The time for my appointed meeting with Holmes came and went and still there was no sign of my friend. Every time the door opened I looked up from my pint, expecting to see Holmes's tall, lean form entering the public house. But every time I was disappointed.

I had just ordered my second pint, torn between concern and exasperation at Holmes's tardiness, when one of the locals rose from his bench and came over to the little table I occupied in one corner of the taproom. He was a rather scruffy old fellow whose simple and worn black coat and trousers of a greyish shade identified him as a member of the working class. But there was a merry twinkle in his eyes as he approached me and his grey beard was tidy and well groomed.

"'Allo guv'nor'! Expectin' somebody?"

Though he seemed harmless enough, I looked up warily.
"So what if I do?"

"No sense in waitin' any longer guv'nor, that's what I'd say. He's not comin' in through that door today, he won't."

An uneasy feeling gripped me and I half rose from my chair, when suddenly Holmes’s voice broke in upon me.

"Because, my dear doctor, he is already here!"

"Holmes!" I exclaimed torn between anger and relief. "Holmes, this is an old jest! And it has not aged gracefully!"

He sat down, a contrite expression spreading over his face.

"Forgive me, old friend. It's a bad habit, but very hard to break. And the case before us is so grim, that even a stale joke might be welcome."

"But where have you been all day? I was expecting your summons in Baker Street yesterday evening! You missed an excellent dinner. Mrs. Hudson has really surpassed herself last night."

"Watson, you know that I can do very well without physical sustenance when there is ample mental nourishment available. Besides I was in the mood for fresh country air and spent a charming day in Essex on the banks of the Lea."

This time I refused to take his bait. "Ah, so you went to Waltham Abbey?" I asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as I could.

A rueful chuckle escaped my friend. He threw up his hands in mock despair.

"Touché, Watson. I see that I have to be careful, you know me too well!

Yes, I went to Waltham Abbey with old McFarley over there, whose son is working at the royal gunpowder factory at Quinton Hill. I went on the pretext of seeking employment and spoke to some of the workers. It seems as if Reverend Respess was a frequent visitor there after the Quinton Hill Tragedy had occurred.

And the Mitre here is McFarley preferred public house, so he was present this fateful evening when the Abbey bells started ringing. As McFarley ascertained me, Respess - the real Respess, Watson, and not the false Reverend who visited us in Bakerstreet - was indeed here that evening. But on what errand he came still seems a mystery."

Now that I took a closer look at the company Holmes had left to join me, I recognized McFarley, a locksmith who had been quite helpful to him on a couple of minor cases.

"That is also why I asked you to meet me here, Watson. For his help and introduction to his son I invited McFarley and his friends to lunch. So come on over and join us. The landlord here serves an excellent eel pie".

I shuddered only slightly before I resigned myself to my fate with no more than a sigh.

"So it was Father Craft's remark on Respess' reaction to the Quinton Hill Tragedy that directed your attention to Waltham Abbey?" I asked, as we sat over brandy and cigars in our lodgings in Baker Street.

Knowing that he was loath to communicate his full thoughts on a case to any other person until he was absolutely convinced of their accuracy, I half expected Holmes to decline to share his deductions with me. But to my astonishment he answered readily enough.

"Quite right, Watson. I think Father Craft's remarks on Waltham Abbey and the Quinton Hill tragedy hold the key to this mystery."

I still remembered the events of last year, when an explosion of nitroglycerine had occurred at Quinton Hill and three members of the Waltham Abbey Society had lost their lives.

"That - and those two mysterious notes we found. One in the hand of the dead Reverend and the other in the bell tower."

"But what do those notes say, Holmes? And how did you decipher their meaning? I have to confess that I can make nothing of them."

"Yes, those notes were intriguing indeed. On the one hand they were quite clever. And yet there is something amateurish and clumsy about them. It's quite confusing."

"But what do they mean, Holmes? What do they mean?"

"Patience is a virtue, Watson. And you have shown to possess it in abundance. So I will try to shed some light on the matter."

Holmes unfolded two slips of paper. "Look at the first message found with Respess."

"It's the epigram 'Respice Finem' by Quarles!" I exclaimed.

"Quite so, Watson. With a bit of text added by our creative unknown friend. We had already elucidated its symbolic meaning when we found it on the body. But in addition it serves a quite different function: it is also the key that might unlock this whole mystery."

"A key! And where is the lock that will be opened by it?"

"The lock, my dear Watson, is here!" He waved the second message we had found in the belltower.

"As you know, I am quite familiar with secret writings and have myself analyzed more than one hundred and sixty separate ciphers. So it did not take me too long to find out that this second message was a simple substitution cipher - more specifically, a book cipher - based on the first note we had found. Look here, Watson!"

I went over to his chair and looked over his shoulder. Holmes had marked all words in the first message with consecutive numbers, starting with 1.

"Our cryptographer here has assigned a number to every word in his keytext. In the second message these numbers act as substitutes for the initial letters of the words they are associated with.

I have drawn a list for our epigram and the stanza the writer added himself, correlating each number with its respective letter. Note Watson, that thus one letter can have a variety of numbers, which might make it look like a rather clumsy method of encoding a piece of writing. But it is making it almost impossible to decipher the text according to the frequency with which certain letters occur in English texts."

Holmes's eyes glistened in his sharp, eager face as he proceeded.

"And here is our second note. See for yourself, Watson, if you can fit the key to the lock."

Holmes handed me the pen and for a while I was puzzling over this task, aware of Holmes watching me intently. Finally I uttered a cry of triumph.

"Hah! I figured it out!"

"Bravo Watson, well done!"

"But we still don't know what it really means, Holmes. The reference to Waltham Abbey seems to indicate that the murders have some connection with the town and quite possibly the catastrophe of the nitroglycerine explosion. But what does the writer mean by "In St. Albans see the X and find"? Surely, there is no treasure buried in the Cathedral and X marks the spot where it is hidden?"

Holmes chuckled. "No Watson, I think it is indeed quite improbable that we shall find anything but spiritual treasure inside the walls of St. Alban's Cathedral.
But I agree, this message seems to raise more questions than it answers. What are we to find in St. Alban's that may shed some light on this mysterious affair? How exactly is Waltham Abbey connected with Reverend Respess? And the X is the most puzzling feature of this whole note. Why did the writer not encode this letter? Surely he could have come up with a word starting with an x, if he had tried. It must have a special symbolic meaning for him."

For a while we were both silent, sipping our brandy and watching the smoke from our cigars curling upwards toward the ceiling.

All of a sudden, without prior warning Holmes jumped up from his armchair. I was so startled that I dropped my cigar. Mrs Hudson would not be pleased when she saw the hole it burnt into the carpet.

"Watson, how slow-witted I have been! Just think... we are dealing with religious matters and above all with saints here. So what could the X signify?"

Slowly it dawned on me what he was hinting at. "St. Andrew's cross! Holmes, was there any reference to St. Andrew within St. Alban's Cathedral?"

"This is what we shall find out, Watson. Come, get your coat. Once again, the game's afoot!"

Proceed to Part Nine