If we don’t ignore the 48 and S for a minute. The number ‘48’ is in this story. In chapter IV. “I have had no time for bite or sup for eight-and-forty hours.”
But, then I have no idea what to do from there.
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Are we supposed to be looking at 48th Street in New York perhaps? It looks like 16 streets intersect 48th as best I can tell.
Maybe we should be looking at which streets are on/off starting with 1st?
And yes, at this point I am a monkey with a typewriter. I will keep this up until I create Romeo and Juliet dammit.
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I am well on my way to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so join the club. At this point, I think we just need to exhaust all possible options. And there really are no bad ideas right now, so keep them coming and I will do the same.
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BAsed on that theory it would be 1st, Park, 8th, 10th, 11th, 12th… hmm
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Or maybe taking the length/number of letters we found -
the - 3rd ave
whether - 7th ave
constant - 8th ave
is - 2nd ave
going - 5th ave
though - 6th ave
But what you would do with this, I have no idea.
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New email from Lauren
Good evening,
Another piece of large freight arrived just now. I’m assuming they’re materials for your performance? Will you want me to coordinate moving them to the Hall at some point? (I was daydreaming that I master traversal magic and send them there myself.)
Something I’ve been wondering… Do your patrons know that what they’re seeing is real?
I’ve made progress with the journal. I see how it fits together now. Physically, at least.
It’s like a hinged triptych. I’ve uploaded an image of what I mean. The two sides of the circle open to reveal what is now two blank pages. Will the blank pages change with time? Or when I solve the puzzle? It’s freeing to no longer wonder how that would be possible. I know how.
Question: Who did the brachursis materials belong to originally? I’ve found notes in the margins and slips of paper with research. Are they your notes? They seem so… I don’t know, naive? Hard to imagine that word ever described you.
Also, what are the “briar books”? I’ve seen them mentioned several times.
Yours faithfully,
Lauren
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At this point I expect her to solve it soon. She’s clever and now she’s confident and hungry to know more.
Unfortunately I’m less confident in my ability to solve this. I may have to beg @Leigha for that clue. It seems a ware though to use it at the lobby.
Let’s sleep on this and hit it with everything we can muster fir another day.
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Right. wipes out chalkboard Let’s begin again. Organizing thoughts time.
What we know.
-The clue references the story a Study in Scarlet.
-The 48th word that starts with S in the story is ‘streets’
-Our goal is to follow SG to the first location
-There are various words underlined or crossed out
48 S by tototo to A A A A A he he was problem
What we do not know
-Are we meant to ‘follow’ him within the story, or somewhere else?
-Do the crossed out words imply to skip those words, and the underlined words mean take note?
-Are the words themselves important, or are they merely placeholders for other things?
-Does ‘streets’ refer merely to the word in the story, or actual streets in the real world?
What’s interesting to look at
-Following a trail of 'to’s, he’s and a’s is annoying because the words are so common. The word ‘problem’ is much more interesting because it only occurs 9 times in the entire story, and only twice in the first chapter. That may be an anchor we can use to draw a line between that and ‘streets’, our theoretical starting and ending points. Perhaps we can fill in the middle?
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So question - since we are starting from streets, do you think we always go back to the word streets or do we continue from the following word? To clarify - start at streets and find the nearest “by”, continue again by starting at that “by” and find the nearest “to” (after the 3 other to’s) from that point, and so on…or do we start at streets and find the nearest “by”, restart at streets again and find the nearest “to” (after the 3 other to’s), etc? Am I even making sense?
I guess we could test multiple ways and see what we get, but if we then have to manipulate or use the words we find in a different way, the right path might not be obvious to us no matter what. Maybe Lauren will figure it out before us and tell Cags something about it in an email and help set us straight.
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That is what I was thinking… I tried some of that yesterday, but got distracted by child, and now can’t find the notes I wrote on the words I found 
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I’ve been assume it’s one long chain. Multiple smaller chains is actually a new idea definitely worth trying.
Edit. What I don’t get is what the purpose of following the words is. Are supposed to take the following word of each stop? The proceeding? Count the words we skipped? Go forwards? Backwards? Start over each leg? So.what combination of methods? I must be missing a clue because this just feels like trying to read Sullivan’s mind.
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So I have tried four variations. I will try to explain it a bit so it makes sense. I tried twice, two times starting over at streets, and two times continuing on in one long chain. And then I looked at the word after and the word before the word from Yule6. Hopefully this makes sense as I type it out:
Starting Over At Streets (Word After):
by: The
4th to: Whether
5th a: Strange
2nd he: Had
was: The
problem: As
Not Starting Over At Streets (Word After):
by: The
4th to: Whether
5th a: Little
2nd he: Intends
was: Goings
problem: Though
Starting Over At Streets (Word Before):
by: It
4th to: As
5th a: That’s
2nd he: After
was: Who
problem: The
Not Starting Over at Streets (Word Before):
by: It
4th to: As
5th a: Is
2nd he: After
was: Who
problem: The
As you can see, a lot of gibberish. I am going to keep playing with this all though.
EDIT: I am starting to wonder if I am taking a too literal approach. I am wondering if there are some ways we can interpret these words differently. Now this is just crazy talk, but “to” could also be “two” so there are 5 two’s, 10? 52? I don’t know. At this point, everything is seeming like a good idea. I will let you all know if I think there is a glimmer of hope in what I think of though
EDIT2: Or what if we are thinking of them as words, and maybe just like the “S” we are only looking for words that start with “by”, “to”, “a”, etc.
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I’ve played around with this in my head a a bit. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but here’s what I got in case it’s useful.
48 S = 48 South
4 to’s = 4 two = 42
5 A’s = in the most basic code of ( A=1, B=2 etc), so 5 A’s = 5 = E
2 he’s = hehe? = laughter?
was = was
problem = problem
That comes to “48S 42E laughter was problem”. So I looked at a map for 48S, 42E realized it was the middle of the ocean and there was no laughter to be seen anywhere and realized I needed to take a break because I spending way too much time on this.
I suppose you could also say 4 to’s = 4 two’s = 8 making it 48 S 8 E. But that’s another, equally unlaughable section of the ocean. Maybe there’s funny fish there… I don’t know.
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I’ve been banging my head against this too. We counted to the word “that begins with the 48th S” and now we have words that follow after. Is counting a hint? Otherwise it seems random that we’d need to start there at all. Should we be counting? The words that follow? Maybe, playing off @Robert’s idea, the 48S isn’t arbitrary and is also the beginning of a coordinate? And the words that are underlined the remaining parts? But how?
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My best guess along those lines of counting and/or using this as a coordinate.
Attached is Chapter 1 of Study in Scarlet broken down 1 word to a line for ease in counting.
chapter1SIS (17.6 KB)
Here are the counts of the words in question
Streets: line 675
by: line 703: 28 words letter
1st to: line 720 : 17 words later
2nd to: line 727: 7 words later, 24 words after by
3rd to:line 735, 8 words later, 32 words after by
4th to: line 740: 5 words later 37 words after by
1st a: line 750: 10 words later
2nd a: line 754: 4 words later, 14 words after 4th to
3rd a: line 780: 26 words later, 40 words after 4th to
4th a: line 853: 73 words later, 113 words after 4th to
5th a: line 884: 31 words later, 144 words after 4th to
1st he: line 902: 18 words later
2nd he: line 922: 20 words later, 38 words after 5th a
was: line 1005: 83 words later
problem: line 2739: 1734 words later
Taking only underlined numbers:
28 37 144 38 83 1734
28.37144, 38.831734
28.37144N, 38.831734E produced a locaiton in the Al Khanafah Wildlife Sanctuary in Saudia Arabia. The other options of N/S E/W are the middle of the ocean.
Edit: Now let’s count all the assumptions I’ve made that could be incorrect:
- Each count might have to restart after streets. I’m not up to redoing this whole thing with that in mind just now.
- I’m assuming words that start with ‘by, he, to or a’ are not good enough and it must be the full word.
- I’m assuming I’m capable of doing basic math, because I stopped counting after a while and just did line number of word - line number or next word to calculate number of words.
- I’m apparentrly not assuming 48S is part of the actual coordinate, because I can’t figure out how to make that work.
But maybe this can help or at least be an example of what not to do with your morning. ;-)
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I can do the restarting at streets. I will give that a whirl right now
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So assuming I did my counts right (and right edition and what not), I got:
by: 28 words later
4th to: 65 words later
5th a: 79 words later
2nd he: 42 words later
was: 100 words later
problem: 62 words later
Using @Robert’s methodology from before we get: 28.6579N 42.10062, which according to Google Earth is right in the middle of the Al Nafud Desert in Saudi Arabia. Anyone else think of another way we can use these numbers? Maybe one that encompasses the 48 S?
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I was doing that in parallel and basically got the same thing as you. Also I did it allowing for wildcards, so to* instead of just to both as a chain and restarting at streets.
The problem I personally have with 48S is there’s not a lot of land mass at the 48th southern parallel to hit. There’s a sliver of Argentina, the French Southern and Antarctic Islands, and maybe Auckland or Adams Islands.
Probably meaningless data to follow:
***Restarting at streets each time
Streets: line 675
by: line 703 : 28 words after streets
4th to: line 740: 65 words after streets
5th a: line 754: 79 words after streets
2nd he: line 717: 42 words after streets
was: line 775: 100 words after streets
problem: line 738: 63 words after streets
28 65 79 42 100 63
maybe 28.6579, 42.10063
28.6579N, 42.10063E still in Saudia Arabia
Allowing wildcards, by, to, a, he*, etc - One continual chain
Streets: line 675
by: line 703 : 28 words after streets
4th to: line 740: 37 words after by
5th a: line 773: 33 words after 4th to
2nd he: line 800: 27 words after 5th a
was: line 898 98 words after 2nd he
problem: line 2739 : 1841 lines after was
28 37 33 27 98 1841
28.3733, 27.981841
28.3733N, 27.981841E Now in Egypt!
28.3733S, 27.981841E Spot in the middle of South Africa
Allowing wildcards, by, to, a, he*, etc - Restarting at streets
Streets: line 675
by: line 703 : 28 words after streets
4th to: line 740: 65 words after streets
5th a: line 683: 8 words after streets
2nd he: line 717 : 42 words after streets
was: line 794: 119 words after streets
problem: line 738: 63 words after streets
28 65 8 42 119 63
I’m not even going to look this up, the fact I know this is in Saudia Arabia is starting to creep me out a bit.
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What are some other ways we can use counting? Maybe we should brainstorm some other ideas? The only way I can think of right now is an address.
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Random brainstorm ideas:
Counting numbers of names of streets maybe? Centered around 48th street maybe?
Counting how many times a word appears in the story? Or maybe just chapter 1? Or maybe just between the words ‘streets’ and ‘problem’?
Edit: Instead of counting words, we could count letters. So count the number of letters that are underlined vs crossed out…although now that I read those words it makes no sense to me.
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