The Adventure of the Gold-Engraved Box - Part 4

Holmes occupied himself for over an hour, intently studying the journal. Occasionally he would pause and write something in his notebook. I was naturally curious, yet knew better than to disturb him, so I settled back into my chair to wait. By then I was beginning to feel a bit ill - no doubt due to the large meal I had consumed several hours before. Holmes, as usual when he was on a case, hadn't eaten anything, and I simply could not waste Mrs. Hudson's excellent shepherd's pie.

I must have dozed off, for when I next caught a glimpse of Holmes he was standing near the window, staring out attentively. I rose to join him.

"Any progress?" I inquired, still feeling ill and attempting to supress a yawn.

Holmes only pointed toward the street. "Your man, leaning against the lamp-post."

I caught sight of the man near the lamp-post across the street. He appeared to be casually observing those around him, but as I looked closer, I noted he was watching our flat. "How long has he been there?"

Holmes turned to me. "I believe since just before Miss Baylor took leave."

I could only surmise why the man I had met at Hyde Park would be watching the flat. I became a little nervous for Mrs. Hudson. "Shouldn't we warn Mrs. Hudson?"

Holmes shook his head. "No need to worry her over such a trifle." He drew the blinds and went back to his arm chair. As I returned to the settee, he reached across and passed the worn, red journal to me. "See what you can make of page 2."

I could see nothing unusual about the specified page, which read:

"This day, Queen Mary informed me of her plan to flee Scotland. She is to go to England, in hopes that Queen Elizabeth will show her favor. She wishes for Jinny, Gwen, Blair and I to accompany her. I would be very pleased, but for the fact that dear Gavin and I must call off the wedding until I return. How I shall miss him!

Ailsa (5)"

I scrutinized the page for a few more moments before commenting, "The only thing out of the ordinary on this page is the number "5" beside the signature. Unless I am mistaken..."

Holmes shook his head. "No, you are correct, Watson. I've deduced that the "5" simply means page five." He smoked thoughtfully, watching my movements intently.

I turned to page five automatically; on it was a very long string of numbers, each seperated by a tiny dash. It read:

"2-3-3-5-8-3-12-6-15-2-20-4-25-1-33-1-35-1-40-3-48-3-56-2-66-1"

"Well, Watson?" Holmes questioned. His notebook once again lay open on his knee. "You know my methods; apply them."

I studied the numbers once more. "It is a cipher, to be sure," I said, attempting to sound confident in my deduction.

"To be sure," Holmes echoed.

I waited for more information from my friend, but he said nothing more. He could be incredibly patient when the mood suited him. I resumed the recitation of my deductions. "Every other number becomes incresingly larger...the first being "2," the third being "3," the fifth being "5" and so on."

Holmes smiled. "Precisely, Watson. He held out his hand for the journal, then leaned back in the arm chair and began to study the page once more, making notes in his notebook.

"The cipher is very simple," he began. "As you know, I am familiar with most types of ciphers and codes; this happens to be one of them." He finished writing in his notebook and passed it to me. "It is solved by coupling the numbers from the beginning."

I studied the page in Holmes' notebook, filled with several rows of numbers written in his precise handwriting. I began to follow his chain of thought. "The first number corresponds to one word..."

"In this case, a word in the paragraph," Holmes said.

"And the second to a letter in that word," I finished.

Holmes nodded. "See here, he said, moving to join me on the settee and pointing to one of his notes with the stem of his pipe. "The "2" corresponds to the second word, "day," whereas the "3" corresponds to the letter "y." Therefore, the first letter of the solution is "y.""

I nodded and began deciphering the code as Holmes moved back to his chair with his notebook. Coming upon the second letter, though, I ran into a problem. Holmes was puffing silently on his pipe, watching me again. "Holmes, the second letter is "n." Words in English simply do not start with the letters "y" and "n!"" By this time I was quite agitated, not only with the fact that my methods appeared to be failing, but also because I was feeling very ill.

"I've come to that, Watson." Holmes took no notice of my flustered mood. Instead, he turned his notebook around to face me. Another collection of letters formed a long string across the page, seperated by commas, in this order:

"y, n, r, a, o, e, s, j, b, r, e, a, m"

"Why, it is an anagram," I remarked.

"Correct again, Watson. Now, to solve the anagram." Holmes rose and went to his desk, strewn with papers from past cases and current chemical experiments, and set to work solving the puzzle.

I watched, sullenly, for a few moments before copying the letters in my own notebook and attempting to solve the anagram myself. I wasn't long into it, however, when Holmes startled me by leaping out of the desk chair and hurrying to the table where the abandoned index lay. He strode about the room, scanning the pages quickly. He paused for a moment to place the stem of his pipe on a page, then returned to the table to retrieve the box.

"What is it, Holmes?" I asked.

A hand-motion served as the reply as he signaled for me to join him. I abandoned my notebook on the settee and went to his side as he stood leaning against the mantle. He lifted the first lid of the box and entered four digits: "1-5-6-6."

"Holmes," I said, becoming annoyed at his ignorance. He had included and even taught me a few things that afternoon, and was acting as if I were not even present. I tapped his shoulder. "What was the anagram?"

" 'Year James born,' " He answered, without even a glance in my direction.

"James?" I was thoroughly confused.

"Mary Stuart's only son," Holmes said. He pushed the flower petals as he had done the previous evening.

The next moment seemed as if it were an eternity. I realized that I was holding my breath, and glanced at Holmes, whose eyes were glittering with anticipation. His long, thin fingers prodded the edges of the second lid as he lifted it to reveal a small, yellowed piece of parchment tied with a red ribbon lying on a shallow bed of red velvet.

Holmes went to his arm chair, and I followed absentmindedly, my eyes never leaving the parchment. I was enchanted. To think that a piece of history was lying right before our eyes! I must confess, this cheered me, as I stood behind the chair, looking over my friend's shoulder as he pulled the parchment out of the box and untied the frayed, red ribbon.

My hopes were dashed as he unrolled the parchment, only to reveal a series of short scribbles covering the entire page. Holmes, however, was smiling, and he moved the box to the table and went to the desk to retrieve his notebook.

"There must be something more to this than scribbles," I remarked sourly as I took up the box to examine it.

The red velvet lining covered what appeared to be some kind of thick metal - perhaps solid gold. The distance between the outer edge of the box to the inner edge of the lining was nearly four centimeters, making it impenetrable from the outside. The box itself was nearly twenty centimeters from the lid to the bottom; yet the depth of the inside only measured about six centimeters. Why should the inside of the box be so small and shallow, with such a drastic difference in size in comparison to the outside?

Then I knew the answer. There must have been another compartment underneath the red velvet; yet I could see no way to reach it. Pushing the thoughts of my illness aside, I reached inside and pushed on the bottom of the box. It was solid. I reached across to the table where Holmes kept his strange tools and pulled out a small one that appeared to have some resemblance to a knife. I slid the knife along the edge of the velvet lining near the bottom, from corner to corner, to pull the lining away from the bottom of the box.

Holmes must have caught sight of what I was doing, for he rushed at me so quickly that I became startled and dropped the tool. "Watson, what are you doing?"

I explained to him my thoughts, and he dropped to his knees beside the chair and fingered the piece of velvet I had removed from the box before lifting it out himself. I looked inside, and saw a tiny gold door, which Holmes slid aside to reveal a ring attached to the bottom of the box. He took hold of the ring and pulled upward.

The whole bottom of the box came away to reveal another deeper, red velvet-lined compartment. Inside was a black silk pouch, tied with a drawstring.

Holmes took the pouch by the string and lifted it before our eyes. "Watson," he began quietly, "you have found the crown jewels of Scotland."

Suddenly, I felt the most ill I had been since I had awakened, and the last thing I heard as Holmes dissolved into blackness was a metallic clang as the gold-engraved box fell to the floor.