APTEHYKXQNIFSVDOJLZWGMCURB (dup.)
SVDOJLZWGMCURBAPTEHYKXQNIF (trip.)
On this code, to write the word “spook” I was expected to write the letters RVPPZ. What I did write however was USAAL. These letters, de-coded under the above code-system, give the letters FADDY, which are all one place to the left of the ones required—SPOOK. The reason for this was a double accident. First I had failed to notice that D and V had been interchanged by Matthews; second, the letter whose identity I succeeded in eliciting from Little happened to be V. Little’s inadvertent information had been that the B had stopped opposite V, so that the code on which I was working was the following:
Code II.
APTEHYKXQNIFSDVOJLZWGMCURB (dup.)
FSDVOJLZWGMCURBAPTEHYKXQNI (trip.)
If the alphabet be coded on Code II. (which is what I did) and the result decoded on Code I. (which is what Little had to do), it will be found that twenty-two of the twenty-six letters are represented by the letter immediately to their left in Matthews’s rearrangement; and of the remaining four letters two are two places to the left and two are in the correct position. The proportion of cases in which the letter appeared one to the left of where it should be was great enough to make the investigators believe that the Spook was purposely writing in this way. They either did not notice, or passed over as negligible, the four exceptions. Yet in these exceptions lay the clue to the trick.
APPENDIX III
I give below enough of the Telepathy Code used by Hill and myself to show the system on which we worked. The portion here given is about one-sixth of the whole code.
| THIS (1) | THING (2) | WHAT I HAVE HERE (3) | ARTICLE (4) | ONE (5) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (0) A | Yes | Watch | Chain | Key | Ring | Strap |
| M | I want you to tell me | |||||
| (¼) B | Thanks | Pin | Nail | Screw | Buckle | Belt |
| N | Will you say? | |||||
| (½) C | Thank you | Button | Badge | Star | Crown | Medal |
| O | Bones | |||||
| (1) D | Well | Banknote | Coin | Purse | Pocket-book | Spectacles |
| P | I want you to tell us | |||||
| (2) E | All right | Handkerchief | Tie | Tie-clip | Cap | Scarf |
| Q | Say | |||||
| (3) F | Quick | Glass | Cup | Mug | Bottle | Saucer |
| R | Come on | |||||
| (4) G | Quicker | Cork | Corkscrew | File | Tin-opener | Adze |
| B | Come along | |||||
| (5) H | Quickly | Matchbox | Match | Bit of wood | Stone | Earth |
| T | Come | |||||
| (6) I | Tell me | Pipe | Box | Pipe-cleaner | Tobacco | Case |
| U | Good | |||||
| (7) J | Tell us | Cigarette | Cig.-paper | Cig.-roller | Cig.-lighter | Cig.-holder |
| V | Very good | |||||
| (8) K | Can you tell me? | Pencil | Rubber | Fountain-pen | Nib | Charcoal |
| W | I want to know | |||||
| (9) L | Can you tell us? | Letter | Card | Envelope | Photo | Stamp |
| X | We want to know | |||||
| (10) | Will you tell me? | Book | Notebook | Paper | Ink | Ruler |
| (11) | Will you tell us? | Knife | Scissors | String | Wire | Rope |
| (12)Y | Do you know? | Candle | Lamp | Oil | Wick | Candlestick |
| (20)Z | Can you say? | Fruit | Flower | Vegetable | Grass | Leaf |