The Hundred Year Wait (5 page)

“Myron Holmes,” he
said, in his usual business voice.

“Sir, all the
preparations for monitoring the target tomorrow are in place,” his
assistant informed him in her well-spoken English.

“Good work. Keep
me updated with any further developments.” He hung up before any
cars could pass him by and make it obvious he wasn't at home.
Having a reputation as a recluse, he didn't want to spark her
curiosity.

If he kept his
arrangement up with Amelia Jones he would have to come up with an
alternative way of getting the letters between them. He could post
his own in several layers of envelopes and bounce them around the
post offices in the country before reaching her, to make them
difficult to trace back to himself, but her responses would be
another matter. He would have to plan something before he sent her
anything further.

The light woke
Amelia from her slumber as it streamed through the thin curtains.
She yawned and stretched, trying to decide if it was worth getting
up yet. The clock on the bedside table still begun with a six,
although it wouldn't for much longer. Breakfast was still an hour
off and she felt cosy under the duvet. On top of that her dreams
had been pleasant, but now she'd opened her eyes her mind kicked in
and reminded her that her short stay in London had been a mixed
event.

Both her book
signings had gone well and her sales were reasonable. Her time with
Sebastian also meant she'd almost finished plotting her next novel,
but in contrast she would need to change a large amount of her
previous story and was still waiting on the exact instructions from
Myron or his assistant. And it was him that had her unsatisfied
with her brief excursion into the capital. Despite all the other
positives, having him think so little of her, for whatever reason,
bothered her. The inability to do anything about it only made it
worse.

All she could do
was keep writing, keep visiting his brother, and hope he appeared
again. She supposed if a lot of time passed and she never got any
further with Myron she could always reconsider Sebastian, but she
knew that was unlikely to happen. Now that she'd decided she
preferred Myron, seeing the younger brother would be a reminder
that she hadn't captured the attention of the better sibling.

Amelia knew sleep
wasn't going to return and gave up trying to doze off again. With a
sigh she sat up. Instantly her eyes were drawn to the dressing
table on the opposite wall. Propped up against the mirror's corner
was a letter with her name on it. She blinked a few times, puzzled.
The last thing she'd done before getting into bed was sit on the
stool and undo her braided hair. Her tired expression had attracted
her attention in the mirror and if the letter had been there she'd
have noticed.

A shiver ran down
her spine as she realised someone had been in her room while she
slept and it galvanised her to get up and go over to it.

After inspecting
the white envelope she picked it up and turned it over. As soon as
her eyes took in the shape embedded in the wax seal a grin spread
across her face and her previous concern melted from her. She'd
seen the same design on a ring Sebastian always wore and a coat of
arms was usually tied to the family name. One of the brothers had
sent her a letter and she knew Sebastian would have no reason
to.

She almost ripped
the envelope off in her excitement before she stopped herself to
think first. If Myron had decided to teach her, she needed to be
careful not to miss important details. She sniffed the envelope but
no particular scent leapt out at her. Wherever Myron kept his
stationery it didn't smell of anything strong. Her name was written
in a reasonable sized cursive script and looked far more elegant
than anything she could manage, but it could have been illegible
and she'd have still been pleased with it. It was a letter and it
was from the right person, or at least it was logical to assume
Myron wrote it.

Unable to contain
herself any longer, she broke the wax seal and pulled the flap
open. Inside was a sheet of letter paper entirely covered in
numbers. There was nothing in the normal alphabet to let her know
who it was from for sure and no hints on translating it. She ran
her eyes over the sets of single and paired numbers, her brain too
overwhelmed by her emotions to begin thinking about anything beyond
the thrill of getting her way.

Five minutes
passed her by and still she sat in her overly large t-shirt staring
at the numbers cradled in her hands like the paper might fall apart
if she moved even a fraction of an amount. Eventually she put it
down and tore herself away long enough to get dressed and pack up
the few scattered belongings into her small suitcase.

Cracking the
letter's code would require thought and time and she would find
neither easy whilst sitting half naked and hungry in the hotel room
she needed to check out of before ten. As soon as she was decent
and ready to leave she grabbed the letter, her notebook and pencil,
and made her way down to the dining hall. She could solve it while
eating breakfast, surrounded by the noisy mass of other guests.
Thinking always came easier when there wasn't silence to make her
feel uneasy.

With a cooked
breakfast to sooth her rumbling stomach she sat down and pulled the
letter back out. She needed a starting point. Somewhere to begin
trying to work out what the numbers meant. It wasn't the standard
1-26 of a basic numerical substitution as 44 appeared to be the
highest number but that didn't mean it wasn't substitution. It
looked like it was ordered into sets of numbers and long enough to
be a full message, so she decided it was a good assumption to make.
With no starting letter to substitute for a number, she chose to
make a tally of the frequency each number popped up. She remembered
from school that E was the most common letter followed closely by A
and S. With such a long letter the tally should be clear enough
that trying those three would help.

Half an hour later
she'd eaten as much as she could without bursting and had a
completed tally of the numbers. 37 appeared one hundred and twenty
six times throughout the letter. This was considerably more than
any other so she decided to begin her translation assuming it was
the letter E. She had also noticed that every paragraph ended with
a 25 and wondered if this might be the dot at the end of a
sentence. Until she'd worked out a few words she couldn't be sure,
however.

Putting in the
letter she already thought she'd sussed out was delayed by her need
to check out of the hotel. She noticed it was already almost nine
and an hour wasn't likely to be long enough to figure out the
rest.

After stuffing the
letter back in her pocket she took her belongings to her room,
grabbed the already packed suitcase and transferred the letter and
notebook to her handbag. With that done she made her way back to
the lobby to give her key-card back and pay her final bill.

Once outside she
considered getting a taxi to see Sebastian and getting his help to
solve the letter but her own sense of pride stopped her. Instead
she made her way to a café she wrote in when in London, and not
otherwise engaged.

She was early
enough that she had her pick of tables so she sat at one, tucked up
in a corner where no one would bother her, and ordered a hot
chocolate.

Before her drink
could arrive she pulled the letter and her tally of the numbers
back out. Using pencil and pressing lightly, she marked in all the
letters she suspected so far and then looked at the letter as a
whole again. None of them looked out of place and it gave her a
couple of two letter words that ended in E. Most begun with a 34,
but alone it wasn't enough to help her put in another letter.

As her drink
arrived she decided to go back to her tally and work out some more
letters from the more frequent numbers. 2, 3, 8, 33, and 41 all
occurred a similar number of times and significantly more than most
others. She also noticed that 33 and 41 were both vowels if she put
the numbers in order from A to I, with 37 matching up with the
E.

Fairly pleased
with her logic, but unsure enough to check all the same, she
glanced through the letter, trying to find a word or two where
putting in A or I would give her a word so obviously right it
couldn't be wrong. She soon found that the only single letter words
that appeared were these numbers and therefore could only be those
letters. Not noticing it sooner made her angry at herself but it
gave her the confidence she needed to write them into her
translation along with all the letters in between.

It took her quite
some time, but once she was done she had several whole words and
many partial ones. It also seemed logical to her to continue going
through the numbers until the highest, moving along the alphabet,
considering so far they'd been in order. 44 was the highest number
that appeared so when she reached it she stopped and read what she
had so far.

g 3 3 d 1 3 6 2 i 2 g 1
i 7 7 j 3 2 e 7 26

i h a 10 e d e c i d e
d 8 h a 8 7 e 8 8 i 2 g 13 3 9 c h a l l e 2 g e 7 1 a 13 4 6 3 10
i d e e 2 3 9 g h a 1 9 7 e 1 e 2 8 8 3 b e...

The first line was
obviously the start of a letter, and she was pretty sure that it
included punctuation and her name. If she continued down through
the alphabet then the first word was good and the 10 became a V.
Excitement built up within her as she realised she'd almost
translated the entire thing and she got to work, filling in the
rest of the alphabet from 1-14.

With those done
the letter was almost complete and she could fill in the
punctuation as well, guessing that 28 became a '–' the few times it
occurred. It also made sense that the rest of the numbers were
substituting other numbers, giving her a numbered list of
instructions to follow.

After filling in
the final few parts, she sat back and admired her handiwork. A
letter that could only be from Myron.

Good morning Miss
Jones,

I have decided that
setting you challenges may provide enough amusement to be worth my
effort, but there are several rules I will insist upon. Break any
of them, at any point, and our little game will cease along with
all communication.

1 – You're not to tell
anyone anything about our arrangement. This includes taking all
precautions necessary to ensure no one else finds any
communication.

2 – You're not to
receive help solving any task. This is a test of your cleverness
alone.

3 – You should obey any
instructions as soon as possible where this doesn't conflict with
rule 1.

4 – Fail a task and our
arrangement will cease along with all communication.

5 – Refusal to do as
instructed will be seen as a termination of our agreement.

6 – I reserve the right
to cease this at any point without explanation.

7 – All messages will
be placed in envelopes and sealed with wax. You're responsible for
acquiring the necessary stationery.

8 – My name, or any
other information that could lead to me being identified, is not to
be used in any correspondence.

If you still wish to
proceed, reply using the same code by leaving your message in your
hotel room or in your pocket while travelling, marked with 1r on
the envelope and adequately sealed.

Regards, your
tutor.

A grin spread
across her face despite the strictness of Myron's rules. She'd
translated the first message, although she suspected later ones
would be significantly harder.

Holding the letter
in her hands, she sat back and read through it several times,
deciding to commit the rules to memory. She also felt pleased she'd
not gone running to Sebastian for help. If she had, all her chances
of learning from Myron would have been dashed before she'd
begun.

The smile never
left her face as she turned to her notebook and wrote out the
uncoded reply she wanted to make.

Good Morning Mr
Tutor,

I very much wish to
proceed and am happy to abide by your rules, although 6 bothers me
slightly. Could I ask for a slight amendment? I'd appreciate a
final message of some kind, letting me know that our arrangement is
over. It would stop me from worrying that a letter had gone astray
which I should have found, and, if a letter did go missing, I would
know for sure to keep looking for it or inform you that someone
else might have it. Of course I'd also appreciate knowing any
reasons for stopping as well, but I understand you may not wish to
give me those details.

I look forward to my
next task.

Regards, your
student.

She bit her lip as
she pondered over what she'd written before tweaking a few words
here and there and adding in the punctuation she thought would be
correct. With that done she wrote the coded version on a new sheet,
taking care to get it exactly right.

After ordering
another drink, she checked it through, tore the page out and folded
it.

“Hmmm,” she said
as she realised she needed an envelope and wax to obey her
instructions. She glanced at her pocket watch and frowned as she
realised she only had a few minutes to spare before she ought to
make her way across the London underground and get her train to
Bath. Her instructions were to leave the letter in her hotel room
or pocket while travelling so Amelia didn't feel comfortable
waiting until she got home to find an envelope and wax.

While she was
trying to think of a place she could get the required stationery on
the way she noticed an unlit candle sat on her table. She looked
for the nearest waitress and caught the young woman's eye.

“I don't suppose
you could light the candle for me? I need some liquid wax for
something I'm making,” she said and gave her best hopeful
expression. If the waitress thought the request odd she didn't say
so but hurried off and came back with a lighter. A few seconds
later the candle was burning merrily on her table and she was alone
again.