Chapter 37
Suddenly, Sherlock pulled away and jumped to his feet. "The printer!" he exclaimed. "When did it stop?"
John groaned. "I don't know. It won't run away if you stay 5 minutes longer."
Sherlock was already out the bedroom door, having only paused long enough to grab his robe.
John sighed and reluctantly got up to find his pants. He felt more like falling asleep, but it was no use allowing himself if Sherlock was going to call for him any minute to help.
Sherlock had pushed everything to one side of the table, except of course the books which he had moved to the mantelpiece. He placed the two printed copies next to each other, rummaged for a highlighter, a notepad and a pen. He was about to explain to John what he should do when he realised that he wasn't there yet. "John!" he called, impatience already beginning to seep into his voice.
"Yeah, a second, getting dressed so you won't get distracted - not that you would." A little grumpy, John joined him.
"Okay," Sherlock said, the second he sensed John was beside him. "This stack is the Brazil copy. I want you to mark every page with a 'B' as you go over them. The other one is the Cardiff copy, so naturally they get a 'C'. You need to read the pages one line at a time and compare them. Whenever a word differs between the two copies, I want you to highlight it on both pages. Put the marked pages over here in two piles, the rest over there." He looked at John to see if he had understood, and then grabbed the notepad and pen and went to the laptop, perched precariously on a corner of the table, on top of the scanner.
John nodded and got to work. The text was a little hard to read in some places, and after a while a dull, buzzing headache set in, as a result of all the staring and the lack of sleep.
Sherlock was busy at the laptop, but every time John had finished marking new pages, he rushed over and jotted the words down on the notepad. As the hours wore on and the lists of words grew, he became increasingly frustrated at the lack of pattern.
...
Hours later, John dropped his marker and stretched with a groan. He had finally gotten through the books and rubbed his forehead, hoping that the headache would stop soon, now he was finished. The light outside was grey and he felt like it was still night, and really time to get to bed.
Sherlock was muttering to himself as he scribbled down the last words John had marked. He scowled at the notepad and then returned his attention to the screen, typing so furiously it seemed he was trying to torture the computer into supplying an answer.
"Er, Sherlock? Do you mind if I get some sleep?" John still was surprised at how tired his voice sounded.
Sherlock grunted as he reached for the notepad again.
"Is that a yes?" John sighed. "You know what, I'll take it as one anyway. I'm completely knackered."
Sherlock didn't notice when John left. He was getting increasingly annoyed with the apparent randomness of the words in the two lists. Initially, he had believed that the words themselves would form some kind of message, but they appeared to be completely random. So he tried using the first letters of each words, anagrams, synonyms and even antonyms. Nothing.
He returned to the pages and examined the words both before and after the highlights. Nothing. He withdrew to his mind palace and juggled the words and their arrangements in the books and on the pages for a couple of hours and then suddenly, it was as if lightning struck.
He grabbed the first page of the Cardiff copy that John had highlighted. He looked intently at the highlights. Six words. Three in one line, almost at the top of the page. And then three in one line near the bottom. He squinted his eyes, then took his pen and connected the words two and two. "Bloody hell," he muttered. He reached for the next marked page. At first it was the same. Three words, evenly spaced in a lone at the top. But lower on the page there were only two. He quickly scanned the page and printed several copies. He tried a few variations on how to connect the words. On the third try he knew he'd found it. He stared at the page for a moment, at the lines forming a 'V' and an 'I'.
"John!" he yelled at the top of his voice.
John sighed when something woke him up. He didn't know what had done it, but he did notice immediately that his headache was still there. Great. A look at the clock told him that he had not even had six full hours of sleep.
"John!"
Ah. That explained why he wasn't asleep anymore. Of course Sherlock had not even come to bed. With a long-suffering sigh, John pushed himself up and grabbed his dressing robe.
"What did you find?" he asked sleepily as he went into the room.
"It's numerals," Sherlock said gesturing at the two pages he had already marked. "Roman numerals. It's absolutely brilliant. It's a code, but it's not the words themselves that carry meaning. It's how they are placed on the pages. It would be impossible to work out with only one book, because each book only has half of the wrong words. You have to have them both to get the whole picture. And it is a picture. An image. Now all we need is to connect the words on all the pages and we'll have a cipher, that must in some way contain the truth that Fitzroy spoke of."
"God, they went through a lot of trouble. Making two books for all this?" John looked a bit incredulously at the copies. "I hope the message will be worth it."
"It must be," Sherlock said with an eager grin as he picked up one of the stack of papers and pressed them into John's hands. "Scan these and print five copies of each. It may take some tries to find the correct numerals."
"Shouldn't you rest a bit though? You've been going on and on. That code really won't run away."
"Oh, come on John, I've done nothing but rest for over a month. Now when something exciting is practically dangling itself in front of my eyes, do you seriously expect me to stop?" He gave John's shoulder a small squeeze and then went to move the laptop, so he could get at the scanner.
John shook his head, but started scanning.
Sherlock couldn't keep still, and kept shifting from foot to foot as he waited. As soon as the first page was scanned, he started printing and almost ripped the paper out of the machine. He took a pen and began connecting words. Within ten minutes, most of the living room floor was covered in pieces of paper as he began grouping and regrouping the numerals. "Faster, John," he urged.
"I can't make the scanner work faster, can I?" John answered irritably.
Sherlock just huffed and ripped another paper from the printer, almost tearing it.
"Bloody thing," John mumbled at the scanner, when it suddenly started to make the pages overexposed with bad contrast. There were only a few pages left, and he really didn't feel like searching through the settings for an hour to get that last bit done. Squinting at the screen, he decided that it would be legible when he printed it, and just did so.
"Are you done yet?" Sherlock huffed, hovering by the printer. He was finding the numerals faster with every page he did, as he became familiar with the patterns, and there was nothing more he could do, before getting his hands on more pages. "What's taking so long?"
"The scanner," John said, rolling his eyes. "It isn't exactly giving the best quality, but it will have to do."
"Whatever," Sherlock huffed. "As long as I can see what's highlighted, the words themselves does not need to be legible."
"Well, there are your prints," John said, waving at the printer.
Sherlock squinted at the pages. "Oh sod it," he snapped and pushed John out of the way. With a flick of a switch he reset the scanner. Then he changed a setting and pressed 'start'. "Really, John," he muttered as he turned to the printer.
"Yes, well, at least it works now," John said, trying not to feel too incompetent. "Why don't you do it yourself if you're so much better and faster?"
"Fine," Sherlock said and put the final page in the scanner. "Could you give me some room to work then?"
John sighed. "Then why did you call me in the first place?" He made a bit more room on the table, then sat down on one of the chairs, feeling like a servant that would be called in at any time.
Sherlock took the last page from the printer with a sigh of relief. Quickly he connected the words to form the letters: 'IX'. "Another one," he mumbled and went to place it on the floor next to the others. Then he turned to look at three pages that had not yet been arranged. "But what about those?" He took the pages and started pacing the edge of the room, glaring at them.