Dearest Investigators,
Dr. Hill's odd prescription has been deciphered, and The Case of the Deathly Doctor has been located. Courtesy of your efforts, this curious disappearance-turned-murder has been explained, and though not everyone is in perfect health, justice has been served and Sarah Robertson will surely go on to thrive.
If you've any lingering thoughts or questions about the case, be sure to look over Holmes's review. That prescription was a tough nut to crack..!
Until next time,
The Dear Holmes Team
——
16 July, 1896
Dear Hopkins,
The case concerning Dr. George Robertson has been a fascinating one. I returned to Baker Street earlier today and after putting some medical questions to Watson, I am pleased to say I have confirmed a theory that explains the death of Sir Peter and your father’s strange behaviours alike.
As is my custom, I will give you the events, as I see them, in chronological order.
Firstly, and tragically, Dr. Robertson, like his wife, has consumption. It is difficult to contract, however, his constant exposure to it as a result of close proximity to Mrs. Robertson throughout her illness led him to this fate. In order to hide the advancing symptoms from his daughter and friends, he deliberately took up smoking. Cigars were a plausible excuse for the coughing that he has since developed.
His visits to London have been to see his former colleague, Dr. Williams, who, Watson has confirmed, is an expert in lung conditions and who was no doubt treating him, and advising him of his condition’s progress. From recent events we can deduce that Dr. Robertson's condition is poor but not immediately life-threatening. He doubtless has some years left to live, though they will be spent in increasingly poor health. Mark that, Hopkins!
Now, it is my belief that the origin of this case lies in Dr. Williams’ connection to Dr. Hill— if that is his true name.
Dr. Hill is a malign force who has taken up the mantle of the late Professor James Moriarty. I have only recently begun to hear whispers of his activities, and I know the majority of his finances come from import and export fraud, not that I have the evidence to prove it. The man faced numerous additional hurdles if Sir Peter Wilkins’s “crime bill” were to become law, and therein lies the heart of this case.
Dr. Williams, in a moment of indiscretion, told Dr. Hill, as a professional brother, much of Dr. Robertson’s morbid fear of chronic decline (and likely, his daughter’s future). Dr. Hill in turn seized the knowledge as an opportunity to commit a greater crime without fear of penalty. He thusly arrived in Northchapel, and although he aimed to discuss health matters, he was armed with a sinister proposition that makes plain the lengths someone under pressure will endure.
From the copies of letters Watson has forwarded to you, you will know that the interview between Hill and Robertson took place outside. I am certain Hill led Robertson some considerable distance from his home to guard against any attempts at overhearing by Robertson’s daughter or maid. During their walk, Dr. Hill then proposed a mutually beneficial arrangement, or rather, a prescription for Robertson’s circumstances. Dr. Hill candidly offered to pay him generously in exchange for accepting blame for a crime, which he would not have to commit. He effectively summarised Robertson’s part in the scheme in the odd prescription he wrote, but I will detail that in due time. At this stage, I wager you are wondering, Hopkins, “what sane man would give heed to such a proposal?”
I posit that the plan ran along these lines: Dr. Robertson would be caught, convicted, and hanged for the crime of murder, thus avoiding the “perpetual illness” he feared above all else and had already witnessed with his wife. The stigma would also end his stubborn daughter’s engagement to a habitual seducer, thus saving her reputation as well.
Had Dr. Robertson reacted negatively to the proposal, nothing more would have been said, but I suspect Dr. Hill would have observed that there were no witnesses to their discussion and that if Robertson were to speak out regardless, Dr. Hill could simply deny it. He would also likely have hinted at repercussions for Miss Robertson. That, naturally, is something Robertson would not have risked.
Yet, given what has taken place, the latter scenario did not seem to arise. I believe that Dr. Robertson weighed the moral argument against what he had to gain for himself and his daughter and decided to agree. I say again that this is testament to the flexibility of morals in adverse circumstances.
Now, in order for the plot to succeed, they would need evidence incriminating Robertson. A trail had to be laid, and a motive fabricated, that would be sufficient and satisfactory for a court of law. The two major parts of this trail were referenced in Hill’s prescription, and are as follows.
First of all, Robertson was to learn to shoot. This was necessary for it to be even remotely feasible that he could manage such a shot across buildings.
Secondly, he was to start a public feud with Sir Peter— one that ultimately resulted in a libel action, and thereby, a motive for murder. We know that Dr. Robertson did not appear to have genuine conviction, emotion, or much knowledge, when discussing Sir Peter with friends and family. It was an irrational, seemingly baseless and sudden disdain. This demonstrated to me that it was not a true disagreement but rather one that was being portrayed for effect.
Incidentally, you can be confident that Dr. Hill is the “friends who understand the truth” referenced by Dr. Robertson, whose funds conveniently covered the libel damages without delay.
Eventually, the time came for Dr. Hill to take action and he called on Robertson again, this time sending an accomplice. Hill’s agent explained that Robertson was to take a room at the Hawthorne Private Hotel in Mayfair and make himself known to the staff. The man also collected items, including clothing, old boots, and toiletries from Robertson, that would be planted as evidence by Hill.
Subsequently, Dr. Robertson took a convoluted journey to London, designed to make it difficult to locate him until the crime had been committed. He caught his train at Guildford, rather than closer to home, in the hope that a busier station would make him harder to notice, and eventually arrived at the Hawthorne Hotel. Dr. Hill had occupied the room, either himself or by means of his accomplice, until it was needed by Robertson.
It is telling that the man occupying the room went under the name of Mr. J. M. Tor. Most of all, because “tor” is but another word for hill. Mr. Tor conveniently vacated the room, much to Mrs. Dunbar’s annoyance, just in time for Dr. Robertson to occupy it again.
There then followed a complicated dance, Hopkins. Robertson left the hotel, deliberately with his key, the morning after. At an agreed location he met the killer and handed it over. Our man then turned up at the hotel that night, regularly coughing into a handkerchief, which was a simple ruse to mask his face. The hotel staff reported that he went directly upstairs rather than come to the desk for his key. This confirms that leaving with the key was no oversight contrary to what the staff believed. The croaky voice that Mrs. Dunbar heard, when she went to speak to her guest, was deliberate to mask the change in room occupant. For the same reason was the story about being undressed as an excuse not to open the door.
In this man’s possession was the rifle that would later be used. Once this was safely and secretly stowed in the room, he left to reduce the risk of the impersonation being discovered. Again, the key was taken and handed back to Robertson who subsequently returned to the hotel and spent the night. When he left the next day, he again took the key with him. He would not return.
That evening, the killer, once more in possession of the key, returned to the hotel and ran immediately upstairs. We have additional evidence suggesting it was the killer, and that this killer was not Robertson, because of the running. Moving at speed was not possible for the partially disabled Robertson. From then, our killer sat in the room, observing the room of Sir Peter across the street.
Eventually, Sir Peter entered his bedroom for the evening, providing a target. Our man then left room ten, accessed the roof of the Hawthorne Hotel— another action that would have been a feat for Robertson— got into position, and fired the rifle. He intentionally left a box of bullets on the roof to further tie Robertson and the building to the act. We know that he ran out of the hotel afterwards, leaving behind many of Robertson’s personal items. Sufficient evidence was positioned so that any shortcomings would be overlooked by a common investigator.
The killer soon joined Robertson at the lodging house in Spitalfields, where he handed him the boots, rifle and other items used during the crime. On doing so, he absconded and, I wager, sent word of Robertson’s whereabouts to the police.
It all seemed to work well, Hopkins. The politician is dead and his bill, with all the complications it would have brought to Dr. Hill’s operation, is delayed, perhaps indefinitely; and Robertson confessed to the murder. But Hill’s plot stops there. I am relieved to write that my associates have already managed to find our dear doctor and apprehend him, so we can begin to untangle this horrid mess. Whether or not he personally fired the gun that killed Sir Peter, we have more than enough evidence to justify his guilt. Recall that, beyond all I have already written, you also have Hill’s prescription in your possession. If you have yet to decipher it already, allow me to demonstrate the proper method.
In plain terms, Hill veiled his instructions behind a unique cipher created by Sir Charles Wheatstone. This was obvious based on the paired letters in the “prescription” and the presence of the rows of letters written by Robertson, some of which had been encircled. In the case of this cipher, one uses a particular word or phrase to create a grid of letters, precisely like the one written in Robertson’s hand. That grid can then be used to obscure, or decipher, a message. Let us now read Dr. Hill’s prescription.
First, we must form our key— the array of 5 by 5 letters. To do so, one must write the key word or phrase in question, but omit any repeated characters. This is then followed by the remainder of the alphabet in sequence, again, avoiding any repetitions. The only other caveat is that the letter J is often omitted and substituted with letter I.
In Robertson’s case, it is clear that the special phrase was “Think of Sarah”. Therefore, the first two rows will contain T H I N K , and O F S A R, and the third row will pick up at the next, earliest, unused letter of the alphabet. Since B, C, E, D, and G, are all unused in the phrase “Think of Sarah”, they form our simple third row. And so on and so forth, until we have formed the grid which we are familiar with from Hill’s prescription.
With the key in hand, the reader must then break their message into discrete pairs of letters. If there are any pairs of the same letters, they must be broken up using a letter that would be obviously out of place (often X, or Q). For example, “Hello” would be divided into the following pairs of letters: HE LX LO. Similarly, if the word or phrase comprises an odd number of letters, then the writer must append an “out of place” letter to the last letter to form a pair. For example, “Murders” could become: MU RD ER SQ (or X instead of Q). Once the message is split into pairs of letters, it can be obscured using the key; and the rearranged message can be decoded using the same key.
Of course, this does not explain how to employ said key. Allow me to do so. There are three basic forms of interpreting each pair of letters, determined by their relative positions on the grid.
- If the letters in the pair are found on the same ROW: Replace each letter with the letter to its right (or left). When decoding, replace with the letter to its left (right). If a letter is at the end of a row, the first letter of that same row is considered to be to its right. Hill’s cipher calls for a shift to the left when decoding.
- If the letters are found in the same COLUMN: Replace each letter with the letter beneath (or above) it. When decoding, replace with the letter above (or beneath) it. If a letter is at the top of a column, the lowest letter of that column is also considered to be above it. Hill’s cipher calls for the letter above when decoding.
- If the letters are NEITHER in the same column, nor the same row: Replace each of the two letters with the letter in its own row that occupies the same column as the other letter in the pair. If you form a rectangle using the pair of letters as opposite corners, the replacement letters would be the other two corners of the rectangle.
Bearing these parameters in mind, we could use Hill’s key to write “Hello” as “Ncpvvb”, which is split into the pairs NC PV VB. That can then be translated back to HE LX LO using the key. You must retain the original “prescription”, of course, but the deciphered text will strongly benefit Robertson’s case. Hill’s instructions were ominous, if not outright incriminating, as they were:
- Learn to shoot.
- Decry him.
- Wait.
Inspector, I will of course assist you in any way I can to avert a miscarriage of justice. If need be, Watson would be thrilled to present my theory, in person, before the court; if Dr. Robertson’s counsel believes it would be well-received. While Robertson has a strong desire to avoid a death similar to his wife’s, he also possesses an equal desire to see his daughter happily flourish. This will hopefully urge him to testify against Hill.
I wish you well, and expect you will soon apprise me of your success in bringing this case to a close.
Yours sincerely,
