A Richer Dust Concealed: A gripping historical mystery thriller you won’t be able to put down!

by R P Nathan

  I slept where I was.

  It was dark and it got light.

  I woke up in the early morning, the thoughts still there, angry bees, swarming around me, V E L G A S A G A I I... I slept but had no rest. I was exhausted and felt feverish. I was ill, I was sure I was.

  I looked again at the papers and it started again, comparing the frequency analysis plots with the frequency tables for the letters in Italian – maybe this was wrong, maybe this was the problem. I went onto the internet again and downloaded page after page of Italian text, hundreds of pages, and did revised letter counts on them, but the results were not markedly different. The problem was me. I was too tired to think straight, to do this properly yet I could not stop. I could not leave it. It was eight-thirty. I should be in work. I had to do the last bits and pieces for Derek. And then we were to have the final meeting. I had to go in. I simply had to.

  Eight-forty.

  Nine o’clock.

  I rang up Susan.

  “I’m sick,” I said. “I can’t move. My head hurts.”

  “You didn’t look well yesterday. You should stay at home. What do you want me to do about your meeting with Derek?”

  “I’ll ring him later.”

  Ring him later. To explain. To tell him. It had been a good audit. It would be a shame to spoil it. I should ring him now. But now I was too busy and I had to go through the printouts again. There was a clue there. I knew there was. It was in there. I wouldn’t ring him now. I needed to keep going just for another couple of hours. That was all I needed and then I’d be done. I might even make the final meeting. I looked at myself. I was still in my suit. I hadn’t changed last night and had slept in it. I went downstairs and outside. The morning was hot and sticky. I walked quickly to the newsagents two roads down, blinking and talking to myself, going through permutations, trying to understand how it would all fit together and then suddenly I stopped.

  I looked round sensing something, someone, following me. I thought I had heard... But there was no one there.

  I went to the newsagents and bought five cans of Red Bull and a bar of chocolate. I drank a Red Bull the moment I got outside and felt the rush immediately. My tiredness vanished. I felt clarity return. The ability to focus on many problems at once, multi-tasking, compartmentalising my mind so it worked for me on ten different tracks, sub divisions assisting each other, a collective. I would solve this now, I knew. I would do this. I walked back slowly but then in a flash I ducked behind a hedge, because this time there was definitely someone there following me, always following me even though I twisted and turned and looking out onto the street I saw him I thought or her was it? and then no one and I was alone again. I ran back to my flat ignoring the looks from my downstairs neighbour, ignoring her looks, and slammed my front door and drank another Red Bull and ate half my chocolate, a big bar of Dairy Milk and I ate it piece by piece and then I had to start again, I forced myself, I was drawn in, sucked. I was there amongst the paper. It was light and the day became hot.

  At eleven the phone rang.

  “Patrick, it’s Derek. I heard you’re ill.”

  I blinked down the phone at him.

  “Patrick are you there?”

  “I’m not well.”

  “Quite. Well I hope you get better soon. Are you up to just talking through a few points?”

  “I feel quite sick, Derek.”

  “OK, well not to worry. There was hardly anything anyway. Look, you rest. I’ll get Simon to come along to the meeting. They like him anyway and it’ll be good experience.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s fine. Can I give you a call during the meeting if there’s anything particular we need to know?”

  “Yes. That’s fine. That’s fine.” I would be done by twelve. I was almost there now. I was sure I was. I had letters in place in the document but didn’t know more than a few words in Italian so couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure of anything. The papers had their own power now. And there were so many of them, stacked against me, arrayed in force. But I knew I was almost there. What was I missing? Why couldn’t I do this? There must be something simple. There had to be.

  The day got hot and bright light flooded into the flat so that when I stepped outside onto the balcony I thought I was drowning in it, lightfall splashing over me, blinding me. And then I saw him again, the one who had been following me that morning, watching me from outside. And then another on the other side of the road. There were two of them studying me. From behind the trees. I ducked back inside and drew the curtains. Drew all the curtains. Cool and dark was how I worked best anyway. Cool and dark.

  The phone rang again.

  “Patrick.” It was twelve-thirty now. “I’m sorry to disturb you but can you help us with a question about depreciation policy.”

  I knew nothing about depreciation. Or Derek. Or any of them. The frequency plots were all I cared about. The different possibilities and permutations, the different attempts at interpretation and meaning.

  “...so it’s really to find out what you think about that idea.”

  And yet what did I know? What could I show for it? My work. I was so close but at present what did I have? I had nothing. “Nothing.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing. I know nothing now. At present. Any more.”

  My thoughts filled the silence and I put the phone down and then took it off the hook and switched off my mobile. I sneaked a look into the street and they were still there watching me though I couldn’t quite see them. I closed the curtains and pushed my hands into my hair and began again because I was so close.

  I drank milk at lunch.

  I finished my chocolate in the afternoon.

  The day was hot and stayed hot.

  It was light outside then began to get dark.

  And suddenly from nowhere at a complete tangent to my thoughts I knew how to do it. And the moment I thought of it I was sure it would work. I rang Julius but there was no reply. I remembered he was meant to be in Paris and tried his mobile. He picked up after only one ring. “Patrick, what’s up?

  “I know how to crack the code.”

  “How?” He was suddenly shouting at the end of the phone. “How?”

  “How does an Italian letter start?”

  “How does what—?”

  “How do you say dear in Italian?”

  “Oh. Caro. Or cara if it’s to a woman. But why—”

  “I’ll ring you back.”

  Because it was a letter of course. There was information I had not used, structure I had disregarded, clues I had ignored. Because it was a letter. And letters start with caro or cara and this was a letter between Veronese and Tintoretto. It would start with caro. I knew it would and that little would be enough. I tore out a piece of paper and wrote down the letters of caro and beneath them the first few letters of the code, the angry bees:

  C must have been encoded as V, and A as E and so on. It was so simple, so beautiful. I took my Vigenère square and read back from it what the first four letters of the keyword must be and wrote them above, starting the repeat above the 11th letter:

  I rang him again. “What was Tintoretto’s first name?”

  “Why?”

  “Tell me!”

  “He was called Giacopo. His real name was Giacopo Robusti. But—”

  Giacopo. Caro Giacopo. Surely that’s what it must be. I knew it had to end in an O in any case.

  “What does Terrriaels mean?”

  “I doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Then this letter wasn’t to Tintoretto.”

  A pause. “How do you know?”

  “I know from the code. The key will be a word or a phrase. It has to be.”

  “Then...”

  “It’s ten letters long. It starts with TERR–. Give me some Italian words.”

  “Terra– something, maybe? Terrazza? No that’s only eight. Terribile – that’s nine... I don’t know. Wait. Terracotta. What about tha
t?”

  TERRACOTTA. I tried it and knew immediately it was wrong.

  “Come on Julius. There must be something else.”

  “Terra–... Terra–... Terraferma! T-E-R-R-A-F-E-R-M-A. It must be.”

  “Why must it be?”

  “Because that’s what the Venetians called their land empire. Verona was part of it as was Padua and... Try Terraferma. And Patrick? Patrick—?”

  The phone dropped from my hands. Terraferma. It made sense. It had to be. I suddenly slowed. Could this really be it? I paused and just breathed. The phone rang again and I took it off the hook. Terraferma. I set out yet another grid:

  I looked at my Vigenère square and read off the letters one by one, carefully, precisely, taking my time.

  Deliberate action. Care was required now I was so close. Concentration was needed to prevent a mistake being made.

  ...O...

  ...N...

  And then the last of the letters in there and by coincidence the eleven letters I had always had in my mind, my angry bees, formed words entire and I sat back and admired them.

  Caro Antonio. Dear Antonio. This wasn’t a letter to Tintoretto at all. And a tiny shiver of memory pricked me. Dear Antonio. But what I remembered was My darling Anna. Who was Anna and why did I think of her now? I shook my head. No matter.

  I felt suddenly exhausted, relief and tiredness washing over me simultaneously. The code was defenceless now. I had the key. I could break it any time I wanted. But suddenly my eyelids felt like lead and I thought I would rest first. I could afford to rest now. I had earned it. I put some music on and I lay down on the sofa and closed my eyes.

  ◆◆◆

  When I opened them again the room was dark but the music was still on and loud. Louder. I sat up immediately, disconcerted, discombobulated, not knowing what time it was. I was breathing heavily and when I stood up and saw the papers around me, I stared at them, confused as to where they had come from.

  And then suddenly I knew I was in great danger.

  There were noises outside, noises I couldn’t explain, grating through the sounds in the room, the sounds in my mind, so that I had to do something about them, I couldn’t just ignore them or all would be lost. I ran for the door, to where the sounds were loudest – scrapings and scratchings – and got to it just in time to pull the chain across and bolted it just as the banging began.

  I grabbed a chair and put it there, flimsy defence perhaps, but another two and the barricade was looking stronger and all the while the banging went on and on, so loud in my head.

  Until it stopped.

  Then the voices came, whispering low, their plotting even more terrifying, their numbers uncertain. I ran back to the living room and over to the balcony thinking I could escape that way. But he was there outside already waiting for me.

  “I’ll never tell you anything!” I shouted at him looking around frantically for some other way of escape. “Help me!” I shouted into the night. “Police! Help me!”

  I was on the balcony.

  Screaming.

  It had been light.

  But now it was dark.

  And I stood there on the balcony with the close air about me. I had nowhere to go. He was coming towards me and I backed into the flat. There was so little time. They would get in eventually, that much I knew, but I wouldn’t make it easy for them. I cleared the papers from my desk, and slid them into the drawer and away, out of sight. Then turned the music up louder, all the way, so they would not hear me, and hid in the wardrobe, pulling the door to so that through the crack I could see just a slivered glimpse of the room behind.

  “Patrick! Patrick!”

  How could they have known my name? A shiver of fear jangled me and now the shouts were from all sides above and below, the sides of the wardrobe reverberating with their attempted entry, their forced rhythms, and I screamed over the top to drown them out to make myself heard and beyond it all I heard sirens wailing, a growing ululation, a sonic crush. And then there were lights, blue flashing, and I saw red and green also, all manner, but when I screamed my hardest the sounds were subdued and when I closed my eyes, no one could touch me.

  Chapter 29

  February 1915, Rome

  Henry Shaeffer

  10 February 1915

  My darling Anna

  This is my first journal entry for two weeks. The work has been busier since the return to Rome and we are seeking to order the papers built up in Venice over the last six months.

  Polidoro’s journal is translated as I said in my last entry and I have made further attempts at breaking the code in which is written the assumed directions to the treasure. But still with no luck. I am certain of a few things, however: it is not a Caesar shift or a monoalphabetic substitution cipher. I therefore must surmise that it is some type of polyalphabetic substitution cipher. Although very simple to construct – even a child could do it with ease – this would have been an extremely powerful cipher in Polidoro’s time. None of the contemporary intelligence services, not even the Ten themselves, would have had the skills to break it.

  I was in the Forum, looking for inspiration amongst the ruins when I came to this conclusion that the code had to be polyalphabetic. And I own I felt a surge of energy at the revelation. For though such a code is devilishly difficult to break it is not impossible. Charles Babbage had indicated the way forward using a form of modified frequency analysis. I remembered seeing a paper he had written on the subject and decided to head back to the embassy and look it up without delay.

  On standing, however, I noticed that a man had been in the ruins with me, a raven-haired man in a dark suit. Whether he had been there the whole time or whether he had just arrived I could not tell, but when I looked in his direction he turned away almost immediately as though he had not been interested in me at all.

  I took a couple of steps towards him but he proceeded to walk off in an unhurried fashion. I wondered whether I should follow and challenge him, for we had been warned that agents of Germany and Austria Hungary were in operation in Rome just as we were; but I thought better of it. After all, the Forum was a public place and he had been doing nothing wrong by being there. Instead I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded in the opposite direction, picking my way through the stones over to the Colosseum.

  It was becoming dark, the time being close to five o’clock, and torches were burning around the Colosseum lending an eerie impression to that extraordinary building. I stopped to admire its shadowy splendour when the sound of a footfall caused me to turn and I saw through the gathering gloom that the black-haired man was approaching. Now there could be no doubt that he was following me, as he had been headed in an entirely opposite direction only minutes earlier.

  My heart pounding, I resumed walking, moving anticlockwise around the amphitheatre perimeter. Behind me I heard the man’s continuing tread, even and distinct through the otherwise quiet evening. When I stopped, he stopped; but when I walked on he did the same and from the quickness of his steps it sounded like he was gaining on me.

  I increased my pace and moved nearer to the walls so that the massive curves of the arena would prevent him getting clear sight of me. When I reached the north side, which is the side closest to the road, I ducked into the dark shadows of an archway so that the man, continuing around, would have to emerge in front of me and I would be able to surprise him and ask him his business.

  But he did not come. I waited there for some minutes my heart beating fast inside me, my mind racing. But he did not appear and the sound of his steps faded to nothing. Frustrated, I re-emerged from the arch and looked around and, even though I peered deep into the darkness, there was no sign of him.

  I was on my guard all the way to my lodgings but saw no more of him. Back at the hotel I described the man to Signor Mocenigo and asked whether he had seen him in the vicinity before; but Mocenigo merely shrugged his shoulders and said he had not. Noting my concern he did however say that he would keep an eye out for h
im and would challenge him should the situation arise.

  20 February 1915

  My darling Anna

  My sojourn in Rome is almost over. I have been told that I will be given orders in the next two weeks. Until then my time is my own. Or at least it would be if I had never picked up this wretched journal. If only you were here, your intelligence and wit would surely break the code in a matter of a day or two whereas I have been working on it now for weeks with progress so slow that it hardly merits the name.

  I have been looking for repeated fragments in the text which might tell me the length of the key which governs the cipher and am now convinced that it is ten letters long. Yet this work took me nearly a month whereas you would have probably seen it instinctively and immediately. My task is now one of modified frequency analysis à la Babbage but it is desperately dull and the results difficult to interpret given the relatively short lengths of the text.

  I will own to you that the code has frustrated me. My room is strewn all over with the papers bearing my feeble attempts at decipherment. And I am running out of time. Soon my posting will come through and where but a month ago I was longing for the event now I wish only for a few days more to make headway.

  28 February 1915

  My darling Anna

  I have been unwell these past few days, gripped by a nervous malaise which seems to energise and enervate me at one and the same time. My mind races yet goes nowhere, meaningless aggregations of letters coursing through my mind to no effect, V E L G A S A G A I I… The code has me, and my lack of usual diversions means I am thrall to it. Most of the day is spent looking at it and it feels like there are but few moments when I am released and clarity restored. These come mostly at night and even then I am feverish during them in an effort to marshal my thoughts while I have the ability to do so.