Compete to crack secrets lost to history—for fun, clout, and (no) profit
The portal dates HCP1497 to 22 November 1904 and HCP1498 to 13 January 1905. Both go to the Mobsby household at 9 Garden Road, Peckham S.E., and both mix ordinary prose with angular signs and small dots. The first card supplies several cipher passages; the second has one 20-sign insert in otherwise readable writing. Matching addresses alone would not prove the same key. A successful transfer has to do that.[1]
Low commas divide physical groups, while the small interior or adjacent dots modify angular frames. Confusing the two produced early incorrect row splits. On HCP1498, two consecutive dotted corners are separate, identical signs; collapsing them removes a written letter. The cursive word if after the last group is ordinary writing, not a 21st sign.[2]
Each frame represents two consecutive letters; the undotted form selects the first and the dotted form the second. The key below was recovered from HCP1497. Applied unchanged to HCP1498, it predicts all 20 signs in the source’s 5/7/8 grouping as WRITE / TONIGHT / MORRNING. The doubled R is a particularly useful check because a sentence-driven reading would be tempted to remove it.
┘ A/B ⊔ C/D └ E/F ] G/H □ I/J [ K/L ┐ M/N Π O/P ┌ Q/R V S/T > U/V < W/X ^ Y/Z
| Card and passage | Physical extent | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| HCP1497 central row | 19 consecutive signs | MYDARLINGSWEETHEART |
| HCP1497 upper sign-off | 4/4/6/4 signs | YOUR / EVER / LOVING / GIRL |
| HCP1498 sole cipher insert | 5/7/8 signs | WRITE / TONIGHT / MORRNING |
Cipher readings are capitalized below. Brackets mark actual loss or qualified source reading. The physical top-to-bottom order is retained, even where the lower passage continues into the upper band with awkward syntax.
MYSELF, it WILL. well then I will ask you to WAIT, until I see [YOU]; [struck ink] NEXT time, which I hope will be Thursday or Friday. Nellie wishes me to tell you she will be writing you both soon. + Are you please[d] also [unclear]. I surely will answer his as soon as I can. YOUR / EVER / LOVING / GIRL P.S. [six cipher signs obscured by red print/cursive] makes the [one cipher sign obscured] Maud. I wonder [cipher/open-cursive collision across four short spans] MYDARLINGSWEETHEART, Thanks for P.C. am so sorry I have not written or BEEN, ABLE, to SEE YOU, before, but I am not at all WELL; had to go to the W.F. Monday evening to have my EYE seen to, "the same as last" time, but I am sorry to say it is not much better today, but I shall COME / OUT, as soon as possible, so please do not get TIRED, of [WAITING] Now I am afraid as I am so LONELY, I must ask you once more if you will SEND me the other HALF of my LETTER, by the 9.15 post in Dulwich PARK, cannot Wednesday NIGHT, cannot
Dearest Ernest Many thanks for the pretty P.C. you sent me yesterday. Well I did as you asked me, I was very good, but I feel a little tired this morning as I did not get to bed until about 1.30. How did you enjoy yourself? I hope you were good also, & did you see L.A.? Don't WRITE / TONIGHT / MORRNING, if you can help it. I think Ethel is coming with us. Fancy E[rnie?], you asking me to be very good. Now could I be anything else? I have been up in the town this morning nearly all the time of our Visit. still I don't know if you remember who that is she used to live in Barry Rd It is quite a long time since I asked you such a long P.C. is it not? How do you like this one? What time did you get home this morning? Yours etc Maud
Divider postscript:
P.S. One week has gone out of the month. Has it not + of course you know what I am always doing? Don't you?
Left-margin addition:
[Will] be writing to you soon. [three to four overwritten short lines, physically unrecoverable]
A blinded native-source review settled five previously conflicting passages as MYSELF, NEXT, GIRL, COME OUT, and HALF. The provisional alternatives MANAGE, SOME, MAUD in the encoded sign-off, WRITE at that lower-card position, and PART are retracted. That correction does not remove the ordinary cursive Maud signature on HCP1498. Different physical occurrences must not be conflated.[2]
Both cards are readable at the supported cipher layer, with bounded losses. Six signs and a further sign in the first card’s postscript are obscured; other short spans collide with cursive or printing. WAITING is key-readable but not preserved as a lossless occurrence ledger, and the clipped NIGHT has medium source confidence. The second card’s overwritten margin is not reconstructed. MORRNING is not changed to “morning” or “tomorrow.”
The two dates are catalog dates; neither obscured postmark was independently dated from these scans. The catalog sender “Ernest” conflicts with the visible salutation “Dearest Ernest,” so authorship is not assigned from it. The shared address and successful complete key transfer establish connected traffic without proving every writer’s identity or relationship.
On 29 August 2026 both records were marked “Not solved” with no operative key or plaintext. Bounded exact-ID, address, open-prose, local-index, and public-surface searches found no prior exact-item reading or solved sibling. This is a new-to-checked-sources result, not universal priority. The two private-collection scans are linked, not mirrored.[3]
The displayed alphabet is the complete conventional paired arrangement; only signs present in the supported source ledgers are directly checked. The final sign in [YOU] is beside the stamp and remains qualified.