How Holmes Pieced Together "The Peculiar Persecution of Mr. Druitt"
Dearest detectives,
Thank you for taking the time to join us for this December’s mystery, “The Peculiar Persecution of Mr. Druitt.” We received magnificent entries from many dedicated investigators this month, and are still in the process of designating our latest Featured Detective, but until then… Holmes has provided an insightful evaluation of the events surrounding Mr. Druitt and the Eliot Place School on All Hallows’ Eve, 1881.
All the best, and as always, good luck with our latest mystery,
The Dear Holmes Team
——
4 December, 1881
Dear Mr. Valentine,
I trust that by now you've received my additional wire and spoken with Druitt, and the students in question.
Particularly after your last letter, it became apparent that Conway, and perhaps his two close friends, were making a habit of tormenting Mr. Druitt through a series of strange notes. The entire ordeal seemed odd from the very beginning, but Drake and Morgan's mention of "wicked" student activity made me confident that these boys were ultimately to blame.
Given the young master's apparent fascination with Freemasonry and the like (as per his room), I immediately recognized the scent of foul play. And when Miss Hayes confirmed that her brother's classmate, the Prime Minister's son, had paid an untimely visit to the young master's room, I knew there was more to the equation.
From the little we know of Mr. Druitt - and considering that I knew even less of him in October - it's unlikely that he could have worked out a code on his own. He is, however, profoundly interested in the occult, something which Conway must have gleaned from his visits to the young master's room. It's more than likely that on the day Mr. Hayes feared he'd almost been discovered by Druitt, he had unintentionally prevented Conway, the Prime Minister's son, from leaving yet another set of instructions at his bewildered instructor's desk. I imagine that Conway, on another similar occasion, must have originally provided Druitt with a key to the cipher - to ensure that his manipulation could proceed successfully.
Initially, the notes were simply promises to offer poor Mr. Druitt prestige and friendship, making him a part of some brotherhood. Then they decided to manipulate him further for their own amusement, sending him outside to wait for hours at various locations, often in the cold or during rainy weather. They fixed up one of the rocks behind the school in a grove of trees with a crude and cabalistic carving of the eye, supposedly a feature of the society which was sending the messages, and then directed him there on any number of occasions to wait for someone to arrive - always in vain, but also always observed from a distance, to their great and misplaced merriment.
Although Conway would sometimes manage to sneak a message onto Druitt's very desk, on other occasions the three simply took advantage of their position in the dining hall to slip a note under the teacher's plate. This went on for several weeks, and then they had the idea to escalate the embarrassment to a much greater degree. As part of some supposed initiation, they would send Druitt out on All Hallows Eve to wait on the rock, completely unclothed. Conway and the others were hoping to convince the entire population of the school to go there and catch poor Druitt in the act; yourself included, it seems.
The sentence that was initially provided, and used so often by Druitt to decode the messages, was thus:
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
I instantly recognized this as a pangram, or a holoalphabetic sentence, which contains every letter of the alphabet at least once. (These have been used in recent years to assist in the training of those learning the typewriter. You may have heard of another - The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog - which contains thirty-five letters)
The sentence provided to Druitt, however, is shorter, with only thirty-two letters. Of these, three are repeated more than once - I appears three times, O also three times, with E and U two times each. When the two extra I's and O's are deleted, along with the extra E and U, we're left with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, in this order:
Pack my box with f - ve d - z - n l - qu - r j - gs
By placing a number by each of the letters as it appears in this revised format: 1 for P, 2 for A, and so on - one comes up with a fairly simple substitution code, with each of the twenty-six letters represented by a unique number, according to where it falls within this pangram, after the extra six letters are removed:
P-1 a-2 c-3 k-4 m-5 y-6 b-7 o-8 x-9 w-10 i-11 t-12 h-13 f-14 v-15 e-16 d-17 z-18 n-19 l-20 q-21 u-22 r-23 j-24 g-25 s-26
Rearranging the letters alphabetically, it was easy to see which number stood for which letter:
A-2 B-7 C-3 D-17 E-16 F-14 G-25 H-13 I-11 J-24 K-4 L-20 M-5 N-19 O-8 P-1 Q-21 R-23 S-26 T-12 U-22 V-15 W-10 X-9 Y-6 Z-18
Thus, it became quite easy to decipher the few messages that were copied by Anthony Hayes and sent on for my examination.
If you review the messages in the enclosed letters, you'll see that the first one copied by young Hayes was:
Stay strong friend. Continue to await recruits at rock. Oct Fourteen Six PM
That was the message that caused Druitt to glance at the clock and then rush out into the great storm, standing uncloaked at the rock while futilely waiting to meet someone from the supposed Masonic Brotherhood. Of course, nobody ever appeared, as the message had been prepared with the sole purpose of driving the poor man into the rain. From there, it seems the boys only grew bolder.
Hayes subsequently sent me the message which was discovered in Druitt's room:
You have been selected for a position in the high Mason Council. Be at the rock with our sign when required. Your faith will be rewarded Brother.
Without doubt, that message, with its promise of reward and inclusion, seduced the lonely new assistant master, who continued to wallow in his fascination with Freemasonry. After receiving this original "invitation," he searched for the rock with the carving of the eye, matching that which was on the message, until he located it in the nearby grove. From that moment on, Druitt was ensnared by the joke, becoming a frequent visitor to the carving.
Until Halloween, when this all came to a head, and Hayes found the latest and final message:
Be at the rock at sunset on All Hallows Eve. Wear no clothes
One can only imagine what was planned for the poor fellow - public embarrassment at best, possibly dismissal or arrest. I expect he'll spend some time in reclusion until the shame has passed, but I did feel pity for the man after learning of the ordeal. You should know that I sent him a final anonymous coded message, encouraging him to seek out a legitimate Masonic organization - with the idea that he would find some purpose and fellowship. Some encouragement would benefit the aspiring avocat, as would the company of some like-minded fellows.
As for Conway et al, I trust you'll have identified what you see to be the most appropriate course of action. Boys will be boys, but surely they can do so without distressing, and possible endangering, their teachers and schoolmates. As you well know,
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Very best,
