Posted by Peter Hyland on April 29, 2013 at 13:28:42 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Semaphore Dancing Figures posted by Adam Quinan on April 29, 2013 at 02:29:59:
The Dancing Men was indeed a substitution code, made complex by the fact that the legs of the figures were part of it. In Ransome's semaphore, the legs play no part.
BUT - in Winter Holiday, Nancy disguised the semaphore code by varying the leg positions and omitting flags - see 'NANCY'S QUESTION' on page 207 (Ch XVII). She did so so successfully that it took the others over two pages to crack the code. So I think David Maxwell's query is still relevant - was Nancy's 'Dancing Figures' code (they were both male and female) inspired by Conan Doyle's 'Dancing Men' code?