"Look here, this is nonsense!"
"Ah!" said Dr. Fell, like one who savours a rare bouquet of wine.
"It's just a lot of crackbrain poetry―" "Verse," corrected Dr. Fell.
"Well, it certainly isn't any cryptogram, whatever it is.
Have you seen it?"
"No. But it's a cryptogram, all right."
The chief constable tossed the paper across to him.
"Righto, then. Tell us what it means. `How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun; Great Homer's tale of Troy?' It's a lot of rubbish… Hold on, though!" muttered Sir
Benjamin, rubbing his cheek. "I've seen those puzzles in the magazines. And I remember in the stories — you take every other word, or every second word, or something — don't you?"
"That won't work," said Rampole, gloomily. "I've tried all the combinations of first, second, and third words. I've tried it as an acrostic, down the whole four verses. The first letters give you 'Hgowatiwiowetgff.' With the last letters you produce 'Nynyfrdrefstenen.' The last one sounds like an Assyrian queen.