Frank Thomas - Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword

"Done," said Holmes.

Loo Chan removed a piece of paper from his inner pocket, passing it to the detective. After regarding it for a moment, Holmes gave a signal to Orloff, who took the Chinaman from the room and out of our lives. What the waiting Colonel Gray thought of that arrangement, I did not learn until later.

As the door closed, I voiced a thought tentatively.

"This could be bait of some sort?"

"No more than a ten percent possibility." Holmes was studying the message. "Loo Chan knows that if he has played us false, the Dutch authorities can pick him up in Macao. I'm inclined to consider this coded message as genuine. The timetable is right. It was two years ago that Chu's attention was caught by it. An idea could have been born in his mind at that time. One thing surprises me: the utter simplicity of the code."

Holmes rose and spread the paper on an end table, allowing me to view it by his side.

DW WKH IHHW RI WKH VLALWK UDPHWHV OLHV WKH ERB LQ HWHUQDO HKVH XQNQRZQ WR NXUQD DQGDOPDPXQ VRQ RI WKH KHUHWLF KHHYDGHGGRRP

"Simplicity, Holmes? You jest."

"This cipher might present problems but for the spacing, which is revealing. Consider the first line. There are seven combinations of letters. Six in the second line. We can assume they represent words."

"I don't see how that helps."

"Regard the same two lines, old fellow. There are three identical three-letter combinations. WKH. Surely that indicates the word 'the' to you. Three letters and oft-used. I can almost decipher this standing here, but let me hazard a guess. This associate of Balzoni—"

"Puzza was his name."

"Also an Italian. I assume this is a substitution cipher. One letter in place of another. Now if you were an Italian and were going to put something in code, playing a game with yourself perhaps, is it not reasonable that you should think of a Roman hero like the first Caesar?"

Not being able to interpret the thoughts of others with Holmes's facility, I didn't know what I would have done.

"I suppose that makes sense," I said.

"It is an historical fact that Julius Caesar encrypted his messages from Gaul by substituting letters three places farther on in the alphabet. D for A and E for B. Now let us test this with the three-letter combination of WKH. W becomes T and K is H. H represents the most used letter in the alphabet, which is E. The word is 'the' as we have already assumed. Just note the number of H letters in this message. We've solved it, Watson."

"We" had nothing to do with it, but if it made Holmes happy to put it that way, who was I to complain? When Wakefield Orloff returned to the room, the sleuth was seated, working on the cipher with a pen. It was so simple for him that he digested Orloff's report at the same time.

"Loo Chan will be on the train to Suez within the hour. I've arranged to have the train stop at a point along the Bitter Lakes. A boat will get him to the liner before it enters the Sweetwater Canal. No one will be the wiser, so we've kept our part of the bargain." The security agent regarded the silent Holmes thoughtfully. "Gray can bring a man from the code office if you wish."

Holmes waved one hand in an aimless gesture without meaning, and I took it from there.

"No need. Holmes has already deciphered it."

It is with joy that I report that Orloff's jaw dropped slightly.

"You do recall," I added with no little pride, "that Holmes's pamphlet on codes and secret writings is now required reading for the cipher division."

My moment of reflected glory was interrupted by the sleuth, who was regarding his handiwork with a frown.

"We may have broken one code and run into another. It would seem the late archeologist, Puzza, was of a whimsical nature."

Holmes allowed himself a small chuckle, and I suspected his humor was directed at himself.

"Our substitution key is correct, Watson, for the letters become words, but what we end up with is a rather clumsy rhyme. Let me read it to you:

" At the feet of the sixth Rameses

Lies the boy in eternal ease,

Unknown to Kurna and Al Mamun

Son of the heretic he evaded doom. "

"The sixth Rameses I would assume is a pharaoh, but the rest means little to me."

Orloff offered no comment, so I made a suggestion.

"That Colonel Gray chap has been in Egypt for a devilishly long time and seems up on all these things."

"Capital idea, Watson!"

Orloff was already on his way to the hall and returned quickly with Gray.

"I didn't know what to do when you left with the Chinaman, Mr. Orloff, so I stayed at my post."

"Good thinking, Colonel," said Holmes. "Loo Chan is of no further concern to us, but another problem has arisen that requires your expertise. Can you make anything out of this?"

Gray read through the message Holmes handed him and then read through it again in the manner of the military. "Better say nothing than say it wrong." is an army byword. It produces accuracy, but has a stultifying effect on inventiveness.

"Well, sir," Gray finally said, stroking his moustache, "would this be in reference to a tomb, perhaps?"

"Very possibly. What prompted you to consider that?"

We were all clustered round the message on the table and Gray, quite delighted to be the center of attention, indicated certain words as he spoke.

"At the feet of the sixth Rameses could mean at the base of a statue of Rameses Sixth, of course. Thank God it isn't Rameses Second. There is no end to statues of him. The reference to 'boy' evades me, but Kurna and Al Mamun certainly indicate a tomb."

"Wait!" said Holmes. "Kurna." He turned to me. "Didn't Mycroft mention Kurna? A city of thieves?"

"Grave robbers," I stuttered.

"That's right, sir," said Gray. "Al Mamun refers to Caliph Al Mamun, who forced his way into the great pyramid in the ninth century in search of treasure. Bit of a disappointment, that, since it had been sacked centuries before."

"Then being unknown by Kurna and Al Mamun must mean an undiscovered grave. One unpillaged by grave robbers," I said.

"I'll accept that," said Holmes, "But look, does not 'son of the heretic' refer to the 'boy' in the second line?"

Gray's eyes lit up. "The heretic in Egyptian history would be Amenhotep Fourth."

"Pity," said Holmes. "I had hoped you would mention another name."

"Who?"

"Do you recall, Watson, that Rapp mentioned a pharaoh who espoused a one-god idea?"

"Ikhnaton," I said, and will never know how that name came to my mind.

"Same chap," was Gray's surprising reply. "Ikhnaton, Amenhotep, Akhenaten; all names for the same ruler. Took charge in 1379. Changed his capital from Thebes to Akhetaten. Wanted to do away with the other gods in favor of the sun god, Aton. Didn't make it stick, you see. Out of touch with his people and was not very prepossessing. When you are in the god business you have to have a bit of personality, to spread the faith, as 'twere."

Holmes's face had recovered its enthusiasm. "Then this boy in the message must be the son of Ikhnaton."

Gray shook his head. "Ikhnaton or Akhenaten had no son. He was succeeded by Smenkmare. Brother, I believe. But wait a minute."

The Colonel studied the message again. "You have a cipher here, possibly written by an Egyptologist?" Holmes nodded. "When would he have been active?"

Holmes scratched his chin. "I read about Balzoni . . ."

"Oh, Balzoni." Gray was on familiar grounds. "Everyone out here knows about him."

"Actually, this was written by an associate of his."

"Balzoni left Egypt in 1819. I know because a year later he wrote a rather good book on his adventures. Point is that early in the century the tombs in Egypt were a bit of a new thing. At that time it was believed that Akhenaten was the father of Tutankhamen."