During his travels, Tom is given a cipher (code). You can see it pictured alongside. The cipher was thought to contain vital information belonging to agents of the French state: information so important that several men lost their lives as Richelieu’s agents tried to reclaim it.

Drawing on all his experience and skills, and after several failed attempts, Tom manages to crack the code. He describes how this is done in his memoir. The information in the code proves crucial in shaping Tom’s adventures in the latter stages of the book.

If you’ve read the book and followed Tom’s method, you too might now be able to decipher the code. If you want to put your code-cracking skills to the test, a new cipher using exactly the same encryption method has been set out below.

If you can crack it then send a message containing the deciphered code to djmunro.author[at]gmail.com.

Good luck!

♦♣♣
♥♣♦
♦♦♣
♦♥

♦♥♣
♥♣

♥♦♥
♦♣♣
♥♦
♥♥
♥♣♥