There
are some things I want to
explain,'
Holmes said. Then
he told the Inspector about Hilton Cubitt's visits to us in London
and the pictures of the dancing men.
'These
drawings are a kind of secret
writing,'
said Holmes.
'They
look like children's drawings, but they are messages. Each
picture of a dancing man is a letter of the alphabet. Let me show
you how it works.
'The
letter of the alphabet which appears most often in
English is
"E".
The picture of the dancing man which appeared
most often was
>/
V So I knew that this
picture
was "E".
'Some
of the dancing men were holding flags. I guessed that a
figure with a flag was the last letter of a
word.'
'But
how did you find out what the other pictures
meant?'
I
asked.
'On
Hilton Cubitt's second
visit,'
went on
Holmes,
'he
brought three different messages with him. The last message was: