at the paper, my mind racing. It was no language that I recognized, though it was possible that it was indeed a language. It seemed more likely that it was some kind of code.

Flipping through the book, I discovered and meticulously copied out the rest of the mysterious phrases:

Ujhangqe, AB

Mbrnt av ufzm rqe ltvgw, xnmiy jsjr itls, f apgnfi gpkg.

Sstyfkvpw

None of them meant anything to me. The lack of repeated letters suggested that it was more than a simple replacement code. There was probably a key word that would allow me to solve the cipher.

Just as I was digging in to start testing words, the door downstairs opened and heavy boots began thumping inside. I jumped to my feet, suddenly panicked for some inexplicable reason. I didn't want Holmes to know that I was working on the case without him. I didn't want to confront my earlier weakness. I wanted to continue to make my own progress. Whatever it was, I swept up the book and papers and a couple of pens and walked briskly out of the room and down to my closet, much to Watson's surprise.

I slipped into the isolated space just as Holmes passed me going up the stairs and shut the door to cut off any greeting. I stumbled around looking for a candle, thinking that I really needed to keep them closer to the door, and eventually fell onto my mattress with a sigh.

Mechanically, as I had done with so many projects in the past, I opened the book and began thumbing slowly through the pages, looking for annotations. Perhaps I had missed something. I tried not to eavesdrop on Holmes's conversation with Watson, but eventually the half-heard words began to drive me crazy. Using only the point of my toe, so as to convince myself that the action might be accidental, I eased the door open a crack.

"My dear Watson, she has the voice of an angel."

My leg twitched in surprise and the door shut with an audible snap. What on earth? Holmes actually complimenting a woman? This Irene Adler must truly be something extraordinary.

Scowling for some reason I couldn't quite explain, I set about decoding the writing.

A day passed, and another. I was absolutely obsessed with solving Sidney's puzzle, and with doing it myself. Most of my hours were spend locked in my closet going through candle after candle and endless cups of coffee. I could feel the color leaching from my skin and my hair snarling and sticking to my neck with the effort of the thought. When the headache got too bad, I would make a sandwich in Mrs. Hudson's kitchen and sleep for a few hours until I had the physical capability to sit back up and keep trying.

Ujhangqe AB suggested a city and the abbreviation for a state. I obtained a map of the South the first evening and pored over it, compiling a list of eight-letter cities. This produced dozens of possibilities, so I alternated between that option and other strategies of decoding. When I grew exhausted from staring at the same series of letters for so long, I tried to find some order in the longer sentences. The obvious solution would be to replace the most common letter with e, but this yielded no results.

Finally, the second evening (or perhaps early morning), I tried Richmond, VA in the place of the first set of letters. It was the last in a sub-category which I had organized through a complex algorithm of alphabetical order and city population.

I actually dropped my pen when I realized that the differences in letters caused a repeating pattern of numbers: 3, 1, 5, 19, 1, 18, 3, 1, 5, 19. I scribbled out the alphabet at the top of the paper to avoid errors of exhaustion and translated the numbers to letters: Caesarca ES. It was a repetition of the word "Caesar." That was the key.

With a burst of renewed purpose, I used the repeated slip cipher to translate the rest of the words:

Richmond VA

James is tall and gaunt, with grey hair, a hooked nose.

Professor.

That was plenty enough information to get a real investigation going. I would talk to Holmes at dawn and we could decide how much to give to Scotland Yard and what to pursue ourselves. I heard the clock downstairs chime and decided that it would be better to sleep then while I could.

Without bothering to undress or do anything besides blow out the candle, I collapsed over onto the mattress and slept.