CONGRATULATIONS!

for making it to the end of the secret trail

Where did you stumble upon it, in a squint of curiosity or a click of happenstance? How did you solve it, with long pondering or sharp eyes, or even with technical expertise?

Any which way you did it, this is for you and your searching, puzzling, and deciphering skills!

To mark your success on reaching this page, please sign the guestbook with a comment down below ;).

For you of enquiring minds who have made it to the end, you have unlocked Scarlett's bonus links. Find beneath this the breadcrumbs which started her off way back when, and set her on her own trail leading here.

---

I found my love of ciphers and mysteries young. Wish there could be a story about stumbling across a cache of dusty riddles in an abandoned attic, but alas. It was something I amassed while growing up, from various corners of popular culture. I grabbed onto the bits I liked and took off running.

Hey, if you have any dusty attics that need clearing out though, hit me up.

From the start, one of my favourite Sherlock Holmes adventures was The Adventure of the Dancing Men. The plot revolves around the great detective being presented with a series of mysterious symbols, which he identifies as an alphabetic replacement code. Contained in the story is the entire sequence of how he is able to decipher the key from the messages found.

The Dancing Men had me requesting alphabetic replacement codes from my friends, so that I could have a go at cracking them myself (I succeeded!). It's available to read in the public domain, or else there is this video which explains the process that Sherlock Holmes went through (spoilers, of course). Puzzle Pieces, the YouTuber, also has some videos on other types of codes, which you may be interested in checking out.

As encryption goes, however, alphabetic replacement is fairly straightforward. Meanwhile, The Valley of Fear features an Ottendorf cipher, or book cipher, which Sherlock Holmes also manages to decipher without being given the key. Then there's the National Treasure film series, which features both an Ottendorf and a Playfair cipher, as well as many cryptically historic riddles.

When it comes to riddles, though, that really started for me with The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Various things have been said about the accuracy of that novel, but nonetheless one part had a particular impact on me:

In London lies a knight a Pope interred.

His labor’s fruit a Holy wrath incurred.

You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb.

It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb.

If you have a copy, the first deciphering of this riddle happens in Chapter 95. You can also find a clip of that moment in the movie adaptation (spoilers again, of course). This riddle and its solution, in fact, as well as the ciphers from National Treasure, provided the inspiration for the first ever puzzle set that I decided to design on my own. It wasn't what you'll see me working on today... but it was a start. Also, I still love Playfair ciphers.

And finally, when it comes to solvable mysteries, I have just one author to thank:

HY CONRAD has made a career out of murder, earning a Scribe Award for best novel and garnering three Edgar nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. Along the way, he has developed a horde of popular games and interactive films, hundreds of short stories and a dozen books of solvable mysteries, published in over a dozen languages. In the world of TV, he is best known for his eight seasons as a writer and co-executive producer for the ground-breaking series Monk. Other shows include White Collar and The Good Cop (starring Tony Danza and Josh Groban).

https://www.hyconrad.com/

I received, as a budding mystery fan, The Little Giant Book of Whodunits and Almost Perfect Crimes. I'd love to say I blazed right through them... but truthfully I was thoroughly perplexed—then thoroughly wowed. To check out Hy Conrad's work, you can start off with his Mini-Mysteries that are available for free, then find on his books page many more solve-it-yourselves as well as his novels of crime fiction.

So, that's it from me. Thank you for strolling your way mysteriously through this site. Do sign the comment guestbook at the end of this trail, it's a pleasure to meet you here ;).

Love,

Sarina (Scarlett)