A Halloween Puzzle: Trouble With Dead Things

The Game Room
21

It says “caldron” not “cauldron.” Which is what you’ll actually find in editions of Shakespeare.

Here’s the first text with the Shakespeare quote removed:

YRM N RGEA UIS XIK ES OSE. B MVH EO MEWT EI REMGR NEON H IA IZ KIL BINBE GS XZ KFM S ATNLDERTE NW L INFA IXMOB WVZH EETECED MWERWO, GF IIUAHS IVZRT ZO E R VLNLTS HXG ERES. WWGRLMO AIALY G YB HEOD DOO V IB IZNGW W E IKILTNNW NIAEAN E RAE L X TAT H A B NROH MNDES HO AVE. LF HVXI OY R RETAS OLGW R CAEN G HE YHNG YLD AEEN EL S KKLHWB TESU SFMG EL AED SLV R US NRBEROO NATE MV BLI WK. RS S WTTE SK U G ELO VW HEDA D DR ELL JFI CONE DLO THERD!

I was hoping it’d be decipherable that way, but it has too many single letters. N, B, H, L, E, R, S, G, V, W, X, A, D and U all appear as single letters, so I wouldn’t know how to begin decryption.

22

Hmmm…

Barlow must be getting his poorly spelled quotes off the internet.

“Can’t read anything into that,” You decide.

23

No, no. Barlow spelled it right. But the poster who quoted it in a spoiler didn’t. I’m just saying that to remove the quote from the text (which was not as helpful as I’d hoped) you need to make sure you spell it right.

24

Nevermind the details, but it’s not a regular substitution cipher. Unless there is more than one symbol for E, or A & E have different symbols when they stand alone, than when they are in words, it’s something else.

Leaper says

But I’m ready to conclude it isn’t a cipher. Maybe another quote can be pulled out of it. It has the word “NEON” in it when you pull out the Shakespeare quote.

25

And if you pull out the quote and then read every seventh letter beginning with the second (seven because the clue might be “Macbeth”, and maybe all of those red B’s mean to start with the second letter), the first six letters are RUSHEN. Then again, the next seven are INKLWXH.

26

Wow. Serves me right for getting a late start on this. I read it through a couple of days ago, but I didn’t even do any decoding until after lunch today.

27

Out of frustration You call Brown, hoping he has had better luck over the past couple of days.

But from the tone of Brown’s voice You can tell he has been no more successful than You.

You tell Brown about your attempts at removing all the bold letters, or at counting some letters to use, or trying to tie in the red “B” and the number “2” to somehow find a path to a message. Brown is impressed, but alas, You must admit the results have not been good.

“I just don’t know where to turn next.” You tell the Agent. “There’s nothing to go on. Usually there is some clue somewhere, but I don’t see one this time.”

Brown agrees. “If there is a clue to solving this, it must be pretty obscure. And yet I can’t help but think the bold letters must be the key. If we knew what to do with them, somehow I suspect we could quickly solve the code. Cooper and White, they both think we should be looking at texts. They say that if there was some addition or subtracting of letters, they would have come upon the solution by now based on a numeric value for the coded letters, or the length of a title. And I have to admit, I see some merit in that argument.”

You think for a moment. “One of the first things we notice about these codes is that the letter distribution is very similar, with a few exceptions, to normal letter distribution. If we were adding or subtracting, then there would be more X’s and K’s and Q’s. And definitely less E’s.”

“And it can’t be too difficult,” chimes in Brown. “A spy has to be able to decode the message easily. It can’t be a puzzle for the intended solver. You have to be able to tell your recipient ahead of time “to do this and then that” and thus the message will appear. I can’t believe the spies would be expected to have copies, or even downloads, of a library of horror classics in order to solve a code. No, the answer has to be right there in front of us. But how do we find it?”

“I’ve been thinking,” You tell Brown. “Halloween is just a few days away. Maybe you and I and Cooper and White could get together on Thursday. I suspect Jones is still too injured to come out. But if the four of us communicate this week, and finally pool our ideas…I bet we can solve this thing.”

Brown is silent for a moment. “I floated a similar idea to Cooper and White yesterday. They both adamantly refused. They think every time we all get together to solve a code, something bad happens instead. They think they can solve the coded messages without our help.”

“Ok, Brown, I understand,” You fume. “But how about you and I getting together in some public place. The spies are not likely to try anything against us with crowds around. I am sick of being played by these spies. We CAN solve this code.”

“I agree!” Brown is as resolute as You. “How about Patch’s Cafe next to the police station downtown. It’s open late. We’ll work on the code this week, keep in touch, and get together Thursday afternoon or evening and put this thing to bed!”

You wish Brown a good evening and return to the messages. We will solve this You think. An open restaurant next to a police station.

What could go wrong?

28

Yesterday Brown called, and You agreed to meet him today for lunch at Patch’s this early afternoon. You would find a table over in a corner, and then both of you would spend the afternoon working on the code until the solution was found. Safe. Police nearby. Yep, a great plan.

But what’s the point?

You have made absolutely no progress on the codes. Halloween, Boris Barlow’s birthday, is tomorrow. Of course the government is not going to turn over control to Barlow. And so — if he actually has the power – zombies will start walking on Friday. Real zombies. The only one who can stop the horror is You. And You have got nothing.

In despair You decide to call Brown and call the whole thing off. Why waste a perfectly good afternoon in futility.

You dial up Brown on your cell, and the young Agent answers.

“Brown, I hate to give up. But this code has me licked, I know we are supposed to meet, but I don’t have anything to bring to the table,” You sigh.

But You hear a different tone in Brown’s voice.

“Please don’t give up,” Brown pleads. “I know how You feel. It’s just that… I may have something.”

You sit up alert. “What’s that? Brown? You have discovered how to crack the code?”

“Not exactly,” replies Brown. You hear excitement in his voice. “I well, …I don’t know what it means. I’m going to fiddle around with what I found a bit more. Maybe… Well, I’ll tell You all about it at lunch and see what You think.”

You start feeling the whole code-solving excitement again. Is success perhaps possible?

“Brown, at least give me a hint.”

“Okay.” replies Brown. “Last night I was looking at one of the coded messages. And something about the bolded Halloween quotes struck me. Not the letters themselves, just the bolding. It seemed kind of odd, yet it was consistent throughout the code. Why? So I checked the other messages…and it was the same. This can’t just be a coincidence!”

“What? What did you notice?”

“Well…”

Brown starts to speak but suddenly there is a hissing in your phone and a loud static and squeal.

“Brown? Brown?”

“We are losing the connection,” Brown responds. “Something wrong with the phones. I’ll tell You all about it at lunch…”

The whining hiss goes loud and your phone abruptly cuts off. You try to dial back, but the phone seems dead. Damn, and it is a new phone, too.

You look at your watch. It’s almost lunch time anyway. Best go meet Brown. Perhaps something will come of this get-together after all. You decide to get dressed and head to Patch’s…

29

Here’s an interesting note:

The first letters of the four messages, in order, are Y, X, W, and V

30

The hospital waiting room is busy this evening. People are coming in and out. But You sit quietly in the uncomfortable padded seat waiting for word. The magazines on the table are uninteresting and months old. You hear the loudspeaker calling out for some doctor to go somewhere. Who is being summoned and why? Is someone…dying?

And if the worst news comes, then what? What will You do?

As the minutes slowly tick by You reflect on the events of the day. How did everything go so wrong? One minute You were driving to meet Brown at the restaurant. You were full of hope. Brown had discovered something…and perhaps You had too. It was just a few hours ago, but right now it seems like days. Just a few hours ago…

^^^^^^^^

Your car moves down the busy city streets. Traffic is bad today, but it always is at lunchtime. You hoped You would be on time, but when that new thought about the sequential opening letters of the codes struck, You had to pause. Coincidence? Probably. However, in the difficult matter of codes it sometimes pays to note such coincidences. A red herring? Possibly…though if a red herring it is most certainly an obscure one.

Maybe when You find out what Brown discovered You can decide the importance of the opening coded letter. You feel that familiar excitement tingle inside again. Perhaps this case is close to being solved!

You are just about fifteen minutes away from the restaurant when your phone buzzes. You had put the broken android in your pocket by habit, even though You supposed it to be dead. And now it suddenly buzzes, indicating that You have a text. A zombie phone, You laugh to yourself. At the next light You stop and pull up the message:

+++++

Beware my fine code breaker. Your conscious mind may have heard only noise on your phone this morning. Just hissing and static. But your Q-waves heard more. Oh so much more! You are now infected with the zombie curse, as is your friend Agent Brown. When You die You shall rise and worship me. You shall rise and kill.

Boris Barlow

+++++

By God!

HONK! You had not noticed the light turning green. You inch forward again into the slow line of traffic. Your mind is numb? Can it be true? Are You and Brown destined to become zombies in the service of Boris Barlow? No, this cannot be!

You decide You must get quickly to the restaurant to warn Brown. But as your car draws near Patch’s You see a crowd gathered outside. Several police cars, with lights flashing are stopped at angles in the street. You spot a parking place and pull over. Hurrying up to the crowd You find a horrific sight. Agent Brown is lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Medical personnel are working feverishly to revive him.

“Let me through, I’m a friend,” You yell. “What has happened?”

A spectator tells You that Brown was attacked by several lumbering individuals with glowing eyes. The police got to the scene right away because, after all, their station was right there nearby. But all the attackers still escaped, despite being shot several times by police. Witnesses claim that the villains tossed policemen around like rag dolls, and then disappeared through a man hole into the sewers. Police are giving chase.

^^^^^^^^
So now You find yourself in a hospital waiting room. You have called Jones who is at his home recovering from his own attack a few weeks ago. You tell him everything.

Jones grimly informs You he will send reinforcements to the hospital. Just in case. Finally a doctor comes out to tell You that the news is not good. Brown is in critical condition. He may not live the night.

Somehow the monsters that attacked Brown escaped. Several people at the scene reports seeing someone take papers from Brown’s pocket as the Agent lay prone and bleeding. These papers were probably Brown’s notes for his meeting with You. This unknown person disappeared into the huge crowd and witness testimony varies on a description.

So what will You do now? There is nothing to do but wait.

If Brown dies, will your friends eyes dim and then suddenly glow again. Will Brown stagger to his feet oozing green goop from his mouth? Will the hospital find itself dealing with a Halloween nightmare as the calendar turns to October 31?

You fish in your pocket and pull out the coded messages and your notes. Nothing to do now but work on the codes. Maybe You can figure out what Brown discovered before the attack? Another loudspeaker blares paging a doctor “stat.”

A few minutes to midnight. A few minutes until Boris Barlow’s birthday. A few minutes and it will be Halloween.

Tick-Tock
Tick-Tock
Tick-Tock

31

Frightening reports are coming out of the town of Glenview, Tennessee (pop. 54,674). Over the past 24 hours, seven people who died in this sleepy Eastern Tennessee burg have apparently come back to life.

  • Two were elderly patients in the town’s hospital. They are currently imprisoned in a state mental facility until officials can figure out what to do with them. Observers have described the reanimated geriatrics as “bizarre beyond belief.” Both families of these resurrected individuals are screaming bloody murder over their family member’s detention— though when one granddaughter saw her grandmother’s red glowing eyes and wheezing green spittle, she (the daughter) went shrieking down the hallway right past the receptionist and out the front door.

  • Two dead victims of a car crash pulled their mangled bodies from the wreckage and attacked the occupants of the other car involved in the collision. One of these other people died in this assault and then rose herself and lunged at emergency personnel who were responding to the scene. Chaos ensued. One zombie was finally killed by police with a shot to the head, one was subdued by authorities and is in custody, and the third traffic victim/zombie is still on the lam. He was last seen lurching off into the woods.

*The other two zombies had died at their homes from natural causes, and then got up and began attacking friends and neighbors. One has been re-killed, but the other is missing, leaving a trail of injuries and destruction for police to follow.

Boris Barlow was born in Glenview.

===

Meanwhile Brown still clings to life in a Washington DC hospital. Doctors are cautiously optimistic that Brown will live…but they can make no promises. The poor man has yet to regain consciousness.

===

Don’t You think it is about time You solved these codes and put an end to the zombie madness?

32

Good to see one of your excellent puzzles again, Biotop.

Some observations:

[spoiler][ul]
[li]the bolded characters appear in groups of 1, 2 and 3, and appear regularly in the cipher texts. The maximum run of unbolded letters between a pair of bolded letters is about twelve. It’s possible that the bolded letters (whether singletons or groups) represent spaces in the plain text.[/li][li]if the above possibility is true, then the spaces already present in the cipher texts should probably be removed[/li][li]each message so far starts with a single unbolded letter, then a bolded one. As That Don Guy noted, the single unbolded letter seems to be varying predictably between messages. Could this initial letter indicate the decryption method for each message in some way?[/li][li]each message so far ends with a run of four or five unbolded letters- this adds credence to the theory that the unbolded letters form the words, and the bolded letters are the spaces (no need for a space at the end of a message, after all)[/li][li]applying the above ideas to the first message yields:[/li][/ul]

Y RM N RGEAUI SX IK ESOSE. BM VH E OMEWTEIR E MGR NEON H IA IZ KIL BINBEGS XZ K FM S ATNLDERTEN WL INFAI X M OBW VZH EETECED MW ERW O,G F IIUAHSI VZ R TZO ER VLNLTSH X G ERES. WW GRLM O AIALYG Y BHEODD OO VIBI Z N G W WEI KILT NN WNIAEANERAE L X TAT HA BNR O H MNDESHO AVE.LF HVXI O YR RETASOL G WR CAENG HEY H N GY LDAEENEL S KKLH W BTESUS FMG ELAEDSL VR US NR BEROO NATEMV BLI WK. R S S WTTES K UG ELO V WHEDAD DR ELL JF ICONE DL O THERD!

Sadly, there are too many single-letter words in that to be plausible English, and none of the longer words stand out as obvious encryptions using letter substitution. [/spoiler]

33

Are we sure that isn’t Welsh? that looks like Welsh.

34

As of early this afternoon, thirteen zombie cases have been reported in and around Glenview, Tennessee. Of those, seven zombies have been re-killed, three zombies are in custody, and another three are still missing. Temperatures are hovering just below freezing in the area. How zombies react to the cold is another unknown. With any luck the remaining wandering corpses will suffer frostbite and keel over again.

The CIA is working with local officials. They are attempting to blame the madness on a new strain of rabies. This pathetic cover story is being reported in the press, but how well it works to calm the public remains to be seen.

The US military has sent soldiers to every hospital, funeral home, and emergency service in the area. They have been charged with trying to halt the zombie outbreak. The plan originally was to shoot every person who died through the head at the first sign of re-animation. However something changed.

During the late afternoon and evening today four people in the area died. None of the four has risen again.

Officials have been wondering what the heck was going on…until this note was delivered tonight to the Pentagon via street waif:

Benevolence, thy name is Barlow!

I have halted the zombie apocalypse in Tennessee by simply over-riding the previous Q-wave messages to the citizenry. But I think I have proven my point. No one can doubt that Boris Barlow is the greatest human being ever to live. For I can control life and death! O Glorious Exalted me!

But now it is time for all decent men and women across the world to act. You have seen just a tiny taste of my power. Surly you quake and quiver with fear! I must be given control of this planet and it must happen soon. I give the world exactly a week to decide. After that I shall either become Emperor of Earth, or I will create a worldwide unstoppable zombie apocalypse that will be more horrifying than anything the world has ever imagined. This is the last warning. I await my coronation.

Boris Barlow

35

The punctuation in the ciphertexts looks like it might be real. There are apostrophes, commas and periods in the right place, and suitably villainous exclamation marks at the ends of sentences.

I’m particularly interested in the part of the fourth message that appeared in quotation marks:

“SXWOFIF RR KAS PEOT NWFDD HEH.”

With the bold letters and spaces removed, this is:

“SXFIFRSPEOTWFDHEH.”

I am working on the assumption that this decodes to:

“EMPEROROFTHEWORLD”

36

Missed the edit window. I meant that I am working on the assumption that this decodes to:

“EMPEROROFTHEEARTH” (although looking at it now I see that Boris didn’t include “THE”)

37

It is a chilly morning. The coffee brews. But your favorite beverage has not helped very much recently. You keep thinking that You are getting close to solving the codes…possibly very close. But the solution is just out of reach. SIgh. You must not give up! You do not want to rise as a zombie.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

You answer the door and there is Jones. The Special Agent is on crutches, but he smiles as You let him enter.

“Jones, good to see you up on your feet.”

Jones hobbles over to the easy chair and maneuvers himself into the seat. “It is good to be up and getting around,” says Jones.

“Any word on Brown?” You ask cautiously.

“No. He’s still the same. Doctors say he could come out of his coma at any time…or never at all.”

Poor Brown. You feel a pang of guilt. It was You who invited Brown to get together to solve the codes. You are supposed to be the world’s finest code breaker. And yet this time You may be beaten.

“I wish I knew what Brown was going to tell me before he was attacked.”

You tell Jones about your latest theories. “I think I am close, but there is something I am missing…and I think Brown might have seen it. I was sure I was right about the bolded letters being spaces between words. But now I am not so sure. Red herrings abound in these spy codes. That Barlow is a mad genius, even if he can’t spell ‘surely’.”

Both You and Jones sit quietly for a moment sipping coffee.

Jones finally speaks. “I’ve got some news on the zombies and how to stop them. The best minds in the military have been studying Q-waves. They believe that a shot to the head…or at least some form of head removal, is the only way to kill a zombie. As to the Q-waves, if someone is wearing a metal hat of some kind, it may make it harder for their Q-waves to be fiddled with. Also, salt may prevent a zombie from rising.”

“Salt?”

“Yeah. Weird isn’t it. But salt seems to block the functioning of Q-waves. The military scientist I spoke to thinks that when a person infected with zombieism dies, then You must get salt near the brain. Use enough salt and the body won’t rise, or at least won’t rise very much. The scientist recommends pouring a couple cups of salt into the mouth of the deceased at the moment of death. Then he says you should immediately sew the victim’s lip shut with a needle and thread. That way the dead person can’t start to rise and spill out the salt.”

This is all too much. You imagine someone filling your dead mouth up with salt. Needles in the lips. Ugh.

This has got to stop! “If only I had one more sample of the code…maybe I could solve this!” You exclaim.

Jones fishes into his pocket and pulls out a note. “Your wish is my command. This was posted last night on the internet site ESPiaNage-Sports for Reformed Spies. You know the drill. The site bans secret codes, but it was late at night and yadda yadda yadda, a few thousand views.”
^^^^^
URRVBIN COG CSEE JARUNO VUNTVXKDDR OMEP O MTHX UEPNI PILE RREO DSHI VYO, RARIE DGA RYY POOBXS OVAC K****ER SOETH QHTXHMNIF: U LGA CLI QHNL I OOC, F XHSSPS LAAA DOHCEBI EG ARS DRAREST ANAL HHLRO UQ DOGHXT BSOE, Y LSA IROUXR, WEERRE EDTHAD, PRXC, EIS T SAAA PHTY QNEFO XNS YYC ODSTAI. ND ID VDDH NRTTWYOISRS TILRO COVU RVWE METCH DLK QNIL T HVQE PDAS LAVTR, GSRQRETTUXK EPLRRA QOECGQNRS, OH OIT EWIR HLC** LSR DCEEE** IDU THOM. TAHHS ERXRANDFII AITI O URRVBSR TOVC NT CSTS OHH R EEXX WIWI NGORTC N RBREKHIE FVE. HIFR C OOR GXRIRC ED HHREEEI TAIVU MNRA JHWNNDD COY THBEE OUEXS’R XRVSMED WOSE MNAX L VNGYVXXL CTU U**IT** WT YEGE CL DEHD OORG OTPTM. T MOO IIN!
^^^^^

38

The week is quickly passing and a zombie apocalypse seems inevitable. You have five samples of the code. That should be enough. But try as You might the solution to the code remains obscure.

Brown is still in a coma at the hospital. Doctors think he will survive. But what if he never comes out of it? Or after ten years, suppose Brown finally passes… and then rises again? No! You must banish those awful thoughts from your head. Indeed, in ten years we all might be zombies following Barlow. Halloween forever.

What did Brown notice? You can’t help thinking there is some hint there, some oddity that You have not seen. What did Brown find? What? What?!?

You want to take a break from trying to solve the code, to clear your mind so that You can re-focus. But do You dare? Time is slowly ticking toward the moment when the dead across the world will rise. And it is up to You to stop this nightmare.

Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

That’s your cell phone. It has been working fine since that fateful ride into town last Thursday.

You do not recognize the caller’s number. But on impulse You answer instead of waiting for a message.
+++++

You: Hello?

Voice: Is this the CIA?

You: I sometimes work with the CIA? Who is this?

Voice: My name is Mike. Mike Winston. I am a spy.

You: What?

Winston: I am a spy who works for Boris Barlow. I understand You want to know where he is?

You: Well, Yes I do. We do. Where is he?

Winston: Not so fast. Listen. Some of us spies have been talking. Barlow promised we’d join him in ruling the Earth, and that sounded pretty good. But some of us don’t think Barlow really wants to be Emperor. We think he’s just toying with his enemies before turning the world into a mass of drooling zombies. We think he’s just into destruction and horror. That’s how he gets his jollies. Indeed, I don’t think this psycho Barlow really ever was planning anything else. I think we spies are being duped into helping Barlow get revenge against the world… a world he believes has done him wrong. I don’t want to see the planet turned into a population of murderous undead beings.

You: Tell me where to find him. We can put a stop to all this and save the planet.

Winston: Not yet. I’ve been thinking. Information about where to find Barlow is probably worth a lot of money. I’m betting the government would be happy to pay, say, five million dollars for that helpful tip.

You: Look, if you really know where to find Barlow, you’d better tell me. We are on the verge of cracking his code. And when we do, Barlow and anyone helping him will be put away for a long, long time.

Winston: Ah, so You have some of the “Bee” code messages do You? Well, I don’t think You are smart enough to crack that cypher!

You: Don’t be so sure. We know about the bolded letters. We know the solver has to remove them completely to solve the code. Just red herrings, they are.

Winston: Remove them? Hah, You don’t know what You are talking about.

You: Did I say remove them? I meant to say we know that the bold letters are really the real spaces between words and—

Winston: Hah, Is that what You think? No wonder You can’t find Barlow.

You: No, I meant to say we know how to use the bolded letters, for counting. How letters equal numbers and all one needs to do is count forward or backwa—

Winston: You are really funny. You are not even close. You don’t have any idea how to solve the code do You? You think that the actual word lengths aren’t right there in front of You, already spaced out? Well they are! And furthermore… No, wait a minute. I tell You what. Add an extra million to the total, and I’ll give You the secret of the code. It’s actually pretty simple. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Spies could use this simple code forever because no one at the CIA is smart enough to solve it. You need to put such a code out of commission. Best pay to know the secret, eh? Heh heh. Get a pencil. I’m going to give You a Swiss Bank Account number. When I see all that delicious money in the bank, I’ll call You back.

You: Winston, don’t be a fool. The last time someone tried to turn on Barlow, they wound up dead. Turn yourself in. We can protect you!

Winston: I’m too smart to get caught. They don’t suspect a thing. I am the cleverest one here and I… Wait a minute, someone’s at the door… Oh my GOD!! No!! It’s a bunch of zombies! They are coming for me! Help! Arrrrgghhhh!

The phone goes dead.

You: Winston? Winston?

+++++

There is no answer. Sadly You think Winston has made his last phone call. That poor, poor foolish man. Greed has claimed another victim.

39

BTW, given past puzzles, I’m pretty sure that the letter B is a key… somehow. And that the contents of the bolded letters are confirmed to be irrelevant.

40

It looks like everything I’ve guessed so far is wrong, and I’m no closer to solving this.

Time for a random thought-dump:

[ul]
[li]Winston told us that all the word lengths and spacing are right there in front of us. So the first coded message, which began ‘YARMD ND E RGEA UIRSS …’, will decode to a message where the first five words have lengths 5,2,1,4,5[/li][li]This means that every letter is needed for decryption, even the bolded ones.[/li][li]Winston’s comments suggest that this is not a substitution cipher[/li][li]The letter frequency of the cipher texts shows similarities to normal English distribution, with some oddities. [/li][li]Why are there so many Qs in the second message but none in the first? [/li][li]Why so many Js in the 4th message (even allowing for all the 'JACK’s) but only one in the first? [/li][li]Why are there 13 Zs in the 2nd message and then none in the 5th? [/li][li]If we need every letter, then we can’t simply remove these uncommon letters. We can’t just assume they are nulls. Are they standing in for other, more common letters somehow?[/li][li]If this is a transposition cipher, then how do we account for the bold letters? There’s no transposition method that I can think of that allows you to pick out lengthy quotes from classic fiction from the transposed text. So, to decrypt, we must surely replace the bolded characters with other characters before transposition. It must be a simple scheme, so how does this replacement work?[/li][li]The proportion of bold characters is fairly steady- in the first message, 32% of letters are bolded, in the 2nd and 3rd, 29% are bolded, and in the next two 27% are bolded.[/li][li]If the spacing and punctuation in the cipher texts is real, then the 5th message seems to contains a list of some kind. There’s a colon, followed by several items separated by commas. The first three items start with a single letter word (presumably ‘a’), and the last item starts with a three letter word and a one letter word (‘and a’). [/li][li]What did Brown notice about the bolded characters? He said it was the bolding itself, not the letters. What could this mean? Is there a pattern to the bolded letters, either in how they are spaced out, or how they appear within words? Not that I can see.[/li][li]Winston referred to the cipher as the ‘Bee code’. What could this mean? A hexagonal arrangement of letters perhaps?[/li][li]The first letter of the 5th message was U, continuing the pattern. If this is not a red herring, is it significant that we never saw a message starting with Z at the beginning of all this?[/li][/ul]