Ciphers have always possessed a fascination for me. This one, from the variety of its symbols, offered a study of unusual interest. Collecting the stray specimens which I had picked up, I sat down in my cozy little room and laid them all out before me, with the following result: __________________________ [transcriber’s note: the symbols cannot be converted to ASCII so I have shown them as follows:] [] is a Square [-] is sides and bottom of a square, C is top, bottom and left side of a square, L is left side and bottom of a square,, V is two lines forming a V shape . appearing before a symbol should be inside the symbol ) appearing before a symbol means the mirror image of that symbol ^ appearing before a symbol means the inverted symbol ? is a curve inside the symbol all other preceding symbols are my best approximation for shapes shown inside that symbol. ; is used to separate each symbol __________________________ 1. []; V; [];.>; V; [-]; <; 2. []; V; [];.>; V; [-]; <; L; ).L; <; )7;.7; 3. []; V; [];.>; V; [-]; <; ).L;.C;[];.L; >;,C; [];.<; ^[-]; ^[-];.<; 4. []; V; [];.>; V; [-]; <; <; L; >; ^V; L; V; []; )L; ^V; [-]; []; V; ).C; ^[-]; >; )C; ),C; V; <; C; ^V; ^[-];.>; [-]; <; 5. *>; []; V; []; *V; []; ~7; )C;.>; ^[o]; )L; ^V; []; Lo; ^V; )C; )7*; V; )C?; L; )L; 7;.>;.^[-]; )L; >; <;:[-], [-]; Lo;.<;?[-]; )7; [-]; )C; [];.C; [-]; *7; L;.7; ^V; )o7; *>; C; ^V;.C;.<; [-]; []; 7;.C; )L;:7; [-]; )*L; C; ^V;.L;.>; ^[%]; C; 7; *L; 7; ):L; )7; ^.V; []; [-];.L;[-] No. 1: My copy of the characters, as I remember seeing them on the envelope which Mrs. Packard had offered to Mr. Steele and afterward thrown into the fire. Nos. 2, 3 and 4: The discarded scraps I had taken from the waste-basket in her room. No. 5: The lengthy communication in another hand, which Mrs. Packard had found pinned on the baby’s cloak, and at my intercession had handed over to me. A goodly array, if the latter was a specimen of the same cipher as the first, a fact which its general appearance seemed to establish, notwithstanding the few added complexities observable in it, and one which a remembrance of her extreme agitation on opening it would have settled in my mind, even if these complexities had been greater and the differences even more pronounced than they were. Lines entirely unsuggestive of meaning to her might have aroused her wonder and possibly her anger, but not her fear; and the emotion which I chiefly observed in her at that moment had been fear. So! out of these one hundred and fifty characters, many of them mere repetitions, it remained for me to discover a key whereby their meaning might be rendered intelligible. To begin, then, what peculiarities were first observable in them? Several. First: The symbols followed one after the other without breaks, whether the communication was limited to one word or to many. Second: Nos. 2, 3 and 4 started with the identical characters which made up No. 1.