Laura looked up. 'Oh, hi, honey,' she said distractedly.
'Good programme?' Jo asked, eyebrows raised. 'It's a message from Charlie.' Jo looked at her mother with blank incomprehension.
'A recording he made just before he died. It explains an awful lot.' Laura clicked the remote and the DVD began to play again.
'So what are we waiting for?' Jo said when it was over. 'Let's try the computer.'
Philip put the DVD in the drive and the screen lit up to display a short message:
Enter ' 1' and answer.
Philip hit the ' 1' key and a new line of text appeared:
LAURA, YOU LIKED IT THAT EVENING
Philip turned to look at Laura, an eyebrow raised. 'Well?'
'Well, what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?'
'It's the personal clue Charlie mentioned. The answer will be something obvious only to you.' 'Did you and Charlie. .?' Philip said. 'Oh, please.' 'Well, I just. .'
'He must be referring to New York,' Laura said. 'That's the only time I've seen him in the evening for twenty years. We went to Harry's Grill on West 34th Street.' She stopped for a moment and looked blankly at the screen, trying to recall the evening.
'Was there anything special about it?' Philip asked.
'The creme brulee was pretty amazing.'
'Let's try it,' Jo said.
Philip typed in 'creme brulee' and the screen went blank for a moment before a new message appeared.
WARM, BUT SORRY. JUST TWO TRIES LEFT
'Shit,' Philip exclaimed.
'What? I thought that was it,' Laura hissed and turned to her daughter.
Jo shrugged. 'Too easy, obviously. Then, pulling over a chair, she leaned across Philip. 'OK, we've got two more chances and that's it. We'd better take this a little more carefully.'
'But it's impossible,' Laura said. 'It could be anything.'
'Yeah, but it's a personal code, Mom, something you would know right away.'
'That's why I suggested "creme brulee", Jo. .'
'OK,' Philip said. 'Let's think. Charlie's clue is YOU ENJOYED IT THAT EVENING. What else could he mean? You sure he's even referring to the evening in New York?'
'How the hell would I know?' Laura could feel the frustration rising.
'I think you're on the right lines,' Jo said. 'Charlie says as much — warm — which must refer to the evening at the restaurant. But the code could be
"creme" or "brulee" or "cb". . anything.'
None of them spoke for a moment. Jo looked lost in thought. Laura ran her fingers through her hair and gazed at the screen.
'I think you're right,' Philip said, eventually. 'It could be anything, but Charlie gave you a clue after the first attempt. Maybe we need more information.'
'Yes, but that would give us just one last try.'
'Any better ideas?' Philip replied.
'Hang on,' Laura said suddenly. 'If we fail after three goes, can't we just reinsert the DVD and start again?'
'I doubt it. It'll wipe itself, I'm sure,' Jo said. 'Or self-destruct like in Mission Impossible? 'Oh, swell.'
'I think Dad's right, though. Without more information we could guess all night. Let's just try something and hope for the best.'
'Doesn't sound very scientific,' said Philip.
'How about just 'brulee'?' Jo suggested.
Laura shrugged. 'I guess.'
Philip typed in the word. After a moment a new message appeared.
STONE ME, LAURA. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE EASY FOR YOU! IT'S JUST FIVE LETTERS, BABE
'Damn it,' Laura exclaimed and exhaled through her teeth. Then suddenly she clapped her hands together. 'No, no, of course, that's it. .'
'What?'
'I remember now. We were just about to eat the creme brulee when the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" came on the restaurant stereo. Charlie made a joke about the coincidence — creme brulee — brown sugar?' She leaned over Philip's shoulder and typed in five letters.
'Hang on, Laura,' Philip said, twisting round to face her. 'What're you going to put in?'
'Five letters, of course — Charlie says so — It has to be STONE, doesn't it? And besides, what is this all about anyway? What is the Order of the Black Sphinx after? What was Newton trying to get?' Before either of the others could say anything, Laura tapped in the five letters and hit 'enter'. This time the screen turned black. Then suddenly the word CONGRATULATIONS appeared.
Laura let out a deep sigh. She hit the 'enter' key again and the screen lit up with a new, more elaborate message comprising a line of words followed by a series of numbers:
BLACK, WHITE, YELLOW, RED, NEW YORK
3.5, 12,
67498763258997 86746496688598 97684795900082 08736047437980 73849096006064 87474877345985 47932768480950
Beneath these numbers was a block of text made up of hundreds of letters without a break.
'Is that it?' Philip asked and scrolled down, but there was nothing more.
'You know,' Jo said, 'your friend Charlie Tucker is something of a legend in the math department.' She gestured to Philip to let her take his seat.
Laura looked round at her. 'Well, he wasn't far wrong on the DVD when he called himself a genius.'
'Tell me about it. Professor Norrington, our Group Theory lecturer, remembers Charlie from when he was first teaching in Oxford. Norrington worked for the CIA and MI5 before he morphed into an academic — he was a code-breaker — and he claims that Charlie was the only mathematician he's ever met who could create codes even he, Norrington, could not crack.'
'Yes, but Charlie wanted us to get this information, didn't he?'
'Sure,' Jo replied, 'But it was in his blood — he couldn't just give it away.'
'Great,' Laura replied and walked over to the sofa.
'But luckily,' Jo retorted, 'you know another genius … and my first-year special subject is Group Theory — rather important in cracking codes.' She flexed her fingers and contemplated the screen. 'And I absolutely love a challenge.'
Chapter 33
Oxford: 30 March, early morning
'Mom. . Mom, wake up.'
Laura opened her eyes to see Jo's face hovering over her. She sat up quickly, putting her fingers to her temples. Sighing, she leaned back onto the cushions of the sofa.
'God, what time is it?'
'Four-fifteen.'
'Where's Philip?'
'Here.' Philip came into the living room carrying a tray. 'I think we all need this.' He put the coffees down on the low table in front of the sofa. 'Well, Jo does, anyway. You've slept through all the action.'
Laura was still half asleep. 'What are you talking about, Philip?'
Philip smiled at Jo. 'Our daughter has cracked Charlie's code.'
'Well, I've cracked
some
of it,' Jo said.
Suddenly Laura was wide awake. Grabbing one
of the coffees, she sat forward on the sofa. 'Start from the beginning, and take it slow,' she said.
Jo had a sheaf of papers in her hand. 'I tried all sorts of things to begin with, but nothing was happening. You have to experiment. Anyway, I started to think about what Charlie said about the ruby sphere. He mentioned the scytale and it suddenly occurred to me that this code he used on the DVD was also a scytale. Another clue came from the number 3.5 he wrote after the list of colours. Then there's the block of numbers,' she continued. 'Seven rows of fourteen apparently random integers. It seemed likely that there was a number combination there, some sequence that would be relevant. So I decided to print out the numbers. Then I made a tube of paper that was exactly 3.5 centimetres in diameter.'
'And the numbers fitted?'
'No.'
'What?'
'It wasn't as simple as I'd thought it would be. I was stumped. But then I looked again at the message. After the number 3.5 there was 12, New York. I'd assumed that New York referred to Charlie's visit in some way and that it might be relevant later.'
'But then,' Philip interru
pted, 'Jo demonstrated true genius.'
Jo smiled at her father. 'Flattery will get you everywhere, Daddy. But, actually, it was obvious now I think about it. New York is a font. I had to print out the numbers using New York, size twelve.'
'And that worked?'
'Like a dream.
'So there's another scytale.'
'Problem was, though, I just had the same ninety-eight numbers — the seven rows of fourteen. I tried to see if there were any obvious patterns that popped up, you know — numbers one to seven or something straightforward like that, but that didn't work.'
'So what did you do?' Laura asked.
'I wasted a good hour chasing up a blind alley looking at number relations, like doubling the first number — 3.5, 7, 14 — I'm sure Charlie did that deliberately to throw people off the scent. But, after I realised that this was going nowhere, I started to think about the other part of the message — the colours. That's where Dad helped out.'
'I can do more than make the coffee,' Philip said.
'Glad to hear it. This tastes awful,' Laura retorted, pulling a face. 'Just kidding … Go on.'
'Dad was on the computer trying to find out anything he could about the alchemy stuff that Charlie had described, and I was at the table over there using reliable old pen and paper.'
'By happy coincidence, just as Jo got stuck I found out some stuff about the emerald tablet and what alchemists tried to do with the inscriptions on it. There is absolutely nothing on the Net about the ruby sphere, but I guess you would expect that.'
'Come on, then. Tell me. What did you find?' Laura asked impatiently.
'Pretty crazy, most of it,' Philip replied. 'There was no consistency in the work of the alchemists. They were all obsessed with secrecy. You can see why Charlie was attracted to this stuff. It was all about codes and secret languages, one alchemist keeping secrets from another. They certainly didn't like to share, and they each interpreted their findings differently. More often than not the accounts they left of what they discovered contradict each other completely. However.' He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. 'There were a few things they all had in common. First, they all started their experiments with a simple set of chemicals which they mixed together and heated to see what would happen. Second, almost all alchemists used the emerald-tablet texts as their source of information; and from this they followed a sort of "recipe". In almost all accounts, they saw the same thing happen when they heated their mix of chemicals. They saw them change colour. The pattern was always the same — the mixture started off black, turned white, then yellow, then red.'
'Ah.'
'Ah indeed,' Philip said.
'Still didn't get me anywhere,' said Jo, with a grin. 'Except that it made me focus on the colours in Charlie's message, and how they might relate to the table of numbers — Charlie was obviously tying them together. In cryptanalysis everything has a purpose, and Charlie is — was — a master.'
'OK, so what did you do?'
'Nothing much, just stared at the cylinder of numbers,' Jo said. 'And then suddenly I saw it.'
'Saw what?'
'The numbers 5,5,6,3 in one of the columns along the scytale.'
'The word black — five letters, white — five letters, and so on?' Laura asked.
'Precisely. And that, Mother, is called a key.'
'Well, thanks, Jo. I'm not Homer Simpson.'
'The block of text is a set of instructions,' Philip interrupted. He showed Laura a printout.
FIRST OFF. USE THE SAME KEY TO DECODE NEWTON'S DOCUMENT. INTERPRET THE INCANTATION — IT MIGHT INTEREST YOU. THE DIAGRAM SHOWS THE LABYRINTH UNDER THE BODLEIAN. YOU ENTER IT VIA THE TRILL MILL STREAM, DOOR IN WALL SIXTY-THREE PACES IN FROM WEST ENTRANCE. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE
PAGE IS AN ESSENTIAL QUOTE: YOU WILL NEED IT LATER. GOOD LUCK!
'Fantastic, Jo!' Laura exclaimed. 'OK. My turn.' She jumped up from the sofa. 'Newton document, Philip, please,' she said. 'And lots more of your excellent coffee.'
Laura laid out the single page on the table in the dining room. Charlie had used a high-res colour photocopier and every crease and crinkle of the original could be seen on the reproduction. It had a dark ochre tinge and was skirted with white where Charlie had mounted the document on a modern card backing. The lettering was in different shades of grey. Laura assumed that Newton had used different inks and added to the text over a period of time. Around the edges of the page were roughly drawn diagrams and images, symbols and formulae. Laura wondered about the significance of a ram's head, a sun symbol and a few Greek letters. .
At the top it said: PRINCIPIA CHEMICUM by Isaacus Neuutonus and beneath that were two lines of Latin.
'The subtitle is just about the only thing that makes any sort of immediate sense,' said Laura, leaning over the paper with her arms crossed on the table. 'I read that much in the car coming from London.'
'It does?' Philip and Jo said in unison.
'God, where were you two educated? It says "From the Manuscript of the Adept Ripley and Supplemented by My Own Researches and Explorations. Translated from the Original Egyptian Text.'"
The rest of the page was divided almost evenly into two. The first section consisted of lines of writing, made up from a block of letters similar to the text that Charlie had put on the DVD. Under that was a roughly drawn scratchy-looking diagram — a network of interlocking lines that resembled a complex maze of corridors. At the base of the diagram a series of lines threaded their way almost to the foot of the page. Beside this was a single line in plain Latin:
ALUMNUS AMAS SEMPER UNICIUM TUA DEUS
'Over to you again, Mom,' Jo remarked wearily.
'Yes, it's a bit of an odd sentence. Literally, it translates as: "Pupil love always. . er, uniquely, I guess.. thy, your.. God." Which is very clumsy, so I suppose it would better read as something like: "Adept", yes, adept is better for alumnus … "Adept, love always thy God.'"
'"Adept, love always thy God"? A sort of signing-off? A signature at the end of the document?' Philip speculated.
'Could be. Perhaps a sort of general statement for the alchemist, like "God Bless You" or "Best Wishes", maybe.' Laura shrugged. 'Doesn't seem to help much. Let's get to work on this first block, using the key'
'5 5 6 3,' Jo said. 'So, fifth letter, tenth, sixteenth, nineteenth.'
As they went methodically through the text Philip wrote down each letter on a fresh sheet of paper. After a few minutes they had distilled nine lines from it.
'It's Latin again,' Laura noted. 'I can translate the first few words, but there are no breaks.'
After twenty minutes, between them they had arranged the string of letters into a paragraph of Latin words which Laura translated and wrote out on a separate sheet.
You are Mercury the mighty flower, You are most worthy of honour; You are the Source of Sol, Luna and Mars, You are Settler of Saturn and Source of Venus, You are Emperor, Prince and most regal of Kings, You are Father of the Mirror and Maker of Light. You are head and highest and fairest in Sight. All praise thee.
All praise thee. Giver of truth.
We seek, we beseech, we welcome you.
'Twaddle,' Philip snorted.
'Maybe, but it's obviously some sort of incantation. I can only assume this is what the Order of the Black Sphinx use to conjure up Old Nick.'
'And this is what the present-day Order need to carry out the ritual.'
'And what Charlie gave them in altered form,' Philip said.
'Why did he bother changing it if it's all nonsense?' Jo asked.
'Because he's a believer. Never quite understood how someone so intelligent could be taken in by this stuff, but there you are. To Charlie, this incantation was a real way to conjure up the Devil, and to the members of the Order it is too. Newton believed it — but then, he did live in an entirely different age, an era during.which magic and witchcraft were accepted in the way that we accept the principles of science.'
'They can believe in the Loch Ness Monste
r for all I care,' Philip added. 'But we have to do everything we can to stop them committing more murders. And we have just over twelve hours before the next one.'
Laura turned her attention to the diagram. 'This must be the labyrinth,' she said.
'Which you can reach from. . where was it?' Jo asked.
'The Trill Mill Stream.' 'What on earth is that?'
Laura looked at Philip and they both laughed. 'She's only been here a few months, poor love,' Philip said.
Jo rolled her eyes. 'Oh, wise ones, please impart your ancient knowledge.'
'It's quite famous, Jo. A stream that runs under the city from Christ Church Meadow. Its about a mile long. When T. E. Lawrence was young he used to row through it.'
'Really?'
'Yeah, and legend has it that in the 1920s someone found a punt down there with a couple of skeletons in Victorian dress — they had got stuck there and died.'
'Spooky,' Jo said. 'It all sounds like some third-rate horror movie.'
'But I'm afraid it's all horribly true,' said Philip.
'And I think it's time we looked down there for ourselves,' said Laura.
Chapter 34
Oxford: 30 March, noon
The police station was abuzz with activity as DCI John Monroe swung open the doors and strode in. In the reception area two officers were trying to restrain a drunken youth wearing a yellow-and-black football scarf and bobble hat.
'Coachload from Watford. Drunk as skunks,' explained PC Hornet as Monroe approached the desk. Monroe said nothing but slid some papers across the counter towards the duty officer. 'And there's a Mr Bridges in Room 3. Been here half an hour,' Hornet added. 'Also, a witness has come forward about the Lightman disappearance. Old lady reckons she saw the professor being dragged from a car by two men, just outside her house on Norham Gardens. Here's the report.'
Monroe waved a silent thanks and headed along the corridor off the main reception area. He glanced at the report but decided to save it for later. Entering
Interview Room 3, he saw Malcolm Bridges sitting at a table placed under a window on the far side of the room.
'Mr Bridges, I'm sorry for the delay.'
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