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Susato Mikotoba would very plainly explain that she is anything but a sneaky gossip hunter, and that she does very understand the concept of privacy, thank you very much. It simply wasn’t her fault that, upon a seemingly innocuous spring cleaning, her father’s letter box clattered to the floor, and all of its contents just happened to fall at her feet.
And it most definitely wasn’t Susato’s fault that they were the queerest mystery that the fourteen year old had ever come across.
Clearing up her father’s office was a titanic task in and of itself, especially more so as he was, at present, lecturing at the Imperial Yumei University and would not return until the end of the evening classes.
Susato sighed as she pinned her sleeves back, and after wrapping a white handkerchief around her face, she braced herself for the storm, not unlike a whaler searching for his prize.
A stack of books towered over her— theses, dissertations, and articles that her father had started to read, set down for just a moment, and in the next, lay forgotten.
It’s a good thing Papa never brings his work home with him, she thought as she set to work dividing everything up. Otherwise, each of his students may drop dead in fright!
As she moved the books around, a thick cloud of dust flew up in the air, and despite her best efforts, caused Susato to cough.
You would think Papa never comes in here with the mess this room is, she mused. I hope he won’t make himself sick here…
Susato then rose to return everything to its proper home when it happened. Even when she was a young girl, she set out to memorize her father’s organization system, especially for the bookshelves. She started from the bottom, dreading the inevitable climb up.
“If only I was tall like Kazuma-Sama!” Susato muttered.
She stood on her toes, reaching for the highest shelf, blindly feeling for the empty slot. With a loud clack, the black letterbox fell to the floor, folded papers spilling out, and pooling at Susato’s feet.
She yelped and clamped her hands over her mouth.
“No, no, no!” She whimpered, dropping down to inspect it.
Luckily enough, the box itself was fine, save for a few dents that were definitely there before Susato had known of its existence. The box itself wasn’t particularly interesting, it was an old cigar box that had long since been repurposed. She dragged her finger across the top of the lid, noting that there was no dust on her finger.
“Papa must open you up quite a lot,” she said. “Are you the one thing he dusts in here?”
She carefully shuffled the papers together, the thin leaf-like papers were coarse, yet firm, under her touch— and each had displayed varying degrees of aging and yellowing.
Mindlessly, she reached to open up one paper when a cold feeling crawled up her spine. Her hair stood up on the back of her neck, and a sickly feeling churned in her stomach. She glanced behind her shoulder, just to be sure that her grandmother wouldn’t catch her.
I really shouldn’t spy through Papa’s letters… Susato thought. Especially since he placed it so high up…
She pat her cheeks twice with the palms of her hands
Realistically, it wouldn’t be anything too interesting, she reasoned. Maybe a quick glance won’t hurt! And it’s always fun to see what kinds of friends Papa has abroad!
She held her breath as she took hold of the letter on top. She silently prayed that nothing would tear in her hands as she peeled it open.
“What on earth?!” Susato gasped.
Before her was a page that was filled with nothing but peculiar stick figures, each imitating a simple form of dance, and some with flags in hand.
Setting it aside, she reached for another letter, and then a third, opening each and every one before her, only to come face to face with the dancing men.
“Papa doesn’t doodle!” Susato huffed. “Why would he keep something so… so childish?”
She examined them, studying the seemingly random patterns as best as she could. Susato had counted a total of thirty two letters— in the letters provided, there were three consistent patterns at the beginning, cycled through in no particular order.
Five letters had started with the cipher of:
Seven had started with:
And the rest had started with:
However, each of the letters had concluded with the same cipher without fail or fault:
“How curious!” Susato hummed. “If I can figure out what these say, I can surely read the rest!”
Just then, she heard the soft footfall of her grandmother just outside of the door. The girl tensed up and hurried to hide away her secret find.
“Is everything okay in there? I heard something fall,” Her grandmother said.
“I’m alright! Please don’t worry, Obaa-San!” Susato said quickly. “Papa just has a bad habit of forgetting about his things!”
“Goodness, how troublesome, it would probably be for the best to make him clean it up himself,” the older woman sighed. “In the meantime, Susato, will you help me with the futons, please?”
“Yes! Of course, just one moment!”
She set the box up where it had rested and rushed out, leaving her little secret to wait for another day.
Susato took off her shoes before reentering her home. While her grandmother was recovering from a minor cold, Susato left to get the groceries for that week, and while she was out, she decided to visit the post office.
“Kazuma-Sama, did Papa come home yet?” She asked.
“He just got here, I believe he’s checking on your grandmother,” Kazuma replied.
“I have some letters for him, but I’ve never seen his name spelled this way before!” She said, “I wonder why they did it this way?”
“I suppose that’s just how they do it in English,” Kazuma shrugged. “I doubt they can explain it any more than we can explain why we say things the way we do.”
So, it’s Y-U-J-I-N in English? Susato thought. How interesting! I wonder if it fits!
“Susato, is that you?” Her father asked as he walked in. “I’m glad you’re home now, it looks like it’s going to rain…”
“I went to the post office, Papa, you have some letters! Are they from London?”
He took the letters and looked through them, smiling widely as he chuckled, “Looks like Dr. Wilson was finally able to get back to me,” He said. “Perhaps I can finally convince him to teach here!”
Susato watched as he slyly hid one of the letters behind his back, out of her and Kazuma’s sight.
It must be another dancing man letter! Susato thought.
She waited until that night, when she was sure that no one would catch her. She hid her head under her blankets, keeping her breathing slow and steady as the rain drummed just outside of her window. The entire house was dark, but she still waited in her bed for just the right moment.
She listened as her father walked past her bedroom, sliding the door open slightly to check up on her. When he was satisfied, he walked off to his own room. Susato crawled out of bed and pressed her ear against the wall. On the other side, she could hear blankets rustling, as well as a loud yawn and groans as he stretched his arms. For a few minutes, she listened in silence, until she heard the low rumble of her father’s snores on the other side. Satisfied that he was fast asleep, she lit a candle and tip-toed down the hallway and into her father’s study.
Susato opened up her diary and copied the cipher as best as she could in the dim candlelight. Once she spelled out her father’s name, she filled in the rest of what she was able with the letters she knew.
It’s obvious that the first word in these two is ‘ My ’! Susato thought proudly, And another letter is now discovered!
And two instances of a five letter word with ‘I’ and ‘N’ in the third and fifth position… how curious! Susato thought as she put everything back where she found it. Perhaps I should borrow Kazuma-Sama’s dictionary sometime…
Once she was satisfied that everything was where it was supposed to be, she blew out the small flame and shut the door. Even as she lulled herself to sleep, images of tiny little stickmen with flags danced through Susato’s mind.
The young girl poured over her diary, trying to make sense of the mystery that had been plaguing her for the past few days. Kazuma watched as Susato sat hunched over his English Language dictionary.
“Susato? What’s gotten into you?” he asked. “I know you wanted to get better at English, but this is something else…”
“Kazuma-Sama? What is the word for shinyuu in English?” she asked.
“What for? Besides, that’s kind of complicated…”
“I’m just curious!”
“Well, there’s only really one word for it in English, and it’s kind of broad,” Kazuma explained. “I guess the best word I can think of is friend ?”
She nodded and flipped through the pages, all the way to the ‘f’ section, and spelled out the word under her breath. When she found it, it was a perfect fit.
“Kazuma-Sama?” Susato asked once more. “If you were writing a letter to someone, how would you start it?”
Kazuma chuckled and smirked at the young girl, he grinned crookedly and placed his hands on his knee, as if he were one of the old men who frequented the tavern in the center of town.
“Oh? You want to write a letter? In English? To your shinyuu ?” Kazuma said. “And you’re putting an awful lot of work in this… is there someone you’re trying to impress ?”
“No! No, nothing like that , not in a million years!” Susato squeaked, heat rapidly flushed up to her cheeks as she turned bright pink. “No… I was just curious! That’s all!”
Kazuma said nothing, he simply smiled like a cat that was pleased with its latest catch.
“I was reading something in… in a magazine! From a story!” Susato stammered. “From The Strand magazine! That’s all!”
Kazuma simply laughed, a loud and warm belly laugh that Susato was normally happy to hear.
So this is what it’s like to be on the receiving end of it, She mused. I hope he won’t ask anything more!
She brought the dictionary up to her eye level, hiding from Kazuma’s inquisitive stare and brushed past a few pages.
“You still didn’t answer my question, how do most people start their letters?”
“Well, you tell me, Miss Linguist, what happened in this… story?” Kazuma chuckled.
“O-Oh, well… I think she used…” Susato mumbled. “I think it was Haikei …”
“That could be a number of things, greetings , to whom it may concern …” he replied. “ Dear —”
It has to be dear , that’s what starts with a d! Susato thought.
“Kazuma-Sama?”
“Someone’s inquisitive today…”
“There’s a lot of e’s here, I bet it would be hard to think of a sentence without the letter e, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure it’s not that hard!” Kazuma said. “Let’s see… It is not impossible … no wait, it is not hard to …”
As he trailed off, Susato pressed a finger to her mouth as she tried to think of all the English words that she knew confidently. Words flew around in her mind, some crashed into each other as she tried to pick out every single instance of that single letter.
“ It is not hard to say this without that sound at all !” She said with a grin. “I did it, Kazuma-Sama!”
“And on the first try too…” he muttered.
Then, that must be true here! Any letter that isn’t in Papa’s name, let’s see what repeats the most! Susato reasoned. Aha! Right in the center of ‘ friend’ ! That is what will make this puzzle clearer!
“Susato, the latest magazine came in the post,” said her father. “I stopped by after today’s lecture for you.”
“Goodness! It’s monday! I nearly forgot!” Susato gasped. “Grandmother, may I please read it now, please ?”
“Susato! Be careful with the knife!” Her grandmother gasped, grabbing Susato’s wrist before she sliced her fingers with the cabbage.
“Go ahead,” The older woman sighed. “But not for too long, supper will be ready soon!”
After washing her hands, she thanked her father and ran to her room to enjoy the latest fable from the famed great detective, Herlock Sholmes. As Susato flipped the pages of the magazine, she was instantly transported to the foggy London streets she fantasized about ever since her father came home for the very first time.
However, as she found the story she was looking for, the title caught her by surprise.
“ The Adventure of the Dancing Men ?” She mused, thumbing through the pages as she gave a quick glance over. “Oh my goodness!”
The paper magazine dropped like lead out of her hands, falling into a heap onto the floor as she simply stared at it. Nervously, she flipped it onto its back and stared at the crude little stick figure printed on the page— it was the very same stick man that she deduced as the letter e from the letters.
She opened her diary up and counted the last letters from the final cipher, cold crept over her skin and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end. With a shaky hand, she picked up a pen and held her breath as she wrote down the detective’s name.
It’s wishful thinking, but it may possibly fit! She thought.
After filling in Sholmes’ name, she finished with the remaining letters that matched, one by one, the final pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place.
It was then that she was able to figure out the last letter, being the letter t.
“Why does Papa know the—” Susato mumbled before the realization had hit her like a train. “Herlock Sholmes’ friend and colleague is a doctor… and Papa knows Dr. John H. Wilson…”
She picked up the magazine and held it close to her chest, hiding its contents as if someone were about to look over Susato’s shoulder that very minute. Just then, a tap frightened her from her racing thoughts, and she couldn’t help but let out a sudden shriek.
“Susato, supper is ready,” her father said. “Are you alright?”
“I-I’m fine, Papa!” Susato replied. “I… I was just reading this story!”
As her father stepped away from the door, Susato hid the magazine underneath her pillow and rushed out of her bedroom.
Wordlessly, she helped set up the table, and while the rest of her family talked about their respective days, she stared into her rice bowl.
Papa knows the cipher, and Herlock Sholmes writes to him… Susato mused. The implications are almost overwhelming!
She smiled and held back a giggle as she ate her meal. She looked out of her peripheral vision at her father, who was excitedly talking about a wire that he had received from his former mentor, and how he may finally make the journey to lecture in a year’s time. As she looked, Susato couldn’t help but imagine him in western clothes, not unlike the suit he wore when she first met him. Susato imagined him running side by side with Sholmes, furiously taking notes down as they traversed those lively streets in search for the next mystery to solve.
Papa may have his secrets, Susato thought proudly. But I can solve a mystery too!