Time Traveler
I review what I remember about the cipher. I'd thought Myszkowski was Polish, and perhaps he was by ancestry, but he was a Frenchman and a retired Colonel when he invented the cipher. It is a transposition cipher, essentially a modified columnar transposition. The only difference from the normal columnar is that the key contains repeated letters and those letters are treated differently as equal instead of sequential. That difference makes them much harder to solve. I considered bring a small laptop on my travels. I might have a description of the cipher saved there. If not I would go to the American Cryptogram Association website to get a good description, but of course there is no Internet which is why I did not bring it. I pull out a tablet, a paper one. I take an hour to compose a passage and encipher it in a Myszkowski. Yes, now I remember how it works.
OIHTE OLGDE OOTTA DTECU RMNYG ESHIA OLNLE OVFMC NRNST IMRAO ONTME HEOFI RNTYO RETIA TVEYO IFGIO ROUYW EFLMC OIHOY LRTHN ETEYT
Myszkowski has an extensive garden. I walk around and enjoy the flowers. After a few minutes I hear the maid calling from the door. She tells me he will see me now. I enter tentatively. I address him in French. I tell him I am a cryptographer from America to see him about his transposition cipher. He is flabbergasted. "How do you know about that?!" he says in excellent English. "It is still at the printer's. It will not be available to the public for another month. And then only in French. I did not plan to publish it in America or England."
"But that's why I am here. I am from a competing publisher in America. Your work is well-known among experts in the field. Word has spread to America about it. I thought you could give an advance look at your manuscript. If it appears to be of scientific merit, we would be interested in translating it and publishing it."
"I have a printer's proof of the first draft. It had some errors in it, so it is not the finished version. But I cannot show it to you. You will just steal the idea and publish it first once you learn how it works."
"But I already know how it works. See, I have composed a cipher using your method. This one is in English." I show him the above ciphertext.
"I can decipher English. I am a cryptographer. Whose messages do you think I've breaking? If you have properly enciphered a message with my cipher, then I guess the cat is from the bag as you say in America. Let me try. It can be broken with proper technique." I tell him it contains the word "country" twice. He works on my cipher and eventually deciphers it. He realizes the cat is indeed "from the bag" and allows me to see his printer's proof of his work Cryptographie indéchiffrable. My written French is better than my conversational French and I am able to spot several errors that he had not caught. I point these out.
"Sacré bleu! You have a sharp eye. Thank you. I have time to get these corrections to the printer."
I revel in my accomplishment. I'm on a roll. I must be a better cryptographer than I realized. Let's see what else history has in store for me.
OIHTE OLGDE OOTTA DTECU RMNYG ESHIA OLNLE OVFMC NRNST IMRAO ONTME HEOFI RNTYO RETIA TVEYO IFGIO ROUYW EFLMC OIHOY LRTHN ETEYT
Myszkowski has an extensive garden. I walk around and enjoy the flowers. After a few minutes I hear the maid calling from the door. She tells me he will see me now. I enter tentatively. I address him in French. I tell him I am a cryptographer from America to see him about his transposition cipher. He is flabbergasted. "How do you know about that?!" he says in excellent English. "It is still at the printer's. It will not be available to the public for another month. And then only in French. I did not plan to publish it in America or England."
"But that's why I am here. I am from a competing publisher in America. Your work is well-known among experts in the field. Word has spread to America about it. I thought you could give an advance look at your manuscript. If it appears to be of scientific merit, we would be interested in translating it and publishing it."
"I have a printer's proof of the first draft. It had some errors in it, so it is not the finished version. But I cannot show it to you. You will just steal the idea and publish it first once you learn how it works."
"But I already know how it works. See, I have composed a cipher using your method. This one is in English." I show him the above ciphertext.
"I can decipher English. I am a cryptographer. Whose messages do you think I've breaking? If you have properly enciphered a message with my cipher, then I guess the cat is from the bag as you say in America. Let me try. It can be broken with proper technique." I tell him it contains the word "country" twice. He works on my cipher and eventually deciphers it. He realizes the cat is indeed "from the bag" and allows me to see his printer's proof of his work Cryptographie indéchiffrable. My written French is better than my conversational French and I am able to spot several errors that he had not caught. I point these out.
"Sacré bleu! You have a sharp eye. Thank you. I have time to get these corrections to the printer."
I revel in my accomplishment. I'm on a roll. I must be a better cryptographer than I realized. Let's see what else history has in store for me.