Compete to crack secrets lost to history—for fun, clout, and (no) profit
Ralph Duckworth and Minnie Storey-Bates used more than one way to conceal a few words or an entire note. The University of Akron binder exposes 132 catalogue routes, representing 131 distinct title labels. Within that reviewed binder, thirteen routes lead to twelve demonstrated physical cipher cards: two routes for M_Bates_050 serve the same byte-identical PDF.
Seven campaign messages are fully readable. An eighth, 002, is read to the recoverable limit of the source and retains clipped, struck, or unsafe words. Four other cards already had public answers and serve as controls. The date rebus 052 is accounted for separately. These are twelve physical cipher cards, not twelve new cracks. [1]
001 advances every letter by one place in the alphabet; reading moves back one place. All 325 alphabetic characters verify under that single rule. In 002 and the concealed section of 045, the letters inside each word run backward while the order of words stays fixed.
The remaining numeric and mixed writing uses an alphabet that was already public in this family correspondence. Two complete public ciphertext/plaintext pairs, 005 and 032, fix twenty-four of the twenty-six letters. A prime belongs to the preceding numeral and changes its value: 2 is D, while 2′ is E. The reusable working table is:
| Plaintext | Written symbol |
|---|---|
| A | 1′ |
| B | 1 |
| C | c |
| D | 2 |
| E | 2′ |
| F | 4 |
| G | 0 |
| H | h |
| I | 3′ |
| J | j |
| K | 8 |
| L | 5 |
| M | m |
| N | 9 |
| O | 4′ |
| P | 7 |
| Q | q |
| R | r |
| S | 6 |
| T | 3 |
| U | 5′ |
| V | v |
| W | w |
| X | x |
| Y | y |
| Z | unseen |
The Q entry is a later member-derived extension, supported by questions and quite in 061; it does not enlarge the earlier public-pair proof retrospectively. Z remains unseen. The institutional blog’s duplicated 4=F and 7=F is corrected by exact pairs: 4′44 reads OFF, while h1′77y reads HAPPY. Thus 4 is F and 7 is P. [4]
This is not permission to run one alphabet across every card. Letter-only messages, reversed words, open prose, and numeric writing are kept in their own modes. Faint primes, handwritten numeral/letter look-alikes, and broken words must first be checked against the physical source.
The following gives every relevant campaign message and all four prior controls. Ordinary prose is included so that a concealed salutation or footer is not mistaken for an entirely encrypted card. Normalization and source uncertainties are identified card by card. [2]
Mechanism: every source letter is shifted forward by one; reading subtracts one. All 325 alphabetic characters verify mechanically.
Source-close plaintext:
My darling, I shall be in Southampton tonight as it is the Bowling meeting of the Cyclist Dance, but i will see you on Friday night. I hope you like this view of Marie, i dont think you have had one like it before. Have you. But before as i promised also, i will tell you. What i have wanted to, for a long time; i promise i shall tell you next night, will you allow me to. I am always, my darling Min, Yours ever loving (Ralph)
The card never states what Ralph has long wanted to tell Minnie. It is not expanded into a proposal or engagement claim.
Mechanism: reverse the letters inside each written word while leaving word order fixed. The mechanism is solved, but the low-resolution physical source has a struck word, edge clipping, and several unsafe overwritten tokens.
Complete mechanical source extent after reversing each physical word:
B01 Mine, Will you please put a penny stamp B02 on the same you Will find in my writing B03 also addressed to J. R. ⟦Hill⟧, and post B04 it at once. Don't forget. Will have it. B05 right ⟦much⟧ I ⟦muse⟧ more. B06 Am going to the Scala tonight to see the B07 show. Will have a new boy - Will ⟪ struck word; reversal unavailable ⟫ B08 ⟦Remember⟧ (another Willy) home 9 time. B09 at the ⟦Winter⟧ ⟦Gardens⟧ all night B10 If you ⟦acknowledge⟧. B10g ⟨gray: ⟦only once⟧⟩ B11 ⟦Yours/Just⟧ 3 ⟦minutes⟧ ⟦on⟧ ⟦the⟧ ⟦no⟧ ⟦communication⟧ B12 ⟦she/if?⟧ find ⟦anything⟧ with him. C01 More anon. S01 All from R. F01 Here on Monday as well. Other ⟪ plaintext beginning missing ⟫…ch F02 picture. Very good. I wish.
Supported normalized plaintext:
Mine, will you please put a penny stamp on the same you will find in my writing, also addressed to J. R. [Hill], and post it at once. Don't forget. Will have it right [much] I [muse] more. Am going to the Scala tonight to see the show. Will have a new boy; Will [struck word]. [Remember] (another Willy) home 9 time at the [Winter Gardens] all night, if you [acknowledge]. [Gray insertion: only once.] [Remaining syntax unresolved.] More anon. All from R.
Picture-side addendum:
Here on Monday as well. Other [clipped]…ch picture. Very good. I wish.
This is the complete physical extent recoverable from the scan, not a fully settled source edition. Brackets are physical uncertainty and are not language-fill. B11–B12 remain visible but syntactically unsafe; the B07 strike and the missing beginning of F01 are physically unrecoverable from this scan.
Normalized plaintext:
My dear Minx, Rain, rain, rain! I should think you will be rejoicing. The tank will be full now, won't it? But it is stopping my cricket; that doesn't matter so long as it is fine next Saturday and you go to Accrington. Did you win yesterday? I am waiting and longing to know. Hurrah! A whole day's holiday on Monday, so shall hope to see you. Best love from Ralph.
The source starts with encoded ym, normalized contextually to My, and has several faint or overlay-covered punctuation/glyph details. The continuous plaintext and cipher key are secure. The source does not securely mark the apostrophe in day's.
Mechanism: reverse the letters within each of sixteen coded words. The opening and closing are ordinary prose.
Full normalized message:
Was very relieved to get news from home, as I thought we would have got stranded or something like it. Am having a lovely time. Just a riddle from Fred. Give him my love if he is alive. Post to-day. Don't mind to see Roger. Yours, Nell.
The catalog's skinned is corrected from the source to stranded; the catalog also omitted the complete darker reversal block beginning Give him my love. The source has an incidental dot-or-no-dot ambiguity after got, and the final stroke of the reversed token for he reaches the scan edge; all sixteen coded tokens nevertheless reverse mechanically.
Only the salutation is numeric/mixed code: 22'1'r M3'9x = DEAR MINX. The remainder is ordinary prose.
Full normalized message:
Dear Minx, I am going to cricket practice if it keeps fine tonight; otherwise I will turn up. Hope you won't mind my going; they might think it a bit shabby if I didn't turn up. Effie is going on Saturday to tennis and would like to arrange with you what time, [&c. &c.?]. Ta-ta for the present. Best love, Ralph.
The terminal abbreviation is medium-high confidence and is not recruited as additional cipher.
Full normalized message with the original mode boundary exposed:
[PLAIN] All being well I hope to see you soon after six o'clock tonight. I
shall go and see Frank Ashworth after business and will come on from
there. Hope you
[CIPHER] will try to see me tonight alone. How can everything be explained
unless you do.
[PLAIN] Have no news to tell you on this card, will tell you everything
later. Yours ever, Ral[ph].
The intimate request alone is concealed. The key is unchanged from the public family controls. In the source-close layer, expl ained is physically split, the last you is you⟦r?⟧, and the closing is Ral[ph]; the joined text above is the readable normalization.
Normalized plaintext:
Friday night. The reason I haven't written is that I have no news, but no doubt there will be some questions to answer in your letter, when it comes. I hope everything is alright. I was quite startled this morning when I came down not to see your letter on the table. Write soon, Minx. Yours sincerely, Ralph.
The source/catalog literal contains familiar missing-prime and loop-descender errors. The campaign reading also proves plaintext q as a self-map in two independent words, extending the working family key to 25 of 26 letters; only z remains unseen. In the partly print-overlapped closing, only Yours Sincerely is independently pixel-secure; Ralph is archive-supplied and consistent with the traffic, while an apparent Love? stroke is not promoted.
Institutional normalized prose, followed by the source-verified cipher footer:
Saturday, 7 September 1918. I do not seem to have had much chance of writing this week; I will try and make up for it next week. I went to Oldham yesterday and had two teeth filled, then called at Mr Field for the key. The Bevans have gone and the house seemed all right. I left Joy at Mrs Rhodes for the day. Very much love from Minx.
An upside-down cipher footer along the physical edge reads:
I WANT YOU AGAIN SO MUCH.
This reverses the correspondence direction and demonstrates that the shared family code was still used in 1918 during Ralph's service in Bermuda.
These plaintexts or translations were already attached to institutional records before the campaign. They prove the family key but are not new cracks.
Dear Minx, Have you heard this riddle? I think it is rather a good one: If Mississippi lent Missouri her New Jersey, what did Delaware? Alaska.
The entire coded content is the signature: Ralph.
Here is another card of Dombey and Son. I'm just off to the city. I'm taking the stick with me. It is fine, but not a nice day like yesterday. I hope you have a happy birthday today. Yours very sincerely, Ralph.
There was thick snow here last night, but it has all gone this morning. Do you remember the last orchestral concert? I'm just off to the city, so will say au revoir. Yours very sincerely, J. Ralph Duckworth.
The two catalog routes for 050 serve the same byte-identical PDF; one route supplies this prior institutional plaintext. The campaign independently verified it against the physical coded source.
Ralph to Minnie, 31 July 1907:
Glad Ritchie has passed. Shall you be very busy tonight? Can you understand the meaning of the following: 31/7/07; Wednesday, July 31st, 1907; 31/VII/07; [31/7/1907]; 31st July 1907; &c. &c.? Hope you do and accept. Yours very sincerely, Ral.
All five forms denote the same date. The safe interpretation is an invitation for a date/appointment that evening. It is wordplay, not an omitted substitution plaintext and not evidence of a marriage proposal.
The known public controls were used to freeze the family alphabet before its application to unresolved members. 006 was checked against two sealed source readings; 001 has a complete line-by-line literal and a 325-character mechanical verification. Source adjudication also corrected the catalogue’s “skinned” to stranded on 045, recovered its omitted darker block, and verified the upside-down 1918 footer on 130. These are distinct source and application contributions, not invention of a new cryptosystem.
The binder is the exhaustion boundary. No demonstrated cipher core remains unread within those 132 public routes, but 002 is not a fully settled edition: its missing edge, cancellation, and overwritten words cannot be restored by knowing the convention. The claimed code on 080 was not physically corroborated and is excluded. A reported separate private holding of roughly 400 cards was not enumerated or exhausted.
The general family key, shift convention, and reversal convention predate this campaign. The eight exact-item campaign readings were new relative to the reviewed institutional metadata, project surfaces, local corpus, and declared phrase searches. Private or unpublished prior readings remain possible. The four public controls are not new solutions. [3]
Ralph’s promise to tell Minnie something on 001 does not reveal what it was. The date rebus on 052 plausibly invites an appointment that evening; it is not evidence of a marriage proposal. The historical contribution lies in what these particular cards actually say, including who concealed which passage and the continued use of the shared writing in 1918.