Carrie Bebris - The Intrigue at Highbury

It was agreed. Three copies of the message were made and, equipped with pencils and large sheets of foolscap, all four of them settled down to apply themselves.

Elizabeth, wanting no distractions, retired to the library to work.

As she had in Mr. Knightley’s study, she stared at the message again. This time, however, she thought not of the letters on the page, but of the unknown person who had arranged them.

This was not a conundrum in a book, written to amuse and entertain. It was a communiqué, written to deliver information. The puzzle’s author wanted the message to be deciphered, or he would not have sent it. If his goal was to challenge, not to thwart, the solution might not prove as difficult as they anticipated.

The most sensible way to begin, she decided, was to simply write out the puzzle backwards. There must, after all, be some method to the placement of the letters and “words” as arranged — mustn’t there? She need not put herself through mental contortions if the author had not.

Reversing the first line, however, revealed only that the solution would require more effort. “Chmond einri larg” made even less sense than elevated religious houses and gatherings of braggarts. Nevertheless, she reversed the rest of the puzzle to see whether any patterns emerged.

CHMOND EINRI LARG

IVED EYL ESASTH STTHIEV

ONG EDAM LL HEDWE

When finished, she allowed her gaze to drift over the letters, giving the words an opportunity to reveal themselves. “CHMOND” drew her attention, for it composed most of the word “Richmond,” the city where the Churchills had been living when Mrs. Churchill died. In fact, the “RI” needed to complete the name was on the same line — preceded by “IN.”

Something in Richmond . The remaining letters on that line spelled LARGE.

Large in Richmond . Whatever could be the sense of that? But the phrase was formed by rearranging the reversed letter groupings — not the individual letters — and then merely adjusting the word spaces: LARG EINRI CHMOND… LARGE IN RICHMOND.

Excited, she tore slips of paper and wrote a grouping on each so she could rearrange them more easily. She had been right: the solution was not as difficult as she had first imagined.

HEDWE LL EDAM ONG STTHIEV ESASTH EYL IVED LARG EINRI CHMOND

But now… what did it mean?

Emma set down her pencil and rubbed her temples. She, too, had left Mr. Knightley’s study to better concentrate, and had chosen the drawing room. Now sheets of paper covered in cross-outs and false starts lay strewn on the card table, and pencil lead darkened her fingertips.

She had nearly given up, had even risen to rejoin the others in the study and admit defeat. But then her gaze had landed upon her nephews’ box of alphabets, still not returned to the nursery.

She had removed the letters she needed, supplementing the tiles with small pieces of torn paper to create necessary duplicates. Three D’s. Eight E’s . Then she had spread them out upon the table, arranging and rearranging letters in seemingly endless combinations until something of sense began to form.

Now the solution stared back at her.

She counted the letters once more, again checking them against the original message to ensure she had used each one the proper number of times.

Then she reached for a fresh sheet of paper, dipped her quill in the inkpot, and wrote out the message to share with the others.

“ ‘He dwelled amongst thieves as they lived large in Richmond.’ ” Darcy handed the paper to Mr. Knightley and regarded Elizabeth with admiration. “Well done.”

“Indeed, very well done,” Mr. Knightley echoed. “Mr. Darcy and I were having a miserable time attempting to work out a substitution scheme. I must go find Mrs. Knightley. She will be pleased that you discovered the solution.”

Elizabeth appreciated their praise, but felt it only half earned. “Discovering the solution is one thing,” she said. “Interpreting it is quite another.”

“Given that the previous riddle holds a clue to the murder of Churchill, ‘they’ almost certainly refers to the Churchills here,” Mr. Knightley said as he moved towards the door.

“But who is the ‘he’?” Darcy asked. “Frank, who had been our primary suspect, lived in Richmond with his aunt and uncle.”

“And our other suspect, Thomas Dixon, has spent his life dwelling with wealthy relations,” Elizabeth added.

“Yes, hardly criminals — Oh! Here you are, Emma. I was just coming for you. Mrs. Darcy has solved the cipher.”

“Indeed?” Mrs. Knightley turned to Elizabeth in amazement. She held up a slip of paper. “So have I.”

“That is hardly surprising, given your talent for word puzzles,” Elizabeth said. “After all, the message was simply written backwards, with the word spaces altered randomly and the groupings rearranged.”

Mrs. Knightley looked at Elizabeth oddly as she accepted the piece of paper Mr. Knightley offered her. “The spellings were not backwards. Nor were the word spaces at all random. They were the key to sorting out the letters — which were entirely rearranged.” She glanced down at the paper she had just received. “He dwelled amongst thieves’?”

Now Elizabeth was all confusion. “Well — yes. Did you not work out that part?”

Mrs. Knightley glanced at her husband, then crossed to Elizabeth. Her face was troubled as she handed over the writing she had brought with her to the study. “I worked out an altogether different solution.”

CLEVER LYING GIRL. DEAL HAD HIDDEN MOTIVES. NOT WHAT HE SEEMS.

Minutes elapsed before all overcame their astonishment. That a single group of letters could yield two complete messages, both with disturbing implications, was extraordinary. Though Elizabeth had worked out one of them herself, she now regarded both in wonder.

Darcy was the first to recover. “If the puzzle’s two solutions are to be taken as a single message, our peddler does not merely trade with the gypsies — he is a member of their band.”

“Or was,” Elizabeth countered. “The message says ‘dwelled,’ and he remains here in Highbury despite the rest of the caravan’s having moved on.”

“Even so, it implies more than a business relationship between Mr. Deal and the gypsies — and between Mr. Deal and Miss Jones, whom I presume is the girl referenced. If his contact with the gypsies was sporadic and minimal, as he would have us believe, they could have kept her hidden from him during her period of alleged captivity. In fact, they likely would have gone to considerable trouble to keep an Englishwoman out of his sight. But if he lived amongst them, he surely knows her; moreover, he did nothing to help her escape the caravan. Which means that either Miss Jones is lying about having been held against her will, or Mr. Deal’s allegiance to the gypsies surpasses his loyalty to his own people.”

Elizabeth preferred believing Miss Jones a liar to discovering the amiable peddler capable of dishonor towards a distressed young woman of any race. If they in fact had been living together amongst the gypsies, she found it curious that Mr. Deal had been the person who prevented Miss Jones from fleeing when Elizabeth had first sighted her in Highbury. Had he wanted to help Elizabeth, win her trust and favor? See Miss Jones brought to justice for theft? Return Miss Jones to the gypsies for some reward, only to have been thwarted by the intercession of Mr. Elton and Mrs. Todd? Hidden motives, indeed.