THE LIGHTS WERE LIT IN the Faversham house, but no one answered our knock, and the door was ajar.
We entered upon a scene of wildest disorder! Overturned chairs and tables showed that a struggle had taken place.
“Methinks I smell a rat,” said Basil, “a rat named Ratigan! Where are Flora and Fauna Faversham?”
He wasted no time, but whipped out his magnifying lens and began examining the room, sometimes stooping, sometimes lying flat on the floor. He reminded me of a foxhound looking for a lost scent.
“Dawson! The stolen Turkish arrow!”
It was transfixed on the wall above a tall cabinet.
“Help me move this heavy cabinet,” said Basil.
Together we pushed and tugged. When the wall was exposed, we saw several rows of neat printing.
Basil took out a tape measure, and applied it to the wall from floor to the top row of letters.
He nodded in satisfaction. “Mr. Holmes once said that when a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level of his own eyes. The mouse who wrote this began a little above his eye level, so he is about five inches tall. Ratigan fits this description, being rather tall for a mouse.”
In utter bewilderment, I was staring at the message, of which I could make neither head nor tail.
I reproduce it below for the reader:
ANUA
FDNAAR
OLFD
NIFD
LUOC
SEMLO
HKCO
LRE
HSNE
VETON
“It resembles an eye chart,” I remarked.
“It’s no eye chart, but a cipher, or code, as it is often erroneously termed. The Professor is a mathematical wizard, so no doubt this one will be devilishly difficult to decipher.”
“Looks impossible to me,” said I.
“Rubbish! Nothing is impossible, if one but uses one’s brain properly.”
He copied the message in his notebook, and then sprawled in a chair, long legs crossed before him.
I knew better than to talk at a time like this. His brow furrowed again and again in concentration.
Then he leaped to his feet. “How stupid of me! I reacted just as the Professor expected. He knew I’d waste precious time seeking the key to a complicated cipher. Here, Dawson—read it. It’s as easy as ABC!”
“Seems more like XYZ,” I confessed. “You’ll think me dense, but I am still in the dark.”
“Why, it’s elementary! This is commonly called a transposition code. Writing itself is about six thousand years old. This position code dates back to 500 B.C., when it was used by generals of the Spartan army.”
“Spartan to you, but Greek to me. Basil, I give up!”
“Bah! Read it backward from the bottom.”
I obeyed, but the words, as before, made no sense.
“NOTEV ENSH ERL OCKH OLMES—”
“Stop right there!” ordered the detective. “The last word was OLMES, which reminds you of—”
“SHERLOCK HOLMES!”
“Precisely. The H that belongs with OLMES may be found in the preceding word. Now I shall write it down backward, breaking up the words properly.”
Quickly he copied the letters, and then drew several slanting lines. The message was now clear:
NOT/EV EN/SH ERL OCK/H OLMES/
COUL D/FIN D/FLO RA/AND/F AUNA
“Then he has spirited them away,” I said.
“Beast! Brute! Bully!” cried Basil angrily.
“Cur! Coward! Cad!” cried I, just as angrily.
“Rogue! Rascal! Ruffian!” cried Basil, dashing outside. “Name-calling will get us nowhere—I must find their trail at once!”
He got down on all fours and studied muddied footprints in the moonlight, then raced into the woods.
I followed. His methods were remarkable. Broken boughs, tangled bushes, twigs—all held meaning.
He pointed to a thread on a tree trunk, and smiled.
“Pink! Sometimes favored by the female of the species!”
The trees grew fewer, and the forest ended. We stood on a cliff, high above a lake.
Voices came thinly to us over the water.
“HELP! SAVE US! We cannot swim!”
Ten feet from shore was a raft, rocked by rising waves. On it sat the frightened Favershams!
Half-running, half-creeping, we plunged down the face of the cliff. Wading up to our waists in the water, we reached the raft and pushed it to shore.
Basil, still disguised as a Gypsy, introduced himself.
Tearfully the sisters told how Ratigan and his gang had set them adrift, after they had refused to talk.
“But we’ll talk to you, Basil,” said Miss Flora. “We saw the Snowmouse high on Mount Emmentaler.”
“He must live near the summit,” added Miss Fauna.
“Mount Emmentaler!” cried Basil. “The mountain no mouse has yet conquered! The Lost Colony Expedition may be the first to reach the summit!”
“The Professor’s expedition has taken practice climbs on the lower slopes,” said Miss Flora. “They have even seen the Adorable Snowmouse!”
Miss Fauna nodded. “The gangsters said they set a trap for the creature, but one of their own mice was trapped instead, and the Snowmouse got away.”
Basil sighed. “I haven’t even had time to form my own expedition. However, it shouldn’t prove difficult. The ISMM is meeting at the Englischer Hof tonight. I shall ask for volunteers.”
In excellent spirits, we left the Favershams at their door, and made our way back to the inn.