Inferring and Explaining

31 fIgure 1. Dancing men cypher Retrieved from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes , http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/108 (accessed June 26, 2018). arguments But Te Adventure of the Dancing Men is not really about chalk and South African invest- ments; it’s ultimately about murder and a couple of other mysteries that lead to the murder and its solution. Here’s a link to a lovely webpage that includes the full text of the short story: https://etc .usf.edu/lit2go/178/the-return-of-sherlock -holmes/ 3228/ chapter -iii -the -adventure -of-the-dancing-men/. You’ll enjoy the story, and it would be great practice if you paused here for a while and tried your hand at schematizing Holmes’s argument for what happened at Ridling Torpe Manor. Consider, first, the mystery that gives the story its name. Holmes shows Watson a piece of paper with the above pencil markings. 4 Tis is our frst piece of evidence. e 1 . The dancing men document Watson immediately ofers an account: “Why, Holmes, it is a child’s drawing.” Holmes thinks otherwise. Te dancing men drawings “have a meaning,” but they might be “arbitrary” (think “one if by land and two if by sea”) or they might be “systematic” (a cipher). Holmes bets on the latter. His client, Mr. Cubitt, has provided more data: e 2 . Mr. Cubitt’s wife, Elsie, received a letter from America that very much upset her. e 3 . Other dancing men inscriptions, on both paper and chalk applied to buildings, have turned up at Ridling Thorpe Manor. e 4 . Holmes has knowledge of the relative frequency of letters in the English language. t ′ 0 . The dancing men fgures stand for let- ters. And the messages are in English. Holmes breaks the code. He is now able to trans- late the diferent messages that have turned up. Tis leads to the second mystery: Why is Elsie so reticent to tell her husband about her past? Why is she so upset and frightened by the dancing men messages? Why did she stop her husband from confronting the stranger they caught in the act of scrawling one of the mes- sages? Holmes is in a position to answer many of these questions simply by decoding the messages he has. In addition, Holmes explains Elsie’s reticence and fear in terms of some con- nection to criminal activities in her past, and he knows that the correspondent is named Abe Slaney. A cable to a colleague in the States con- frms that Slaney is “the most dangerous crook in Chicago.” Slaney is imploring Elsie to return to him and fnally threatening her. Holmes and Watson have plenty of evidence that necessi- tates hurrying to the Norfolk countryside.