Well, something that just struck me was maybe the X and Q are there to signal that K3 is actually a continuation of the telegraphic message in K2. So the sender is actually telling us that “Layer Two” (ciphertext of K4?) was transposed after initial encryption. Or maybe if the K4 plaintext is considered “Layer Two,” it means the plaintext was transposed prior to encryption. Maybe that is Scheidt’s “masking” technique.
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