Friday, October 10, 2014

A Conspirator is Revealed! Part Ten of The Case of the Lady Slipper Stalker

[This is Part Ten of The Case of the Lady Slipper Stalker. See also Parts OneTwoThreeFourFour-and-a-HalfFour-and-Three-QuartersSuggestions for My Dear ReadersA Note from Mrs HudsonFive,  A Plea For HelpSix, SevenSeven-and-a HalfSeven-and-Three-QuartersEightA Most Ingenious Theory, and Nine.]

After much furious--and, unfortunately, wasted--activity, Ethan F solved the Second Coded Message last night!  
Ethan's email

It turns out that it was much less complex than I originally thought. Also, rather unfortunately, several of my devoted former students stayed up late, neglecting their own studies, to help me--needlessly, as it turns out. I wish to thank them most profusely: Calvin K, Ian P, and Sean S, if I could send you Chocolate Pie, I would! They put in some serious computational labor!


I thought we were getting somewhere with "Did u bake pz?"
                             
Their Futile Labors
The Riddle was almost complete nonsense--at best, one ought to have derived from it the number eight. And one can quickly convert the number groups into text, if one knows that an octal numeral system conversion tool is needed.  
A Conspirator is revealed!
I am happy to say that all my faculty suspects are in the clear for this incident. My deepest apologies to Mr Diener and Mrs Birnbaum

The Culprit, at least in this instance, is young Thomaz N, from my AP Lit course, whom I have mentioned before and to whom I fondly refer as "Horselegs," because of his mis-reading of a passage in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  
The Previous Mention of Thomaz "Horselegs" N
He wrote the riddle, though perhaps not all on his own, as I am informed by Ethan F that Jeremy S may have helped with the writing and certainly with the delivery of this message. Mr Mattson's sighting of the lovely Mrs B in the vicinity of my classroom was, as it happens, a mere coincidence. You might also remember, my Dear Readers, that I suspected Thomaz of being an Anonymous Commenter on Part Eight of The Case.  
"Horselegs" begins to give himself away...
Clearly, young Thomaz is a suspicious character who craves my attention, and I must keep my eyes on him and his comrades...  Of course, none of this nonsense brings me any closer to solving the original puzzle: the identity of The Lady Slipper Stalker (the person who left the Photo in Question on my car).

4 comments:

  1. I am semi-reliably informed that Jordan F served as lookout while some sophomore (named Sam?) actually pinned the note to my board. Jeremy S still seems involved somehow, though...And I have requested access to the Library printer logs to see who may have printed out the Second Coded Message.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh! I would also send Michael some pie, if I could! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. To me, it seems that the only person that could have truly known the name of "horselegs" which has been applied to Thomaz is Mr. Pearson. Mr. Pearson is known for finding specific students and giving them nicknames, but since such a nickname is well applied to Thomaz, Mr. Pearson would probably also start to call Thomaz by such a name. Since Thomaz is in Mr. Pearson's math class, such a nickname must have been said during class to Thomaz, since even now many of the students have been calling Thomaz "horselegs." Jeremy also goes in for math help quite often with Mr. Pearson, which in turn a secret conversation in which the identity of the Lady Slipper Stalker could have taken place. I have been to math help with Jeremy, and often, and Jeremy works one on one with Mr. Pearson. Just an idea.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Noticing the structure of the numbering system, I do remember Mr. Pearson teaching our class something similar, but also the three numbered structure of the code is very familiar to a test we took last year.

    ReplyDelete