“And that’s it. It would be an endless task to try all the letters until the message was meaningful. That’s why I waited for fresh material. In my second interview with Mr. Hilton Cubitt he gave me two other short sentences and one message, which was (there was no flag) a single word. Here are the symbols. Now, in the single word I have already got the two E’s: the second and the fourth letter in a word of five letters. It might be ‘sever’, or ‘lever’ or… ‘never’. There is no doubt [137] the latter as a reply is the most probable. And we can assume that it was a reply written by the lady. Now we can say that these symbols mean N, V and R.”

“Even now I was in some difficulty [138] , but suddenly it occurred to me [139] that if this person, who drew these dancing men, had been close with the lady in her past, a combination which contained two E’s with three letters between might mean the name ‘ELSIE’. It was certainly some appeal to ‘Elsie’. In this way I had got my L, S, and I. But what appeal could it be? There were only four letters in the word before ‘Elsie,’ and it ended in E. Surely the word must be ‘COME. ‘ I tried all other words ending in E, but ‘COME’ was the most appropriate. So now I had C, O, and M. And I started reading the first message once more. It was like this:

“Now the first letter can only be A, which repeats three times in this short sentence. And the H is also obvious in the second word. Now it becomes:

Or, if we fill the rest in the name:

I had so many letters now that I could read the second message, which was:

Here I could only put T and G for the missing letters. I thought it was the name of some house or hotel at which the man was staying [140] .”

Inspector Martin and I had listened with interest to the full story how our friend managed to solve this riddle of the dancing men.

“What did you do then, sir?” asked the inspector.

“I guessed that this Slaney was an American, because Abe is an American name, and because a letter from America gave a start of all the trouble. I was sure that there was some criminal secret here. The way the lady spoke about her past helped me to think so. I called my friend from New York, Wilson Hargreave, policeman. I asked him whether the name of Abe Slaney was known to him. Here is his reply: ‘The most dangerous cheater in Chicago’. That evening Hilton Cubitt sent me the last message from Slaney. It took this form:

I completed the message with a P and a D which showed me that this man was now threatening. I at once came to Norfolk with my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson, but, unfortunately, the worst had already happened.”

“It is great to work with you, Mr. Holmes,” said the inspector, warmly. “You will excuse me, however, if I speak frankly to you. I’m responsible for this case. If this Abe Slaney is really the murderer and if he has escaped while I’m sitting here, I’ll get into serious trouble [142] .”

“Don’t worry. He will not escape.”

“How do you know?”

“To escape would be a confession of guilt.”

“Then let us go to arrest him.”

“No, we expect him here every minute.”

“But why should he come?”

“Because I have written to him and asked him.”

“But this is incredible, Mr. Holmes! Why should he come because you have asked him? Isn’t it suspicious?”

“I think I have written the letter correctly,” said Sherlock Holmes. “In fact, if I am not mistaken [143] , here he comes.”

A man was walking up the path which led to the door. He was very tall and handsome, dressed in a grey suit, with a Panama hat. He had a black beard and a great hooked nose. He walked up the path with the face as if the place belonged to him. We heard a ring at the bell.

“I think, gentlemen,” said Holmes, quietly, “that we had better take up our position behind the door. It is necessary to take every precaution [144] when you deal with such a person. You will need your handcuffs, inspector. I will talk.”

We waited in silence for a minute… one of those minutes which one can never forget. Then the door opened and the man stepped in.

1. Was Inspector Martin happy to work with Mr. Holmes?

1) Yes, he was, it was great to work with him.

2) Yes, he was but at first he didn’t like him.

3) No, he wasn’t but at first he liked him.

4) No, he wasn’t because he could get into serious trouble.