Page 34 of A Conspiracy in Belgravia
“I’m working through the inducements Bancroft offered.” She retrieved an envelope from her handbag. “One of which happens to be a Vigenère cipher.”
AVigenèrecipher? Sending Holmes a Vigenère cipher was akin to gifting her a cubic yard of cake—just because she enjoyed a slice a day didn’t mean she wanted to eat only that for days on end.
On the other hand, Bancroft could not have better signaled his respect for her abilities.
She passed him a piece of paper. By habit he glanced behind himself—there was no window between them and the cabbie perched on the back of the hansom cab. And the enclosure that protected the passengers from the elements was more than enough to prevent eavesdropping—which was before one took into account the general din of the city in the middle of the day.
“Do you recognize this passage?”
He read the vaguely archaeological paragraph. “Never seen it before.”
“It’s possible that the plaintext, too, contains a code.” She handed him another piece of paper, this time with all the L’s and O’s underlined. “If they stand for ones and zeroes, they can represent a binary number.”
Instead of looking at the paper, his gaze remained on her a moment too long. It was all too easy, at times, to believe that she never felt anything, that inside her rib cage beat not a heart but the metronomic device of an automaton. But this was not one of those times. Today she gave off clear signals of a hunter on the prowl, quietly excited about her quarry.
She tapped her finger on the sheet of paper, directing his attention where it ought to go. “If I separate the text into two paragraphs at the most reasonable point, I end up with two binary numbers. When I convert them into denary numbers, these are what I get.”
512818 and 2122.
“You’ll have to tell me their significance.”
“I would add a zero to the beginning of the second number.”
A zero at thebeginning ofthe second number? But one could add a string of zeroes before any given number and not change a—
“You mean like this?” He took out a pen and made some changes.
51'28'18
0'21'22
Latitude and longitude.
She smiled. He blinked. She was around sixteen or seventeen when she learned to smile for company, but she never took the trouble for him.
A fortunate thing.
Once, he’d commented on the high number of marriage proposals she had received in the course of eight London Seasons. She had replied, only half jokingly, that all the credit lay with her bosom. He, on the other hand, was of the opinion that gentlemen, while heartily appreciative of her fine décolletage, were actually besotted by something else: her quality of concentration.
When Holmes gave her attention, she gave with such thoroughness, as if no one else mattered, as if no one elseexisted. The poor sod might realize, much too late, that she now knew his every last secret. But the next time he was caught in the gaze of her large, limpid eyes, even with those intellectual alarm bells clanging in his head, he still couldn’t help but feel more important, more recognized, moreseenthan he had ever been in his life.
Not to mention, not every poor sod realized her powers of observation.
Lord Ingram had witnessed, more often than he cared to recall, the expressions of marvel and bliss on the faces of men who had been the recipients of that attention. Then, when she smiled, all the inadequacies they’d ever known were swept into a great big bonfire of strength, confidence, and will to conquer.
“Very good,” she said. “This is somewhere in the vicinity of London, if one assumes that the latitude is fifty-one degrees north. The longitude is close enough to the meridian that east or west shouldn’t matter greatly.”
Lord Ingram also couldn’t recall the last time—if ever—she’d saidVery goodto him.
“It’s my understanding that at the house near Portman Square,” she went on, “Bancroft has a store of maps, among them highly accurate ones of London marked with longitudes and latitudes to the second.”
Caught in the gaze of her large, limpid eyes, he needed a moment to answer. “He does.”
She smiled again. “Bancroft does have some uses after all.”
Lord Ingram, too busy putting out bonfires, did not reply.
The place indicated by N 51°28'18", E 0°21'22" was close to the mouth of the Thames, in the parish of Chadwell St. Mary. N 51°28'18", W 0°21'22" marked a spot near High Street in Hounslow, a small town that had once been at some distance from London, now swallowed up by that insatiable metropolis.
