Chapter Ten
Last Hope
Dr. Sno: You wanted to see me?
Ratigan: Yes. I need you to take care of a certain... someone for me.
Dr. Sno: Take care?
Ratigan: Yes. (Takes out a pocketbook and produces a photograph) I believe you know this girl?
Dr. Sno: Ah, the Queen of the World.
Meg: (groans) He still remembers that nickname?
Ratigan: She's been slandering my name. I need a password onto her account on that fanfiction website. Get that out of her. Then get rid of her.
Dr. Sno: (laughs evilly)
Meg: They're plotting to kill me?
Mrs. Judson was pleased to have us back at Baker Street, but when she found out we were still working on the case she left us alone in the study.
"'Native tongue?'" Mrs. Butler repeated a thought she had had on the train. "He wants me to use my native tongue. What does he mean? I'm British by birth; English is my primary language. I speak French and some German, but English is all I've ever spoken with Tom. Does R-M-W-R-B-Z-R-M-M mean anything in some other language?"
"Seems like a long shot," Dawson said quietly.
I glanced at the clock. It was five o'clock.
Basil followed my glance. "Worrying about the time isn't going to help us solve this any faster."
I picked up my piece of paper with the clue on it. Dawson had made copies of the clue for each of us so we would not have to pass around the same sheet of paper.
At Number Fourteen, Gloucester Court
There lies what you seek
Beneath an emperor
And within another of the same
Safe and concealed
Here in the heart of London
Be cautious of where you tread 16
May you not go in haste, 1
I do not give a jumble of words 20
Or put this clue to waste 2
Use your brain, and what you've learned 8
On this crazy chase, 10
To find your longed for prize 10
And end this maddening race. 11
Use your native tongue, madame 20
The letters you learned from youth,
They will do better in solving this riddle
Than old Hebrew could do.
I tried mixing up the S-E-O-T-E-C-E-D-O sequence. SECT DO CEOE? That made no sense. I looked at Basil's paper. He had words written all over it. Dawson's paper was the same.
Mrs. Butler was sketching something.
"Basil, are you sure you read everything that was on the bell?" Dawson ventured to ask.
Basil glared at him. Dawson had questioned him about the accuracy of what he had read on the bell ever since we first read the riddle on the train.
"Of course I am sure!" he snapped.
I looked at my blank paper in panic. Something's here that we just keep missing...
_
The clock chimed half-past eight. Basil paced the room, pipe in hand, for the sixth time that evening. Dawson bit on the tip of his pencil in agitation. Mrs. Butler had torn off a corner of her paper and managed to twist it into a long, thin strip. I kept glancing from the words, now a blur in my fatigue, to the clock on the wall.
"We're never going to get it!" Mrs. Butler moaned. "My poor babies! What are we going to do?"
Dawson and Basil exchanged uneasy glances, but did not answer.
Mrs. Butler's words forced me to blink the sleep out of my eyes and pore over the words once more. Four lines particularly bothered me:
'I do not give a jumble of words
Or put this clue to waste
Use your brain, and what you've learned
On this crazy chase'.
We had learned the number sequence. But Butler had predicted that we'd fine a jumble of words. I felt that the number sequence was not the only thing he had wanted us to find.
I reread the first part of the clue:
At Number Fourteen, Gloucester Court
There lies what you seek
Beneath an emperor
And within another of the same
Safe and concealed
Here in the heart of London.
Those lines did not rhyme. It was almost like the clue about Le Jardin, where the first letter of each line spelled out J-A-R-D-I-N.
Use your brain, and what you've learned
On this crazy chase.
Could this first part of the clue be similar to the Le Jardin clue?
I wrote out the first letter of each line: A-T-B-A-S-H.
Atbash?
I scrambled up the words. BAT ASH? TAB HAS? I shook my head; nonsense words.
I took first letter of each line out of the second part of the riddle: B-M-I-O-U-O-T-A-U-T-T-T.
I was just starting to fit those words together when Basil snatched up my paper.
"What's this?" he asked, pointing to A-T-B-A-S-H. "How did you get that?"
Dawson and Mrs. Butler leaned forward expectantly at Basil's words, as if I was about to give away the meaning of life. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable.
"Well..." I began," the first part of the riddle did not rhyme. You remember the clue about Le Jardin?" Basil nodded. "I thought that the clues were similar because of that one phrase..." I looked at my copy of the clue. "'Use your brain, and what you've learned / On this crazy chase.' I don't know, I thought I would get a real word..."
"Meg, you're brilliant!" Basil exclaimed.
"Huh?" I had not expected that.
He shoved the paper into my face. "Atbash! The Atbash Cipher! Thomas Butler wants us to use the Atbash Cipher! We've found it!"
"Hold on a minute. What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Atbash Cipher?" Mrs. Butler repeated quietly.
To my surprised, Dawson broke into a silly grin. "It's a substitution code where the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is substituted by the last letter, the second letter by the next to last letter, and so on."
Mrs. Butler suddenly jumped up. "That's it!" She took her paper and read the lines:
"'Use your native tongue, madame
The letters you learned from youth,
They will do better in solving this riddle
Than old Hebrew could do.'
Tom doesn't want us to use the Hebrew alphabet. He wants us to use the English alphabet!"
"Brilliant!" Basil exclaimed once more.
Dawson fell to work writing the alphabet out for us.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N
"What's the letter sequence we got from the number sequence?" Dawson asked.
"R-M-W-R-B-Z-R-M-M," I read, taking Basil's piece of paper. Dawson wrote it out:
RMWRBZRMM
Underneath he wrote:
INDIYAINN
"Indiyainn?" he said to himself.
"Indiyainn... indi-yainn... indiya-inn... Indiya Inn!" Basil burst. "The Indiya Inn! Butler probably hid the emerald in room Number Fourteen, 'By an emperor /
And within another of the same'. We'll just ask any cab driver in the city to take us there."
"Time!" Mrs. Butler moaned, pointing to the clock. It was a quarter to ten. "There is no possible way we can get to the Indiya Inn and back to London Bridge again!"
Basil grabbed his Inverness and deerstalker. "Come with me, Mrs. Butler. We don't have the Eye of Diom, but we certainly do have directions. Perhaps we can bargain with the kidnappers."
Dawson and I grabbed our coats but Basil stopped us. "Stay here. The note asked for me and me only. It wouldn't be wise to bring anyone else."
"But you're taking Mrs. Butler!" I protested.
"They may be more willing to bargain if she's there."
"Why don't we go get the Eye while you stall the kidnappers?" Dawson suggested.
Basil shook his head. "I don't think that would be wise either."
"We must hurry!" Mrs. Butler urged.
"Please stay here," Basil asked, his eyes imploring us to heed his advice.
Dawson and I glanced at each other, and then nodded.
Basil had barely left when we heard Mrs. Judson shout from the kitchen. We ran into the next room, where we found her getting up from the floor.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Some people are so rude!" the good landlady huffed, brushing herself off. "A poor man came begging to the back door for something to eat, so I let him in and gave him some dinner. I left him alone for a few minutes, but when I came back he rudely pushed me to the ground and ran out the back door! After all I had done for him too!"
Dawson rushed to the back door, but stopped himself, nearly colliding into a male figure who suddenly appeared in the doorway.
I blinked hard, hardly believing my eyes. "Mr. Gillespie?"
Meg: My apologies. I had never heard of the Atbash Cipher until I read The Da Vinci Code. Dawson's explanation and his use of the fold-over are taken from that book. I swear I am not trying to copy!