And this, finally, would be the situation that we are left with were we to think of adding a further numerical layer to the overall solution.

Let’s assume the author’s initials are ‘MK’, and that he wants to use the same system he used for the second layer to encode these initials in one and the same cipher. Only, at this point, he essentially cannot.

With the second layer added, we have practically nothing left that we could change that would allow random initials to be included in this way. We have already fixed (constrained) the positions of the symbols, as well as the sizes of each of the blocks and what letters they must evaluate to. Likewise, this practically fixes what cipher letters each block must contain and, further, we have no ‘freedom’ left to reorder any of the blocks.

Thus we are almost fully constrained at this point, as the second layer of interpretation pretty much defines the cipher text to be precisely as we have it without any meaningful scope to make further changes.

As noted, then, it is left for the author only to be able to find his initials there already, or else to give up on any third layer of meaning, as having no way left to put them there.

‘UL’ then becomes, easily, the simplest and most obvious example that supposes the former.

Posted by: @lendor-77

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I’m not entirely convinced that the order of the initials is that important. If, in the end, we had to choose between UL or LU, I don’t think it would make a significant difference from an interpretative standpoint.

It would certainly make a “significant difference” to Lucio Umbri, if we had just arrested him when Umberto Leoni was the one who actually did it. 😉