“I declare!” my uncle shouted, slamming his fist down on the table. “It is Runic! And it contains some incredible secret. I must discover it, whatever it takes.”
I was about to answer, but he cut me off.
“Sit down,” he ordered. “And write exactly what I dictate.”
I obeyed.
“I’m going to replace each Runic symbol with a letter from our alphabet. Then we’ll see what comes out. Ready? Begin, and don’t make a single mistake.”
He started dictating.
The result was complete nonsense:
mm.rnlls esruel seecJde
sgtssmf unteief niedrke
kt,samn atrateS Saodrrn
emtnaeI nuaect rrilSa
Atvaar .nscrc ieaabs
ccdrmi eeutul frantu
dt,iac oseibo KediiYThe moment I finished, my uncle snatched the paper from my hands and studied it with intense concentration.
“Now, what does it mean?” he muttered after staring at it for a long time.
I had no idea, of course. He wasn’t really expecting an answer from me anyway. Whenever he asked a question, he usually answered it himself.
“I’m convinced it’s some kind of code!” he exclaimed. “Unless these letters are completely meaningless. But if they mean nothing, why would anyone go to so much trouble to write them? What if I’m standing on the edge of a major discovery?”
Personally, I thought it was complete rubbish.
But I wisely kept that opinion to myself. My uncle’s temper was not something I wanted to test.
He continued comparing the parchment with the old book.
“These two documents were written by different people,” he said. “And this coded message was clearly written much later than the book. That proves my theory.”
I wasn’t quite sure how it proved anything.
“The very first character is a double M. That letter wasn’t introduced into the Icelandic language until the twelfth century. So this parchment must be at least two hundred years newer than the book.”
His reasoning sounded convincing enough, but to me it was still only a theory.
“I think someone who owned this book wrote the message,” he continued. “The next question is: who owned it? If we’re lucky, his name may be somewhere in the book.”
Professor Hardwigg immediately removed his spectacles. Then he picked up a powerful magnifying glass and began examining the book page by page.
On the inside cover, he noticed what looked like nothing more than an old ink stain.
But after studying it carefully, he realized it was actually a line of writing that time had almost completely erased.
This was exactly what he had been looking for.
After a long and careful examination, he finally managed to make out the letters.
“Arne Saknussemm!” he cried, his face lighting up with excitement. “That’s not just an Icelandic name. It belonged to a famous Icelandic scholar from the sixteenth century—a celebrated alchemist!”
I bowed respectfully.
“Those old alchemists were the greatest scholars of their time,” my uncle continued. “Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus—they made extraordinary discoveries. Why couldn’t Saknussemm have hidden some incredible invention in this little piece of parchment?”
He paced around the room, more excited than I had ever seen him.
“I am certain this code has a deep and important meaning. I must solve it!”
“It may be true, Uncle,” I said carefully. “But if he discovered something so useful, why would he hide it from future generations?”
“How should I know?” he snapped. “Didn’t Galileo keep some of his discoveries about Saturn secret? We’ll find out soon enough. Until I understand this message, I won’t eat or sleep!”
“My dear Uncle—”
“Neither will you.”
Fortunately, I had eaten twice as much as usual that day.
“In the first place,” he continued, “there must be some clue hidden in the message. Once we find the clue, the rest should be easy.”
I began thinking seriously.
The idea of going without food or sleep was certainly enough to motivate me. I decided I had better do everything I could to solve the mystery.
Meanwhile, my uncle continued thinking aloud.
“The answer must be hidden in the structure of the message. Look at the numbers. There are exactly one hundred and thirty-two letters. Seventy-nine are consonants and fifty-three are vowels.”
He paused proudly.
“That proportion is common in the languages of southern Europe. Northern languages usually contain far more consonants. So we can reasonably assume that this message was written in a southern language.”
That actually sounded logical.
“Now,” Professor Hardwigg continued, “we need to determine which language.”
“As Shakespeare would say, that is the question,” I replied with a hint of sarcasm.
“This Saknussemm was a highly educated man. Since he didn’t write in his native language, he probably used Latin, just as many educated men of the sixteenth century did.”
He raised a finger.
“If Latin proves to be wrong, we’ll try Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, and even Hebrew. But I strongly believe it’s Latin.”
That made me nervous.
Latin was my favorite subject, and I couldn’t bear the thought that this horrible collection of letters might somehow be the language of Virgil.
“Probably very poor Latin,” my uncle added, “but Latin nevertheless.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, mainly because I didn’t want to argue with him.
“Let’s examine it carefully,” he continued. “Here we have one hundred and thirty-two letters apparently thrown onto the page at random. There is no obvious pattern.”
He pointed at the message.
“Look at mm.rnlls. It contains nothing but consonants. Then look at unteief. That’s almost entirely vowels. And near the end we have oseibo, which is also mostly vowels.”
He shook his head.
“Such combinations cannot be accidental. The sentence must have been rearranged according to some mathematical system. Someone probably wrote a normal sentence first, then scrambled the letters according to a particular pattern. That pattern must be based on a number.”
He turned toward me.
“Now, Harry, let’s see what your English brain can do. What number is the key?”
I had absolutely no idea.
My attention had already wandered elsewhere.
Across the room hung a portrait of my cousin Gretchen.
I found myself wondering when she would return.
Gretchen and I were engaged, and we loved each other deeply. But my uncle was so completely absorbed in his scientific pursuits that he had never even noticed.
Without realizing how distracted I was, Professor Hardwigg began rearranging the letters of the cryptograph according to one theory after another.
Eventually, he noticed that I wasn’t paying attention.
“Harry! Write this down.”
I reluctantly focused on him and took his dictation.
After all his calculations, he produced another version of the message:
mmessunkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamurtn
ecertserrette,rotaivsadua,ednecsedsadne
lacartniiilrJsiratracSarbmutabiledmek
meretarcsilucoYsleffenSnI.I could hardly stop myself from laughing.
My uncle had the opposite reaction.
His face turned red with fury.
He slammed his fist onto the table, stormed out of the room, rushed out of the house, and then ran off down the street until he disappeared from sight.