TheCodeBreakers
however, the time is not only understandable, but admirable/ Moreover,
the dancers caper in no recognizable pattern when placed in alphabetical
order, and when they pose in a graduated order of choreography, no
regularity appears in the letters. In other words, the cipher of the
dancing man is purely arbitrary. Some members of the Sherlock Holmes
fan club, the Baker Street Irregulars, which included Alexander
Woollcott, Christopher Morley, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, have kept their
gaslights burning late in attempts to dis-
cover a regular basis of construction. It is wasted energy. The fact that
Holmes limited himself to already recovered letters in his "Come here at
once" message to Slaney suggests that he did not discover any regularity
which would have permitted him slightly more latitude in composing that
message. And surely had there been such a key pattern, Holmes would
have discovered it. The inventor of the cipher, Elsie's father, Patrick, "the
annaabi.ee 
