“The same letters, S and E, are the only letters which occur more frequently than T as the last letters of words.
“But that isn’t all, Mr. Priam,” said Ellery. “The letter T is part of the most frequently used three-letter word in the English language ― the word THE.
“The letter T is part of the most frequently used four-letter word ― THAT ― and also of the second most frequently used four-letter word ― WITH.
“And as if that weren’t enough, Mr. Priam,” said Ellery, “we find T in the second most frequently used two-letter word ― TO ― and in the fourth most frequently used two-letter word ― IT. Do you wonder now, Mr. Priam,” said Ellery, “why I called Charles Adam’s note to your partner remarkable?
“It’s so remarkable, Mr. Priam, that it’s impossible. No conceivable chance or coincidence could produce a communication of almost a hundred English words that was completely lacking in T’s. The only way you can get a hundred-word message without a single T is by setting out to do so. You have to make a conscious effort to avoid using it.
“Do you want confirmation, Mr. Priam?” asked Ellery, and now something new had come into his voice; it was no longer thoughtful or troubled. “The writer of this note didn’t use a single TO or IT or AT or THE or BUT or NOT or THAT or WITH or THIS. You simply can’t escape those words unless you’re trying to.
“The note refers to you and Leander Hill; that is, to two people. He says: I have looked for you and for him. Why didn’t he write: I have looked for the two of you, or I have looked for both of you? ― either of which would have been a more natural expression than for you and for him? The fact that in the word TWO and in the word BOTH the letter T occurs can hardly escape us. He just happened to express it that way? Perhaps once; even possibly twice; but he wrote for you and for him three times in the same message!
“He writes: Slow dying... unavoidable dying. And again: dying in mind and in body. He’s no novelist or poet looking for a different way of saying things. And this is a note, not an essay for publication. Why didn’t he use the common phrases: Slow death... inevitable death... death mentally and physically? Even though the whole message concerns death, the word itself ― in that form ― does not occur even once. If he was deliberately avoiding the letter T, the question is answered.
“You believed me dead... Had he expressed this in a normal, natural way he would have written: You thought I was dead. But thought contains two T’s. We find the word pondering, for to think over, for obviously the same reason.
“And surely Here is warning number one is a circumlocution to avoid writing the more natural This is the first warning.
“Am I quibbling? Can this still have been a coincidence, dictated by an eccentric style? The odds against this mount astronomically when you consider two other examples from the note.
“And for each pace forward a warning, he writes. He’s not talking about physical progress, where a pace might have a specialized meaning in the context. There is no reason on earth why he shouldn’t have written And far each step forward, except that step contains a T.
“My last example is equally significant. He writes: For over a score of years. Why use the fancy word score? Why didn’t he write: For over twenty years, or whatever the actual number of years was? Because the word twenty, or any combination including the word twenty ― from twenty-one through twenty-nine ― gets him involved in T’s.”
Roger Priam was baffled. He was trying to capture something, or recapture it. All his furrows were deeper with the effort, and his eyes rolled a little. But he said nothing.
And, in the background, Keats smoked; and, in the foreground, Alfred Wallace lay under the blanket.
“The question is, of course,” said Ellery, “why the writer of the note avoided using the letter T.
“Let’s see if we can’t reconstruct something useful here.
“How was the original of Leander Hill’s copy written? By hand, or by mechanical means? We have no direct evidence; the note has disappeared. Laurel caught a glimpse of the original when Hill took it from the little silver box, but Hill half-turned away as he read it and Laurel couldn’t specify the character of the writing.
“But the simplest analysis shows the form in which it must have appeared. The letter could not have been handwritten. It is just as easy to write the letter T as any other letter of the alphabet. The writer, considering the theme of his message, could hardly have been playing word games; and no other test but ease or difficulty makes sense.
“If the note wasn’t handwritten, then it was typewritten. You saw that note, Mr. Priam ― Hill showed it to you the morning after his heart attack. Wasn’t it typewritten?”
Priam looked up, frowning in a peculiar way. But he did not answer.
“It was typewritten,” said Ellery. “But the moment you assume a typewritten note, the answer suggests itself. The writer was composing his message on a typewriter. He used no T’s. Why look for complicated reasons? If he used no T’s, it’s simply because T’s were not available to him. He couldn’t use T’s. The T key on the machine he was using wouldn’t function. It was broken.”
Surprisingly, Priam lifted his head and said, “You’re guessing.”
Ellery looked pained. “I’m not trying to prove how clever I am, Mr. Priam, but I must object to your verb. Guessing is as obnoxious to me as swearing is to a bishop. I submit that I worked this out; I’ve had little enough fun in this case! But let’s assume it’s a guess. It’s a very sound guess, Mr. Priam, and it has the additional virtue of being susceptible to confirmation.
“I theorize a typewriter with a broken key. Do we know of a typewriter ― in this case ― which wasn’t in perfect working order?
“Strangely enough, Mr. Priam, we do.
“On my way to your house for the first time, in Laurel Hill’s car, I asked Laurel some questions about you. She told me how self-sufficient you’ve made yourself, how as a reaction to your disability you dislike help of the most ordinary kind. As an example, Laurel said that when she was at your house ‘the day before’ you were in a foul mood over having to dictate business memoranda to Wallace instead of doing them yourself ― your typewriter had just been sent into Hollywood to be repaired.”
Priam twisted. Keats stood by his wheelchair, lifting the attached typewriter shelf.
Priam choked a splutter, glancing painfully down at the shelf as Keats swung it up and around.
Ellery and Keats bent over the machine, ignoring the man in the chair.
They glanced at each other.
Keats tapped the T key with a fingernail. “Mr. Priam,” he said, “there’s only one key on this machine that’s new. It’s the T. The note to Hill was typed right here.” He spread his fingers over the carriage of Priam’s typewriter, almost with affection.