selves one stage advanced in our investigation.”
When we returned to Mrs. Warren’s rooms, the gloom of a London winter evening had thickened into one grey curtain, a dead monotone of colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred haloes of the gaslamps. As we peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodging-house, one more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity.
“Someone is moving in that room,” said Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. “Yes, I can see his shadow. There he is again! He has a candle in his hand. Now he is peering across. He wants to be sure that she is on the look-out. Now he begins to flash. Take the message also, Watson, that we may check each other. A single flash—that is ‘A,’ surely. Now, then. How many did you make it? Twenty. So did I. That should mean “T.” A T—that’s intelligible enough! Another ‘T.’ Surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now, then—TENTA. Dead stop. That can’t be all, Watson? ‘ATTENTA’ gives no sense. Nor is it any better as three words—AT. TEN. TA,’ unless ‘T. A.’ are a person’s initials. There it goes again! What's that? ATTE—why, it is the same message over again. Curious, Watson, very curious! Now he is off once more! AT—why, he is repeating it for the third time. ‘ATTENTA’ three times!
