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Where had he gone?
Three hours later found himself back at King’s Cross, in a hidden corner slightly cooler than the rest of the station. Hours had walked every station on both northern routes, including the longest spur on each, but he had found nothing. No trail. No sign of his friend. No hint that Watson had disembarked at any point along that route. The stationmaster at the smaller stops remembered no one by Watson’s description, and he still doubted Watson would have left the station. He had even checked the Dover route, on the chance that Watson had decided to hide in the least likely place. Growing aggravation wondered if Watson had chosen his route, or he had let chance decide for him.
Holmes had no way of knowing, and his search time steadily slipped away. The soaring temperatures finally sent him to a nearby bench to think without moving.
Where paper crinkled as he sat, sparking a different irritation. He had completely forgotten the hint that Watson had provided. He should have looked at this over an hour ago, before checking the Dover line, but he had been so sure he had deciphered Watson’s thought process that he had completely forgotten about it. One hand retrieved the envelope from his pocket to flatten its contents against his leg. What had Watson given him?
V tixtt usdhp ol
A cypher. Of course. Because he had not simply annoyed his friend enough to create an extremely difficult tracking game. Watson had decided to encrypt the hint as well. And Holmes had not thought to bring a pen. A quick search of his pockets confirmed he had left his “working a case” pen at home, and when checking his surroundings found none he could borrow, necessity sent him three shops away from the station to purchase the cheapest pencil he could find. Claiming another semi-shady bench finally bent over the note to start decoding the message.
Watson’s favorite code revealed nothing, as did Holmes’. Mycroft’s preferred code would not have created gibberish. A letter substitution appeared promising at first glance, but got nowhere. Watson could not have put much thought into a message he invented with Holmes watching. Maybe a different language?
He would not have chosen a language Holmes did not know, and even his French and Spanish—Holmes’ best languages—were not fluent enough to decipher a code. No, this had to be English.
A different letter substitution produced nothing, followed by a third. Watson had not gone A to B, A to C, or A to Z. Could he have gone A to M?
No, but that did reveal a pattern. Every attempt so far removed more vowels than it should. What about A to E and B to C?
T sewss orcgn ik
Maybe. That produced a different kind of nonsense, at least. One “word” still lacked vowels, but a double substitution could cause that.
Or a reversal. Rereading the line noted a pattern, and instead of trying another letter substitution, he flipped the letters.
Ki ngcro sswes t
King cross west
And nearly crumpled the paper in frustration. Because of course Watson had gone the one direction that Holmes had ignored almost completely. Two trains had headed west this morning. Had he gone toward Slough or Woking?
Slough, he decided, because Watson would find humor in making Holmes go toward Reading Station. Ten minutes consulted the rail schedule and boarded the next train that went the right direction. He would have to change trains once, but he should reach the end of Watson’s range well before Watson’s forfeit time.
Maybe he would win this round, after all.