The Tale of Max and Mark A. Crypt
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Note: This is a spin-off tale based on another puzzle series in Singapore. Think of it as fan-fiction, if you'd like, and all copyright is owned by the original author. No infringement intended.
It is a little-know fact that Max A. Crypt, the perpetrator of those insidious crimes in BS City has a reclusive brother in the West. His name is Mark A. Crypt, and he likes puzzles caches (which has bogus published cordinates, of course) and is, too, a huge fan of the great Detective TB.
The story goes like this:
Max, who has been particulaly prolific recently, was running short of ideas. The detectives in Singapore were outwiting him; just minutes after the body dump, they would solve the puzzles, turn up at the crime scene and gather all the clues. Is there no stopping them?
Eager to put up a challenge that could, at the very least, slow tem down a bit, he decided to consult his brother, who was more of the sedentary kind of criminal. Mark is a schemer, the consultant criminal, the mastermind who rarely gets his hands dirty. The police have been trying to arrest him for ages, but fail to pin any evidence of his dirty work on him. Max was proud to have a brother like him, but they rarely colloborated due to their personality clashes. Max was the outgoing type, who loved to show off his latest evil deeds, while Mark prefers to remain in the shadow, letting others do his work for him. Max wanted more ideas and so he made a trip to the West to consult Mark.
He arrived at Mark’s door at about a quarter past twelve, just after he had lunch at the nearby hawker centre. After providing the secret knock and sliding a slip of paper with the predeterminned password under the door, he was let into the modest HDB flat his brother resided in for the last three years. It was all part of the low-profile cover, he knew. Mark was sitting on a posh mehogany chair that looked out of place in the two-room flat, and he asked Max, "So, what evil scheme would you like to discuss with me?"
He replied “Dat’s exactly why I have come to look for you. I have this idea I would like to discuss with you,” as he unrolled a piece a paper with the_six_great_deetectives_names on them and the followin characters:
UK/sfILq3xZMTUWhzSMiLhIBmQQvOxAz9Em/z4yT0Jx1Yqutr3cn1IKn
r4OHk8ZiZ9d5IrxC/OIYZ74ahUATMgaY16WRtjmV6/vSZLQJaRFDuD6
EhOStGFrjOPFWP1zIcIxRN1uakwXEkxG9Wvxh83R1ej4EmiyifxdfPFmri
vhZtIP5ktjwOU9RbB+hF+HkAVzJgIwECKntd2c8tfrPBh9WvlxQkwJ7RK
2ebSbXI/kEY+rf01mg6Y11upd6oDENlvAzoSNcos0AEoay1jW7M9vOF
MDd2xleGJKbi1WkVHtzaMmntBYXymG9GetBLybfWHaSDziNmWtuX26
RXbNOeA==
Mark’s examind the piece of paper and said, “You need to diversefy a little more. Perhaps you should try adding more layer to the puzzles. Otherwise, the lot of them will be on your tail as quickly as you can say “Supercalifragiilisticexpialidoxious”.”
Max sunk into his seat and thought a little while more. Making puzzles as sophisticated as Mark's was never easy, he knew. He has been aspiring since he was a little boy to one day commiit that ultinate crime. Trying to do a little better, he attempted to another seggestion.
“I could try making one of those pencil and paper crypto caches. You know, like those designed by the great Detective TB. Ah, I remember reading about this very clever method of encryption in a best-selling novel!”
So, Max quickly took out a piece of paper and wrote the following message:
HOIHA WHFYA PTEVI EOS!E HRETR RTIRM ACHPE OHAYN OAUYS ATBDM NZOOV ERWEN ZULED OEUOL GVCWT HPTEUE
Mark grabbed the paper from Max’s shakeing hands (Max was indeed nervous from all the pressure) and stared intansely at it. After a minutes or so, he exclaimed, “Ah hah! Got it! Shame that this may prove to be a little too straighforward for the detectives. There are just soo many caches that use this techique. I’m quite sure they’ll recegnise and decode it in a matter of minutes!”
Unfortunately, he had ran out of ideas already, and asked his brotther for advice in finding tat perfect way to constuct a puzzle that would stump eveeryone, including the great TB. Mark, who actually cares for Max a lot more that he lets on, whispered a few tips into his ear, and a smile grew one Max’s face.
After de meeting with his brother, he returned home and tried his very best to com up with another clever cipher. He looked up books, Googgle and other great challenging puzzles in Singapore and in other countries for inspiration. He tried another cipher:
URYYB QRGRP GVIRF VSSLB BNERS RRYVA TNYVG GYROB ERQWH FGGBY RGLBH XABJV UNIRP BZZVG GRQNA BGURE UBEVO YRPEV ZRNAQ ZNQRN ORGRE CHMMY RSBEL BHTH LLFGB FBYIR
...but he realised that even this sort of ciphers was far too easy for the expirienced detectives to solve as they used it all the time. He knew he needed to think out the boxx. He plucked up the courage to try some of Detecttive TB’s puzzles, and he managed to solve one of the simpler ones. He tried his hand at encrypting a message using one of them:
WYURO TNOER VDAHO NFEOI NIMOE RTCYZ TNOWO GYAEO DUIAD ONBTE IAEID NNTEB DIAIE RNLCT OADHS IEOHV TCAKH SRZPU ZEOID TWUSG BCOET HHEORY DRTAN TTYAO CIAUL FI
“Hmm... but this one lacks orriginality...” he thought. Suddenly, an idea struck him. He was going to use all the encryption techniques he learnt and combine them into one puzzle. I rubbed his hands in glee and emailed his brother with the details of his new idea, and he waited patiently for his comments. He was confident that his brother would approve. A coople of hours later, he got a one word reply...
...it simply said “Brilliant!”
He jumped with joy and quickly headed out to find a suitable ‘candidate’ for tat body. As a “token of thanks” to his brother, he hid it right at his doorstep for him to be the FTF.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Rire urneq bs n "funttl qbt gnyr"?
Abg gur uvturfg sybbe.