Upon getting to the next destination, the teams found a hinge locked shut with a 4-tumbler combination lock, and an envelope with four sets of playing cards taped together. Each set of five cards was fixed in order, but the individual sets were separate. The back of each set had the following written on the tape:
Unlike the above symbolic representation, the cards were actually from a civil-war era card deck, featuring no numbers or letters:
Solution
The first part of the challenge was to order the sets of cards. Each set of five cards represented a poker hand. Arranging the hands in decreasing rank (as seen in the Gentleman’s Guide) results in the phrase: "A game I learned/from a poker master/research diamonds in a good book/minus clubs thereafter".
The second part of the challenge was to find the page numbers in Walden representing the diamonds and clubs in each hand. For example, the highest-ranked hand (full house, queens over sevens) corresponded to pages 7 (the seven of diamonds) and 12 (the queen of clubs, which comes two after the 10 of clubs). On each page referenced by the cards were circled four letters. For example, pages 7 and 12 had the following (bolded) letters circled on the page:
When one man has … We observe cats … of Fuel, that is … Shelter and Clothing also serve only …
Why should we exaggerate … Finding that …. My purpose … trade is with the Celestial Empire …
The third part of the challenge was to recognize that each page referenced a radio station in New York (the call signs and frequencies of which were listed in the Gentleman’s Guide). For example, WWFS is 102.7FM and WFME is 94.7FM.
Finally, subtracting the radio station frequencies for each poker hand resulted in an integer value. 102.7 - 94.7 = 8, the first digit to the combination lock.
The last (lowest-ranked) poker hand was slightly different from the others, in that it had two diamonds and clubs. Both happened to be the same (the 4 and 3 of diamonds and 4 and 3 of clubs). Whether added together or taken separately, any resulting value would be subtracted from itself, and thus result in a value of 0. To help drive this point home, going to page 43 in Walden showed the phrase underlined, “It is the same”.
Once the correct combination was entered (8460), opening the lock and hinge showed the final clue taped inside.
For the final clue, continue on to Challenge #5: Orienteering, or see the results of this challenge.