# Poring Over the Numbers: A Hidden Message

I thank my lucky stars I'm able to write this to you. I spent a hefty percentage of my remaining cash at the courier's office and I want to underscore the importance of this communique. If a man comes at you exclaiming that he's found my magic hat, do not hash out our plan in response to his inquiries.

I need you to come here, plus I need the contents of our safe. The combination is a five-digit number encoded in this letter. It can be deduced by poring over the numbers with simple arithmetic. Please come quickly.

Sincerely,

Fatima

Knowing that all five digits of the safe combination are unique, can you deduce the combination?

• Simply brilliant. Love it, Coto! It's difficult, but in a way that is logically progressed. – Travis Don Kindred Dec 13 '14 at 20:01

The words in the message

stars, percentage, cash, at, and, underscore, at, exclaiming, hat, hash, plus

correspond to

characters *%$@&_@!^#+ on the top row of an American keyboard which are "capitalized" versions of the symbols 85427-2163= on the corresponding keys which gives the answer 83264 when evaluated arithmetically. This has 5 distinct digits, as confirmation. Thanks to @No. 7892142 for noticing symbols I'd missed that fix my answer. Old answer: The words in the message stars, percentage, cash, exclaiming, hash correspond to symbols *%$!# on the top row of an American keyboard

which further correspond to

the digits 85413 on those keys.

• Should have at least mentioned the word "English" in the message then, I think.. – No. 7892142 Dec 12 '14 at 8:45
• Super quick! I like it. But I don't have a matching PC equipment :c) – BmyGuest Dec 12 '14 at 8:57
• Concerning the new answer...what about "exclaiming" and the second "at"? – No. 7892142 Dec 12 '14 at 11:16
• @No.7892142 Thanks, I'd forgotten about the exclamation and missed the 'at'. I've added those and I hope this is now the right answer. – xnor Dec 12 '14 at 11:25
• The new answer is indeed the correct one. Good show. ;) – COTO Dec 12 '14 at 12:45