The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fic - By Mike Ashley Page 0,130

and how you are amassing notes to write a book on them.”

Charles exchanged glances with Ada, his face lighting up. “Indeed. I have a short paper in preparation already, and I exercise my mind regularly by attempting to decipher the codes used in The Times personal column. Some messages are easily solved, but others prove wonderfully challenging.”

“I knew you were the right man to see this, and to tell us – is it some kind of code, or is it gibberish? And if it is indeed a code or cipher, can you break it to reveal its secrets? I thought perhaps the Engine could help us.”

Ada held her breath. Charles could be very touchy on the matter of the Difference Engine. But he laughed. “The purpose of my machine is to help us with speed and accuracy in reaching mathematical answers. It cannot make those leaps of judgement that the human mind can. And at the moment, it cannot even make those mathematical sums. I am thinking of a new Analyser but without the money that—”

“What codes are you talking about, Mr Clark?” Ada interrupted him, to distract Charles from the subject of research funding.

“Ah yes. Constable Duckett, step forward and give your account of last night’s events at the White Hart tavern near Holborn, and give Mr Babbage the piece of paper.”

Ada noticed that the young policeman was not intimidated by his surroundings. He was clean-shaven, and he’d made an attempt to slick down his springy brown hair. His eyes were a darker blue than Clark’s.

“That was the Union meeting where there was a fire,” Ada said. “Mama was reading about it in the paper this morning.”

“A lamp was dropped, but the flames were quickly put out, Miss,” the constable told her, then continued. “But just before then, towards the end of the fracas, when the men attending the meeting was dispersing, I received a blow to the stomach and then this here paper was pushed inside my tunic. At first I thought I was stabbed, but then I found this piece of paper. Because I was bent over I did not see who put it there. I decided to give it to the Sergeant in case it was important.”

“Bravo,” Charles said, and took the piece of paper. “Did you see anything of the man who gave this to you?”

Constable Duckett hesitated. “Not really, I was bent double. He may’ve had a missing finger. Something like that.”

Constable Duckett then returned to his place by the door, as the Madeira wine arrived. As Ada sipped hers, the young constable met her glance equably, then looked away awkwardly. He’d not been offered refreshments; was that because he was only a constable?

“Look here, Ada, what do you make of this?” Charles said. He spread the paper on his work table and together they bent over it. Immediately she saw a pattern. There were four quadrants, each with its own distinct features. The upper left was composed of hieroglyphs, the upper right and lower left were what seemed to her random groups of letters. The lower right was some sort of equation with complex polyhedrons on one side, symbols and a rhyme on the other. Underneath were two shapes.

“It’s four—”

“Yes indeed, those hieroglyphs will be quickly read. I have a book—”

“The letters will need application of the code-breaking—’

“Indeed, we can begin with the simple frequency system and go on from there—”

“But those equations—”

“Yes, Ada, they will prove troublesome, but I’m sure we can do it.”

Clark had stopped his nervous prowling and had been excitedly listening to their interplay. “Then you think it does mean something?” he interrupted.

“We won’t know till we’ve cracked some of it, but, yes, I think this is a coded message.”

As the two men talked, Ada stared down at the paper, allowing the pictures, letters and symbols to flow, reform, break up, so that her mind could explore and absorb without direction. On another level, she was aware that Constable Duckett was saying, “I don’t know why I was chosen, or whether I was mistook for someone else.” And Clark replying, “It feels as if we are being played with.” Charles countered with, “We have no certainties until we uncover the true meaning of the codes or ciphers.”

“Wanstead Abbey,” Ada heard herself saying.

All three men stopped speaking and stared at her. She pointed to the three lone symbols at the bottom. “Surely that’s a gryphon, and, beside it, what could be a lake, and the sign of a cross.”

“It could