The Dancing Men
A few years ago I spent (wasted?) many hours painstakingly crafting a computer font for Windows PC users, a complete "Dancing Men" alphabet I would be delighted to share this file with any interested Sherlockian. If only I could find it again. I'll keep looking.
It wasn't easy, and not just because I didn't know what I was doing. The real problem is that the alphabet presented in the story isn't complete. As a result, many Sherlockians have risen to the challenge of figuring out what the "missing" letters look like.
So there are in fact at least a half-dozen "complete DANC alphabets" out there. Well, my font is based on the one worked out by Pierre Pratte, an ingenious fellow I've had the pleasure of chatting with on several occasions.
Pierre's theory (explicated in his fine article published in The Baker Street Journal) is that since the secret code was designed to be used from memory by a gang of thugs, it would have to contain mnemonic patterns that could be remembered by ... well, by someone who was stupid enough to get mixed up with a band of criminals. His article then goes on to demonstrate the logical progression of "Arms raised," "legs raised," and so on, each corresponding to a useful set of letters. I think his logic is air-tight, and so to me the Pratte DANC Alphabet is the one and only authentic version.
Now, this is changing the subject, but has anybody else wondered about the tendency some of the Canon's heroes have toward condemning on circumstantial evidence? In Sign of Four Watson sees Tonga's footprint at the scene of the Sholto murder and instantly surmises that a "child has done this." And in this month's story, poor Elsie Cubitt is frightened out of her wits by the dancing men and who does Hilton Cubitt suspect? The stable boy. Unfair, says I, unfair!
Could this be some irrational fear or hatred of children? And if so, does it explain why the Cubitts where childless?
As were – as far as we know – the Watsons?