5 Breaking the Code

Chapter 5 Breaking the Code The doctor departed to see his patients, and the constable went to telegraph Norwich Constabulary for a wagon and two armed policemen. Only Holmes, the inspector, and myself remained. Holmes led us into the drawing room. "All we can do now is wait for events to take their course, gentlemen," he said. "Perhaps this might be a good time for you to explain how you know so much about this case," suggested Inspector Martin. "Of course," said Holmes, and he outlined quickly all that had happened since Mr. Cubitt's first visit to Baker Street. Then he beckoned us to join him at a table where he spread out the "dancing men" papers before us and began to explain how he had deduced their secrets.

第五章破译密码医生去看病人了，巡警给诺里奇警察局打了电报，要了一辆马车和两个武装警察。 只剩下福尔摩斯、探长和我自己。 福尔摩斯把我们领进了客厅。 他说：“先生们，我们现在能做的就是等待事态的发展。” “也许这是一个好时机，让你解释一下你是如何对这个案子知道这么多的，”马丁探长建议道。 “当然，”福尔摩斯说，他很快地把丘比特先生第一次到贝克街来以后发生的一切都概括了一下。 然后，他示意我们和他一起坐在一张桌子旁，在那里他把“跳舞的人”的文件摊开在我们面前，开始解释他是如何推断出他们的秘密的。

"I am familiar with most forms of coded writing," said Holmes, "but this one, I admit, was entirely new to me. The inventor of this code clearly wanted to hide the fact that it's a code at all and deliberately made it look like a random child's sketch. I, however, quickly realized that each dancing man stood for a letter of the alphabet.

福尔摩斯说道："我对大多数密文都很熟悉，但是我承认，这种密文对我来说是完全陌生的。 这个代码的发明者显然想要隐藏它是一个代码的事实，并故意让它看起来像一个随机的儿童草图。 然而，我很快意识到，每个跳舞的人代表字母表中的一个字母。

"The first message was too short to learn much from, except that one of the symbols appeared four times in just 15 letters: "I guessed this symbol probably stood for E, which, as you must know, is the most common letter in the English language. I also noticed, in some cases, that the figures were holding flags, and I presumed that these represented breaks between words.

第一条信息太短了，除了其中一个符号在仅仅15个字母中出现了4次之外，我们无法从中学到很多东西：“我猜这个符号可能代表E，你一定知道，E是英语中最常见的字母。” 我还注意到，在某些情况下，这些人物举着旗帜，我认为这些代表了单词之间的停顿。

"Hilton soon brought me more samples. One of these was only five letters long and without a flag, so it had to be a single word: "The second and fourth letters were E. It could have been 'sever' or 'lever,' but I thought it most likely to be 'never,' as it had appeared as a reply to another message on the toolshed door. That gave me the symbols for N, V, and R. "Another thought also occurred to me. If these messages were coming from someone who had been close to Mrs. Cubitt in her earlier life, then he probably addressed her by her first name— Elsie. So any five-letter words that began and

希尔顿很快给我带来了更多的样品。 其中一个只有五个字母长，而且没有旗帜，所以它必须是一个单词：“第二个和第四个字母是E。 它可能是“切断”或“杠杆”，但我认为它最有可能是“永远”，因为它似乎是对工具间门上另一条信息的回复。 这就给出了N V R的符号。 另一个想法也出现在我的脑海里。 如果这些信息来自于库比特夫人早年生活中亲近的人，那么他很可能是用她的名字——埃尔西来称呼她的。 任何以和开头的五个字母的单词

ended in E could be her name. I quickly found examples: "That was how I deduced the symbols for L, S, and I. "Next, I turned to the word before 'Elsie': "It had just four letters and ended in E, and I thought if the sender is appealing to Elsie, then surely that word has to be COME. This gave me C, O, and M. "With several letters now decoded, I was able to attack the first message again, and this was what I got: -M -ERE --E SL-NE-.

以E结尾的可能是她的名字。 我很快就找到了例子：“我就是这样推导出L、S和I的符号的。 接着，我看了看“Elsie”前面的单词：“它只有四个字母，以E结尾，我想如果寄信人想吸引Elsie，那么这个单词肯定是COME。” 这是C O和M。“破译了几个字母后，我又能攻击第一条信息了，我得到的是：- m - ere——E SL-NE-。

"The first letter, I realized, had to be A, which was useful as it appears three times in this sentence. I further reasoned that the missing letter in the second word was H, which gave me: AM HERE A-E SLANE-. From there, it was a simple task to fill in the blanks and arrive at AM HERE ABE SLANEY. "I now had so many letters that I could move confidently onto the second message, which I decoded as A-ELRI-ES. This made sense when you added T and G for the missing letters, giving us AT ELRIGES, which I assumed to be a local inn."

我意识到，第一个字母必须是A，这很有用，因为它在这个句子中出现了三次。 我进一步推断，第二个单词中缺少的字母是H，它给了我：AM HERE A-E SLANE-。 从那里开始，填空和到达AM HERE ABE SLANEY是一个简单的任务。 “我现在有了这么多的信，我可以自信地进入第二条信息，我将其解码为A-ELRI-ES。 当你在缺失的字母上加上T和G时，这就说得通了，我们得到了AT ELRIGES，我以为这是当地的一家旅馆。”