And now Mrs. Marbleton had arrived, a woman who had been without news of her husband for more than seventy-two hours, when she normally heard from him several times a day when he was away.
She was pale and tense, but otherwise willowy and handsome, a woman in her forties, her visiting dress of an elegant simplicity that Livia would have much lauded. Pleasantries were exchanged. Charlotte gave the by now standard speech concerning her “brother” in the next room. Mrs. Marbleton, with hands clutched tightly together in her lap, tendered her best wishes for Mr. Holmes’s health.
Charlotte let the silence that followed linger for a few seconds before she asked the by now also standard question, “Would you like to know for certain that Sherlock’s powers of observation and deduction are very much intact?”
“I was at the General Post Office this morning and retrieved a letter meant for me. I have been plentifully assured of Mr. Holmes’s mental acuity,” said Mrs. Marbleton, already holding out the letter. “Would he mind taking a look at this new one?”
This letter was not typed. Instead it was pasted with individual letters—letters cut out from books, rather than newspapers, judging by the thickness of the paper. The text praised the material and workmanship of boots cobbled by a Signor Castellani of Regent Street.
“I already asked around,” said Mrs. Marbleton. “There is no establishment by that name or owned by anyone of that name. I checked for the hyphen-and-full-stop code from the previous letter, which didn’t appear to be the case. I also tried using the crossbars on the t’s and the dots on the i’s, to see whether it was a variation on a theme—that doesn’t appear to be the case either.”
She’d spoken in a near monotone, as if regurgitating facts that had nothing to do with herself. But Charlotte heard the quaver in her voice, the fear and anguish.
She made the usual pilgrimage to “Sherlock’s” bedroom. Mrs. Watson, seated inside, looked almost as tormented as their client. Had news of Surgeon-Major Watson’s death reached her in a state of unsuspecting naivety, or had she been dreading that terrible confirmation for days on end?
Charlotte didn’t know what to do, so she placed the cup of tea that had been brought for “Sherlock” into Mrs. Watson’s hands and sat next to her for a bit.
Upon her return to the parlor, she told Mrs. Marbleton, who had been staring at her own untouched tea, “My brother is of the opinion that this should be a straightforward Bacon’s cipher.”
“What is that?” Mrs. Marbleton’s gaze was dark and intense—an intensity that derived not from hope, but despair.
“It’s a system devised by Francis Bacon to hide a message in relatively plain sight. If you’ll examine the letters that have been pasted, they are of two different typefaces, Caslon and Didot—and only those two.”
Mrs. Marbleton looked closely at the note. “I didn’t notice that earlier.”
“The message starts with a Caslon letter, so that makes Caslon letters A, and Didot letters B. If we go through the entire message letter by letter, we would end up with a string of As and Bs. Mrs. Marbleton, will you write down the As and Bs as I read them aloud?”
Mrs. Marbleton peeled off her gloves. Charlotte handed her a pen and a notebook. “Have you contacted the police by any chance, ma’am?”
Mrs. Marbleton shook her head. “I do not know everything about my husband—there is a time of his life that he never talks about. I’ve been glad to leave it alone as there are years of my own life I would rather forget. For as long as I’ve known him, he has been a diamond of the first water—a complete gentleman, adored by his friends, admired by his business associates. But if I were to go to the police, I’m not sure what might be dragged up—in public, no less.”
“I understand, Mrs. Marbleton. You may be assured of our complete discretion.”
When the a’s and b’s had been set down and double checked, Charlotte said, “Now we divide this long string into segments of five letters each, and those sequences ought to correspond with the sequences Bacon had set out as representations for each letter.”
Entirely translated, the message read package browns.
The fine grooves beside Mrs. Marbleton’s mouth etched deeper as she studied the words. Then she swallowed and looked up at Charlotte. “I hate to admit it but calling for this letter at the General Post Office was . . . nerve-racking. May I engage you to come with me to Brown’s Hotel, Miss Holmes? I would feel less deprived of courage if I didn’t need to do this alone.”
Charlotte shivered. But it was only Brown’s, and in broad daylight no less. “Yes, I will accompany you.”
Mrs. Marbleton already had a hansom cab waiting below. But since Mrs. Watson also wished to come along, in the end Charlotte and Mrs. Watson took another cab and followed behind.