Tea Cups and Ciphers

Clutching her purse and large envelope on one hand, the wind literally blew her into the coffee and bread scented warmth of the bakery.

“Whew!” She shook her hair free from the hood of her raincoat.

“Miss?” A middle-aged round-faced man holding a menu up waited for her attention. “A bite to eat?”

“Oh yes, please.”

“Mind sharing a table? We’re kind of full.” He tilted his head towards the tight dining area with a rueful smile.

She scanned the room. “No, I don’t’ mind.”

“Then follow me.”

They approached a table for two by the window where a stern looking man sat with a newspaper and pot of tea. She observed a full head of white hair, a dark brown plaid jacket over a lighter vest and button-down collar shirt. He looked up quizzically as she and the man with the menu stood at the table.

“Professor? Do you mind sharing your table this morning?”

“Such a lovely vision I could not refuse. Please,” the professor turned in his seat, looking directly in her eyes. “I am particularly fond of company this morning.”

“Thank you.” She held out her free hand, “I’m Sydney, but not from Down-Under.”

The Professor chuckled, “Pleased to meet you Sydney Not-from-Down-Under. I’m Winston and I’m glad to have you join me. It looks like we could be here for a bit.”

After ordering tea, a scone, and fresh berries, Sydney added some honey to her cup, and started, “Professor ...”

“Winston. . . “

“Okay, Winston.” Sydney smiled, “Where do you “professor”?”

“At Leighton University a few blocks away. Mathematics, but my true love is ciphers. You know, puzzles. I have some I’ve been working on for years.” He pinched off a piece of scone, buttered it generously, popped it in his mouth, and continued. “I have this one set of puzzles that have me stumped. But I’m not one who gives up.” There was a twinkle in his eye as he focused on Sydney’s face.

Between sips, Sydney paused, “I like puzzles too, and Agatha Christy Mysteries, the game of Clue, hidden treasure maps . . . . What has gotten you stumped? There must be an algorithm or App for it anymore.”

“ ’Fraid not.” His expression was serious. “This set of ciphers has twelve keys, each one leads to the next. The solutions to the first five were locations in this city, all historic sites, starting from best known to lesser known.”

Sydney leaned forward, “And the next puzzles?”

“The next five led me to museums and theaters, the oldest to the newest. It’s the last two I can’t figure.”

They sat quietly for a few moments, sipping tea and glancing out the window at the rain.

“Enough about me, what brought you here this morning?”

“I’m meeting my mentor at the Halston Library to go over some research on stringed instruments in the early churches. Different and not so different from today’s versions.” Sydney laughed. And the Professor nodded. They chatted on about the puzzles and local history until they heard the clock tower reminding them it was 11 a.m.

“Well, I need to be on my way, Sydney. Class to teach, you know. Enjoyed visiting with you. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

“I’d like that. Bye-bye. Stay dry!” Sydney watched out the window while the Professor crossed the street and turned towards the university.

The man who had seated her appeared at the table. “Miss, the Professor picked up your ticket. May I bring you more hot water?”

“No thanks. I’ll need to go also.” She stood and, as she gathered her things, she noticed a small black book on the seat where the Professor had been sitting.

“Oh no!”

“Miss?”

“The Professor. He left his book! He’s already gone. Does he come here often?”

“Funny you ask. He comes in sometimes, days in a row, then we don’t see him for months. He teaches at the Leighton.”

“Mathematics he said. I guess I can take this book to him. My name and number are on this card,” Sydney reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a small card, and handed it to the man. “If he comes back today or tomorrow, you know, looking for his book before I find him, please tell him he can call me and I’ll bring it to him.”

* * *

After a serious afternoon at the library, Sydney arrived home and called the university mathematics department only to find that Professor Winston Stanley was out of the country for the week, and would she like to leave a message? “Odd,” she thought. “Then how was he here with me?”

She left a message with her phone number, poured a glass of wine, set it on the table next to the corner chair where she sat and covered her legs with a blanket. She settled in to look through the “Little Black Book” the Professor had left behind. Sure enough, there were twelve long word puzzles, some of which rhymed and others that were just-plain confusing.

The solution to the first puzzle, was the statue of first elected governor of the state. The statue was dedicated in 1815. The solution to the second puzzle was a painting in the state senate chamber depicting an old sailing ship, The Wayfarer. The ship was designed in 1815; an old captain’s journal recorded the Wayfarer as sinking in 1830 twenty miles or more in rocky shoals off the southern tip of the bay. From where Sydney lived, as the crow flies, the Wayfarer sank 30 miles south and east. The Professor had hand-written notes about a legend that the Wayfarer’s cargo contained over $20 million in gold coins and silver that was being shipped to England from a number of investors, including the governor depicted in the statue. Despite other wreckages being located along that dangerous part of the coast, the Wayfarer had not been found.

Well into the evening, Sydney continued reading through the ciphers and the ten solutions to the Professor’s credit. Each solution was a first clue to the next cipher; sometimes the key was a number, other times it was a word or phrase. At a few minutes before midnight, the Little Black Book fell from Sydney’s lap to the floor. She slept.

* * *

At 6:02 a.m., with the Silk Road app slowly ascending from the phone still in her purse, Sydney opened her eyes. Realizing the Professor’s black book was no longer in her lap, Sydney anxiously looked around until she spied it on the floor, spine up, under the coffee table. She picked it up and studied the page it opened to her. Silk Road continued its reminder. “Okay, okay.” Sydney found her phone and punched off the alarm.

“Ten locations, all in the city,” Sydney said out loud, as she approached her book shelf and scanned the titles for a street map of the city. Pulling out two, she thumbed through them until she found two similar maps, one created in the late 1800s and a modern version dated 2019. She spread the maps out on her desk and for the next hour Sydney marked each of the location answers to the ten cyphers on the map. The five historic, government buildings formed a line that was more-or-less straight in a northwest to southeast direction. A sixth location, the modern art museum, was the southern-most building location. Above and below the line formed by the five government buildings and modern art museum, were two additional museum locations.

“What the heck!” Sydney reached for a black marker and enlarged the circle around each of the locations. Then she grabbed a blue marker and connected the dots of the government buildings to the modern art museum. Still not satisfied, she picked up the street map she’d marked, grabbed four thumbtacks from a dish on corner of her desk, walked to the wall by the window, and tacked up the map. She looked out the window to the south and across to where the bay would be. She re-arranged the map on the wall and re-tacked it so that the straight-line would face in the intended direction. “Treasure.” She muttered.

“Oh, my! It’s a vector, an arrow!” Sydney connected two points above and below to the tip of the arrow. She was ecstatic.

Going went back to the Little Black Book, Sydney zeroed in on the answer to the last cipher solved by the Professor, a ship’s sextant in the Maritime Museum, circa 1900. “How does this work?” Sydney mused.

* * *

At the library the next morning, Sydney asked for directions to maritime maps for the coastline north and south of the city. For the next hour she immersed herself in old maps and captain’s logs. The librarian, with a short stock of books, stopped by the table. “What’s got you so engrossed?”

“A puzzle.”

“Well, I hope you can make better sense of those old maps. You looking for sunken treasure, too?”

“Huh. . . ?” Sydney looked up. “Maybe you’ve got a point.”

The librarian snorted, “Oh yeah.”

“No, what you said. GPS coordinates match the hours and minutes recorded on these maps, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Hmmm. You’ve given me an idea.”

“Anytime. Let me know if I can be of service.” They both laughed.

“I think I’m done here. I just need to make a copy of this one.” She pointed to an opened page in an over-sized book of maps of the bay and coastline south of the city.

“Over there. It takes dimes. Let me know if you need any.”

The week had nearly passed. The Professor would be back, Sydney presumed, and she’d return the Little Black Book. Numbers everywhere, statistics and data for everything, and Sydney was no closer to solving the last two puzzles.

Then it occurred to her. What if she identified GPS coordinate correspond with each of the locations on the map? What if adding the numbers together made sense?

* * *

At the end of the week, she tried again to reach the Professor. Learning that he’d returned from his trip, she left a message that she would be bringing him his Little Black Book that afternoon. When Sydney arrived at the mathematics department, it was nearly 4 p.m.; the front office was quiet and empty.

“Hello? Professor?”

“Yes, yes. Come on in Sydney! So good to see you!” she heard him from the room behind an open door leading from the department office. “Just getting my teaching legs back.”

The Professor stood in the doorway, Sydney smiled. “I know it’s late, but I wanted you get this book back to you. I, uh, read it, and I have an idea, maybe even the solution.”

“Yes? Why that would be good for both of us! Let’s see what you have.” The Professor motioned to a chair.

As she sat, Sydney explained how she marked the map, discovered the arrow, and then identified the GPS points associated with each of the map locations. The Professor nodded, smiled, and stayed quiet.

Finally, he broke silence. “Well, well, well. My benefactor will be pleased. We will both be pleased, in fact.”

“How so?” Now Sydney was really curious.

“I’m trustee for my benefactor’s estate. His family had interests in the Wayfarer and its cargo. The solution to the ciphers comes with a reward.”

Sydney was stunned as the Professor continued, “If the solution to the last two ciphers is the site of the Wayfarer, my benefactor has a $20,000 reward for you, and there will be an additional finder’s fee also.”

Epilogue

On the numbers, the Wayfarer was found. And Sydney is still smiling.