The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes by Liz Hedgecock

Author:Liz Hedgecock [Hedgecock, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: parody, humour, detective fiction, short stories, mystery
Publisher: White Rhino Books
Published: 2016-04-01T06:00:00+00:00

The Case of the Secret Code

As I opened the front door of 221B Baker Street I couldn’t help feeling that all was right with the world. I had dined well at my club, won a game of billiards against an extremely stiff opponent, and celebrated with some excellent port. I entered the sitting room and narrowly missed having my head taken off with the poker.

‘Oh! It’s you,’ Sherlock Holmes exclaimed, stepping out from behind the door.

‘What on earth are you playing at, Holmes?’ I asked, somewhat testily.

Holmes leaned towards me and hissed. ‘There’s a plot, a plot to kill us both!’

I fell into the armchair, wishing I had held back a little on the port. ‘Holmes, are you sure?’ Without speaking out of turn, Holmes saw murder round every corner. Last month he had been convinced that our page Billy was in the pay of foreign spies, and marched him to the police station to be interrogated.

‘Of course I’m sure — look!’ Holmes brandished a sheet of pale blue paper. ‘I found this on the pavement! All I need to do is crack the code.’

‘Let me see.’ I examined the paper, which appeared to be a hastily-scrawled list. It had suffered during the time it had spent outside; but the words ‘Mr H’ and ‘Dr W’ were legible. My head spun.

Holmes grabbed the sheet back. ‘It seems to be an alphanumeric cypher.’ He read, tracing the blurred characters with his forefinger. ‘Under my name: Sh — 5, T — 2, UG — 2, Sks — 2. L — all, Sh S&I. What can it mean?’

‘What does it say under my name?’ I asked.

‘The lower part of the writing has run, but I can definitely see Sh — 7, T — 4, UG — 7…what is UG? Underground? And why would yours be 7 and mine 2? Ah, your bedroom is at the back of the house … perhaps they are planning to tunnel beneath Baker Street and murder us in our beds!’

‘The bedrooms are upstairs,’ I pointed out.

‘True,’ Holmes conceded. ‘Could these be abbreviations for chemical elements? S and I would be sulphur and iodine — but those are harmless, and the other letters do not correspond. Yes, it must be a code.’ He sat down at the desk, drew a notepad towards him, and lit his pipe. The next half-hour was silent except for the scratching of Holmes’s pen and an occasional muttered curse.

The peace was broken by the slam of the front door, followed by Mrs Hudson’s dulcet tones. ‘This is most careless, Billy!’

‘Billy has divulged information to our foe!’ breathed Holmes.

Mrs Hudson hurried in. ‘I apologise for disturbing you, gentlemen, but — oh!’ I followed her gaze to the blue paper. ‘In fact, everything is well.’ She walked over and twitched the sheet out of Holmes’s hand.

‘Do you know something about this, Mrs Hudson?’ thundered Holmes.

‘Of course; I wrote it. It’s a memorandum of your week’s laundry. Shirts 5, trousers 2 … and so on.’

‘What is S and I, Mrs Hudson?’ I asked.

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