Secret Breakers: The Power of Three (13 page)

‘But it could be any other famous Arthur?’ asked Tusia.

Smithies agreed. ‘It could. But in order to solve the puzzle we’re trying always to make links. And I think Brodie might be right. It’s a sensible guess to make. But we have to find other details to back it up if we’re going to go with that link completely. And if you look closely they might be there.’ He smiled reassuringly in Brodie’s direction. ‘The idea the puzzle leads us to ancient stories seems quite logical.’

‘Why?’ Tusia’s brow was now furrowed into thick lines of concentration.

‘Because,’ Smithies said, ‘if we’re to crack Van der Essen’s puzzle we need to find something called a “key”. Not a literal key,’ he said, miming the turning of a door key in a lock, ‘but a text that’s been used as the starting point to turn the message into code. With this puzzling letter from Van der Essen was a series of numbers. I’ve reprinted them for you on the back of your copies of the letter. We’ll call them the “handle with care” numbers because for some reason we don’t understand, Van der Essen wrote those words above them.’ Brodie flicked her piece of paper over and sure enough, under the words ‘handle with care’ was a series of thirteen numbers in a line that looked like an overlong mobile phone number.

Hunter read aloud. ‘Handle with care: 41, 33, 57, 2, 24, 40, 3, 52, 23, 24, 23, 39, 29.’

‘We believe,’ Smithies said with a sigh, ‘that the Professor has left us a poem or story code. They were used extensively during the war so it seems to make sense.’

Brodie wondered at this point if very much of what she heard was making total sense.

Smithies continued. ‘If we find the right piece of writing, and the right section in that story, we’ll be able to substitute letters from the story or poem in the place of these “handle with care numbers” here, and eventually understand his message. And perhaps if we solve this puzzle we’ll be led to the location of the code-book that will allow us to read MS 408. Perhaps. It’s like links in a very long chain.’

It all seemed rather overwhelming and for the briefest of moments Brodie thought fondly of lessons on long division back home with Miss Carter. She gave herself a shake and sat up straight. ‘There seems a lot of “perhaps”,’ she said quietly.

Ingham beamed. ‘That’s the beauty of it all.’ His eyes seemed to be looking far away, his face open and unlined as if he was for once incredibly relaxed. ‘The beauty of it all is in the lack of certainty. The possibilities. The links we can try to make. It’s like building a house out of cards. All about balance and skill and at any time the house could come tumbling down. But if we manage to build. If we manage to connect the whole thing together, then …’ He didn’t finish his sentence.

‘So you think,’ Hunter said at last, crunching the remains of his last mint imperial, ‘that the piece of writing we need to understand Van der Essen’s letter could be a story or poem about King Arthur?’

Smithies beamed. ‘Exactly, Mr Jenkins. You’ve got it exactly.’

Tusia had begun to underline some of the words in her copy of the letter. ‘But there must be hundreds of things written about King Arthur,’ she said in a rather dejected tone.

‘There’s thousands,’ Smithies laughed. ‘Written in English and in other languages. The field of possibilities is endless.’ And here he waited. ‘But we believe the Professor left us other clues in his letter.’

He turned his back on the waiting audience and jabbed the blackboard with the end of a long stick he’d obviously brought along for such a purpose. ‘Elfin Urim,’ he said theatrically. ‘Any ideas what they are?’

Brodie looked along the line of listeners. ‘They’re lights, aren’t they?’ she said quietly. ‘Lights made by elves. Something magical. And beautiful.’

Smithies clapped his hands in appreciation. ‘Spot on, Miss Bray. There’s debate, but we generally accept the term to mean jewelled lights made by otherworldly figures. And it’s this line about the “elfin Urim” that confirms for us we’re right to think the use of the name Arthur points us to
King Arthur
.’

‘Why?’ Tusia said, this time her voice sounding a little strained.

‘“Elfin Urim” is a phrase used in the stories of King Arthur. It crops up in the poems about him by the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson.’ At this point, at Smithies’ suggestion, Ingham limped to the end of the table and lifted a pile of dusty, green hardback volumes and began to pass them along the line. Brodie took hers and flicked through the pages.

‘The poetry of Tennyson,’ Smithies continued. ‘A copy for each of you.’

‘Great,’ whispered Hunter. ‘I needed something to lean my notes on.’

Brodie didn’t like to remind him that any books of stories or poems made her excited.

‘Five hundred and six pages no less,’ Hunter muttered behind his hand. ‘That’s even if you exclude the index.’

Tusia’s hand shot up into the air. ‘And the coded message could’ve been written using any part of his poems?’ she asked in a voice now about an octave higher than usual.

‘Quite right, Miss Petulova. Although of course, in our work so far on the code we’ve focused on the Arthur poems and in particular his use of the words “elfin Urim”. And that section involves the giving of the sword Excalibur to the king, by the Lady of the Lake. It’s the first chapter of Tennyson’s really long poem
Idylls of the King
. This bit’s called “The coming of Arthur”. Here.’ He directed them to a section of the poem by jabbing the stick once more at the blackboard. The picture of Professor Van der Essen flapped a little against the stand and it looked for a moment as if the old man was winking. ‘If someone would be so kind as to read this portion aloud,’ Smithies said, waving his hand in offer.

Miss Tandari rustled her pages and began to read. It was a descriptive section all about how the bright ‘elfin Urim’ on Arthur’s sword blinded people who looked at it.

Brodie slipped a page of notepaper in the book to mark the section as Smithies continued to explain.

‘So, we think the poem that’s been used to make the code may be Tennyson’s and we’re pretty sure the section we need refers to Arthur’s magic sword, but,’ and at this point two small pink circles lifted again on his cheeks, ‘in all honesty we are, as of this moment, completely stuck. Since Van der Essen’s message came into our possession, try as we might to arrange letters against the “handle with care” numbers, all we’ve discovered is,’ he appeared to search for a technical phrase that’d cover what he meant, ‘absolutely nothing.’

‘Our problem is being sure we’re using the right section of the poem,’ Ingham called out. ‘We risk wasting time if we don’t do things correctly.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ Smithies said despondently. ‘That’s why you’re all here.’ He drew himself up straight. ‘It’s true our efforts have focused on Tennyson. But maybe we should look elsewhere.’

Brodie traced the embossed writing on the poem book with the tip of her finger as Hunter shuffled restlessly beside her.

‘What about the numbers written in the letter?’ Hunter said at last, as if referring to familiar friends, and turning back to his copy of Professor Van der Essen’s puzzling message. ‘Not the “handle with care” ones. But the numbers he’s actually written in the letter. First and twenty-fifth? Why’d he do that?’

‘To show dates, maybe?’ Smithies said tentatively as if he knew he was grasping at straws. ‘We believe them to be dates. We’re unsure what else they could be.’

Brodie reread the letter.

To the worthy Alchemists of words,

It is my dying wish that you seek the phoenix of power, in her cloak of elfin Urim;

she who is wrongly considered to fly lower than the rightful dragon.

Search 1st on the dawning of the 25th.

Such a task requires 14 from the one the world rejected.

Professor Arthur Van der Essen.

‘And there’s a number fourteen too,’ said Brodie looking at her notebook where she’d copied the digits into capitals. ‘What’s that for?’

‘No idea at all,’ Smithies said apologetically. ‘Really no idea at all. We’re in this together now. Your idea’s as valid as mine. Your idea’s as needed as mine. We need you to think sideways, upside down, inside out,’ he urged. Brodie thought back to the contorted positions Tusia managed to make while she exercised. ‘Nothing about this will be easy. We have to be prepared to work. To stretch our brains and see things from any angle we can to try and make sense of what we see. But if we do make sense of this puzzle then …’ he widened his hands and what looked like a tear glistened in his eye. ‘Then we could discover great and wonderful secrets.’

Brodie looked down again at the letter in Van der Essen’s handwriting rested now on the top of the poem book. Was it likely she was really a worthy alchemist of words? And were there unworthy code-breakers out there puzzling over codes like this?

‘Mr Smithies,’ she said, at last breaking the heavy silence that’d fallen. ‘What do you think the phoenix is?’

‘It’s the thing we search for, Miss Bray,’ Smithies said. ‘The ultimate solution to the code. The ending of our quest. If we find Van der Essen’s phoenix then perhaps we stand a chance of finding the code-book that’ll enable us to read MS 408.’ He hesitated. ‘And the thing we know about the phoenix is it’s a thing of great beauty and immense power. And it’s reborn in fire. A bird of flame. A firebird. We search something of power that was the single survivor of the burning of Louvain. We need to solve Professor Van der Essen’s Firebird Code and find it.’ He patted his stomach and smiled but the smile was strained and flickered only fleetingly across his eyes. ‘And like all things worthy of a quest, we will not rest until we do.’

Kerrith couldn’t rest. She tapped her blood-red nails against the table, drilling away the seconds.

Now she needed proof. Tangible proof Smithies was playing with fire. If she could be the one to bring him in then there’d be no reward out of reach. No honour out of the question. An office on level five would be hers for the taking. Now all she had to do was reel him in. Catch Smithies red-handed and the prize would be hers.

Smithies stood in front of the candle. The flame stretched and grew, casting more shadows on the wall.

‘You didn’t tell them.’

Smithies turned to face Miss Tandari. ‘How could I?’

‘But I thought after the testing. I thought we agreed.’

‘There’s three of them, Tandi. After everything there’s just three. And they’re bright and they’re keen and they want to do this.’

‘But they don’t know everything.’

‘I
will
tell them.’

‘When?’

Smithies looked at the flame. Wax ran like a tear and pooled at the base. ‘It’s safer this way.’

‘Safer, maybe. But is it
right
?’

Smithies turned to look again into the flame.

It was Brodie who’d insisted they take out every single book in the library that contained any reference to Arthur. A quick search on the library computer listed books that contained mention of ‘Arthur’s Famous Cheese Pizzas’ and a cartoon character for children who was apparently the world’s most famous aardvark. When they’d narrowed the search to books making reference to King Arthur they were still left with a pile of over twenty volumes.

‘Do you realise this little lot contains over thirteen thousand pages?’ Hunter said from beneath the pile balanced precariously across his arms.

‘Then the answer must be in here somewhere,’ snapped Brodie, who didn’t want to start feeling negative about the search before they’d even begun it.

‘I don’t know why you think it isn’t Tennyson,’ said Tusia.

‘Because they’ve checked him out already,’ Brodie explained, ‘and it’s too easy. Surely if this Professor is going to go to such great lengths to encode his message then he’d have been cleverer than that.’

Hunter snorted. ‘I think hiding a message in five hundred pages of poetry about an ancient king is clever enough.’

‘Yes, well. Maybe. But I just think we should look at all the possibilities we can. If the words needed for the code were in a poem by Tennyson, Smithies would’ve found it by now and they wouldn’t have sent for us. We’re supposed to look at things with new eyes, remember?’

The three of them made their way towards the lake and the ornamental fountain. Brodie selected a dry patch of grass on the highest part of the bank and slumped herself down, spreading her books out in an organised row in front of her. The other two sat beside her, Hunter balancing for a moment on his stack of books as if it were a chair, before a quick glare from Brodie made him mutter an apology and drop on the grass beside her.

Brodie drew a large notebook out of her bag. Keeping a logbook of their work had been Miss Tandari’s idea. She’d explained that just like Voynich had been a collector they should all be one too. Collectors of ideas! They’d been told to note down anything – any thoughts, any connections, any links – and Brodie loved the suggestion. Writing notes helped her think. Helped her shuffle things into order. ‘So,’ she said purposefully, ‘any clue about how we should begin to try and solve this problem?’

Hunter took a yo-yo out of his pocket and flicked it backwards and forwards, catching it with his open hand.