Raising Arcadia

by Simon Chesterman

  She smiles. “A nice puzzle, which can be completed without touching a single matchstick. One merely needs to turn the equation upside down — or switch to your side of the desk — and it reads: ‘X = I + IX’, or ‘ten equals one plus nine’.”

  “Very good,” he says, “but a comparatively simple puzzle. Here is a more complex one. I will write down a series of numbers. Your task is to identify the next number in the sequence.” He takes a sheet of paper from the drawer of his desk and proceeds to write the following sequence of numbers, passing it to her:

  2, 4, 6, 30, 32, 34, 36, 40, 42, 44, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56, 60, 62, 64, 66, ___

  Interesting. An ascending sequence, but not linear. Not geometric either, as the intervals rise and fall. A pattern nonetheless, certain numbers ending in two, four, six, and zero. Though of course zero itself is not included. And at thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty the zero is not articulated…

  “Two thousand.”

  Now both eyebrows go up. “You are sure?”

  “Yes, sir. These are all numbers without the letter ‘e’ in them. After sixty-six, the next such number is two thousand.”

  “Excellent,” Headmaster smiles. “Your lateral thinking skills are progressing just as we hoped.” He coughs and picks up the manila folder on the desk before him. “And now perhaps we may turn to the matter of which I spoke?”

  Again, she nods and Headmaster continues. “As you know, the storied history of this school includes many noteworthy alumni. I shall need to be discreet, but among these are two of the heirs to King Edward’s Chair.”

  “The Throne of England,” she murmurs. It is common knowledge that the sons of Prince Charles and Lady Diana — second and fifth in line to succeed Queen Elizabeth II — both went to the Priory School.

  “Indeed. The two in question have long since graduated and their achievements are testimony, I like to think, to the upbringing of which our school played a small part. This is a source of enormous pride for all of us here. Recently, however, I chanced upon a document that has caused me some concern.”

  It is odd for Headmaster to confide in her in this way — unless the information could become public soon. Something sufficiently newsworthy and linked to the House of Windsor. Something that would bring the Priory School into disrepute. Given the subsequent behaviour of at least one of the heirs, it is not likely that a youthful indiscretion at school would rise to this level. It had to be something far graver.

  “You think that it might somehow cast doubt upon the parentage of an heir to the throne?”

  A slight widening of the eyes shows her that she is correct, but it is the only outward sign. Headmaster quickly composes himself. “I think nothing. But as you know it is customary for our students to send and receive letters once a week. In the case of one of our distinguished alumni, several of those letters from — shall we say, a non-family member — went missing.”

  One document found, several letters missing. “And you think this document might somehow lead you to the missing letters? To be honest, Headmaster, it sounds like a bit of a wild goose chase. The rumours about the father of the fifth in line to the throne are well-known and well-debunked. Even if there is a stash of letters from a certain captain in the army, do you not think that you might be overreacting?”

  “Perhaps. But humour me and have a look at this.” Headmaster slides the manila folder over towards her.

  Inside are two plastic document sleeves. The first holds a brown envelope, a generic piece of stationery available from the school’s bookstore, now discoloured by dust and mildew, on which a short phrase has been printed: “The Heir Apparent’s Ritual.” Inside the second sleeve is a sheet of A4 paper — again, generic printer paper available at school — on which twelve lines have been printed using a laser printer and a standard font. The sheet of paper has been folded, presumably to be put into the envelope. But from the creases on the paper it has been folded first in half and then the two ends have been folded back out towards the central crease. The effect would have been that upon opening the envelope the paper would have resembled a zig-zag, or a W. Or an M.

  “Where was this found?” she asks.

  “In the ventilation duct of a bedroom on the third floor of the dormitory building. I think you know which room.”

  Yes, the one nearest the fire escape, in which the outlines of a door to an adjoining smaller bedroom for a bodyguard were still visible. “When?”

  “Two weeks ago. There had been a leak in the roof and the ventilation duct was being inspected for water damage. The workers found this and it was brought to me.”

  “The envelope is of a kind that has been on sale at the school bookstore for as long as I have been at the Priory School. Have you tried to date it?”

  “That would be difficult without the proper equipment. The style of envelope has been in use for decades.”

  She looks at the text on the paper inside. A curious passage that is half poem, half treasure map:

  The Heir Apparent’s Ritual

  “Whose was it?”

  “His who is gone.”

  “Who shall have it?”

  “He who will come.”

  “Where was the sun?”

  “At the end of the isle.”

  “On whom did he gaze?”

  “He gazed on the knave.”

  “How was it stepped?”

  “North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by two, west by one and by one, and so under.”

  Clearly something is hidden in this odd piece of dialogue, but what and where? The steps are fairly obvious — though a little overcomplicated since north and south, as well as east and west would cancel each other out to leave sixteen steps north and eight steps east. But starting from where? And why was the sun personified as a he? In Greek and Roman mythology, the sun god is male — Helios and Sol Invictus. But in Norse and Germanic myths the sun is a goddess. Here did it mean the literal sun, shining on the end of the island of Britain? Or onto a knave, perhaps some kind of statue of a fool, or was it a reference to a playing card? Where could one find the sun at the end of an isle?

  And hidden by whom, for whom? The “Heir Apparent” — a term referring to the next in line for the throne, not the second or the fifth in succession. Surely Headmaster must understand this. Unless he does. Of course he does. But the folded paper resembles an M. That speaks volumes. Of course it speaks.

  She scratches her head. “I’m sorry, sir. Clearly it is a set of instructions to find something that belonged to someone who was here, but I don’t see from where you would start. Did the school ever have a sundial?”

  Headmaster’s eyes narrow slightly; he suspects something but is not sure. “Not to my knowledge,” he says after a pause.

  “Or might it mean a flagpole? It is a stretch, but the ‘knave’ could be the jack in the Union Jack. Perhaps it is a reference to the shadow cast by the school flagpole?” The pole rises from a concrete base next to the entrance to the sports field.

  “Perhaps.” Headmaster seems to accept this theory. “Though we have little information about when the shadow is being cast. The sun at the end of the isle could mean the start or the end of the day, but in the course of a year the shadow would move by several yards.”

  “There was nothing else in the envelope?”

  “Nothing.”

  Again she scratches her head, hoping that the gesture does not appear too contrived. “I suppose you could start looking around the flagpole for a suitable location, though that could mean digging up much of the oval. I’m sorry that I can’t be more help.”

  “So am I, Miss Greentree. So am I.”

  There is a knock on the door and Headmaster’s secretary opens it. He scowls. “I said I did not want to be interrupted, Miss Bennett.”

  “Yes, Mr. Milton. I do apologise but we received a call from the police and I thought you might want to speak with them. Should I transfer it?”

  Headmaster stands up. �
��No, you’ll just as likely lose the call as you did last time. I’ll come out.” He turns to her. “We are not quite finished, Miss Greentree. Please wait there.”

  The door is left ajar, but once he is out of sight she stands and examines the bookshelf more closely. Henry’s conversation with Headmaster on Friday that led him to run away and now this artifice about a letter that cannot possibly be about an heir to the throne — though she has a working hypothesis as to whom it does come from. And in the meantime there is the bookshelf. From the scuff marks it is the last section that must be designed to swing out. There is no sign of a latch underneath any of the shelves so she looks carefully at the books until she finds one with a dark patch of residue on its top edge from being pulled back by an index finger. As she reaches up to repeat the action, she examines the spine: a hardback edition of George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. She gently draws the book away from the shelf and a cable releases the latch, allowing the leftmost unit of the bookshelf to swing open on well-oiled hinges.

  The slight scuffing of the carpet is the only sound as she peers into the darkened space beyond. This is soon replaced by the soft hum of computers and monitors. The room is almost as big as the office it adjoins, but it is windowless and appears to have no other exit. A ventilation fan recycles the air, though without fully removing the heavy odour of electricity and heated plastic. To the left is a bank of filing cabinets. To the right is a wall of flat-screen monitors, covering a space twelve feet across from floor to ceiling. Each screen is divided into squares that show a different part of the school, making up a ten-by-ten grid of a hundred cameras feeding — live, evidently — directly into this room. A series of computer servers stands next to the screens, suggesting that recordings are being stored. In the centre of the room is a chair and table with a laptop computer and a printer.

  The cameras around the school, secreted in their dark hemispheres, are not exactly hidden. But the feed would normally be expected to go to a security desk rather than to Headmaster himself. She is about to look more closely at the chair when she observes that the top-left image shows the secretary’s desk outside. Headmaster is putting down the handset of the telephone and so she quickly steps back into the office proper, quietly sliding the bookshelf back into place, restoring Nineteen Eighty-Four to its proper angle, and returning to her chair just as the door to the office swings open.

  Headmaster pauses only for a second as he enters, glancing at the bookshelf before returning his attention to her. “That was the police. It appears that there has been a break-in at your home. They had been unable to contact your parents, but we have now done so. Your mother and father are coming to collect you. I’m not sure that is necessary, but in any event they will be here in twenty minutes.”

  He pauses and a hand straightens the white hair behind his ear, moved out of place once more by the telephone. Another glance at the bookshelf. Does he smell the heated plastic from within his secret office? “Perhaps when you go home you might find that someone has intruded where they should not have,” he says slowly. “Opening doors that had best remain closed. I do hope that you don’t find this too distressing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You may leave now. Oh, and on the first matter we discussed: for form’s sake I would appreciate it if you could find it within yourself to apologise to Master Harker — and to inform him that you were suitably disciplined?”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Very well.” A final glance at the bookshelf then back at her. “That is all.”

  From Headmaster’s office, she walks back towards Hall and into Chapel. The school chaplain is preparing for a service later in the day. He notices her and walks across to offer a greeting.

  “Welcome, Arcadia,” he smiles. “It isn’t often that we see you here outside of Friday morning prayers. Is everything all right?”

  “Actually, Mr. Roundhay, I’ve had some rather bad news. Someone has broken into our home. My parents are on the way to collect me now.” Her face assumes an expression of anxiety and concern.

  “My dear girl, that’s terrible. But no one was injured?”

  “I don’t think anyone was home. But it is very upsetting.”

  “I can only imagine. Well as Proverbs tells us: ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.’ At moments like these, prayer can be a great comfort. Would you like me to pray with you?”

  “That’s very kind of you, Father, but I wondered if I might have a moment alone with the Lord?”

  “Of course, my child. I need to collect some candles from the storeroom anyway. God be with you.”

  She kneels at a pew in the empty Chapel until the chaplain’s footsteps have faded. Then looks up at the crucifix on the wall above the altar at the end of the aisle, from which Christ the son looks down upon the nave. Proverbs is an apposite scriptural reference, as it continues: “lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

  The quotation marks in Headmaster’s riddle bothered her at first, until she realised that they indicated the words were to be said aloud. Add the fact that the letter was folded into an “M” and the puns were fairly clear: sun-son, isle-aisle, knave-nave. Now it is simply a matter of counting out the steps.

  The crucifix is on the eastern wall of Chapel. But how long were the steps to be? Square paving stones on the ground offer the most likely measure. Starting from below the crucifix, she counts out twenty to the north, bringing her to the edge of Chapel and the open door of the vestry. East by ten steps takes her into the vestry, where the chaplain, altar boys, and choristers put on their vestments for the daily school services. She has been in this room only once on a tour of the school, but knows of other students who make it a significant part of their lives. South by four more paving stones brings her to the wall of the vestry and back west by two steps finds her in a corner of the room behind the east wall of the Chapel.

  “And so under,” she whispers to herself. The paving stone on which she finds herself would be impossible for her to lift without tools, but crouching down on the ground she begins to examine the bricks in the adjacent wall. Tapping each one, she soon locates a half-brick that is loose enough to ease out of the wall. It reveals a cavity, large enough for her to reach into. Inside she finds not a bundle of letters but a small object wrapped in a dusty piece of cloth. She unwraps it to reveal a piece of carved metal, the bow at one end reminiscent of a fleur-de-lis connected to a toothed blade: a key.

  She quickly pockets the key, replaces the brick, and returns to the pew. Only when she hears the chaplain returning with his candles does she rise. Crossing herself for good form.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” the chaplain asks her kindly.

  “I’m not sure,” she replies. “But I’ll keep looking.”

  6

  BREAK-IN

  She turns the key over in her pocket as she stands at the school gate, waiting for her parents. The key itself is unremarkable, designed for a pin tumbler lock with grooves down the side and a row of uneven teeth. From a quick inspection it is the same brand as the locks used at school, though she has not yet had a chance to try it on any doors. Engraving on the bow sometimes offers an indication of the use of such a key, but in this case it simply has one letter carved into the metal: an “M”. Coincidence? Probably.

  She waves to Father as their car turns into the school grounds. Mother climbs out to give her a hug; she is clearly distressed but trying to put on a brave face.

  “It’s such an awful business,” Mother says to fill the silence.

  As they begin the drive home, she quickly establishes that little is known. Mother had been out shopping, Father at his clinic but busy with a patient. Some enterprising police officer thought to contact the school to reach their daughter.

  “You haven’t been home yet?”

  “No, Arky,” Mother replies. “Your father wanted to stay together. We thought you had best come w
ith us rather than take a taxi.”

  “Have the police told you anything more?”

  “It was chance that anyone saw the break-in at all. Mrs. Pike happened to be walking her dog and saw a teenager near the house,” Father says, eyes still on the road. “She thought it might have been you until he hopped over the gate. Mrs. Pike has always been a bit nosey, and when she peeked in the window she saw him sneaking about inside. That’s when she called the police. Thank goodness for the old busy-body!”

  “Now Ignatius, we should be grateful to Mrs. Pike,” Mother scolds him gently. “But for her the thief might have taken far more.”

  “Do we know what was taken?” Arcadia asks.

  “The police said the telly was gone, but apart from that they aren’t sure. That’s why they want us to take a look around.”

  “Here we are,” says Father, pulling into their driveway.

  A police van is parked by the side of the road, but the house is quiet. They enter through the front door and much of their home seems untouched. The carpet suggests recent traffic moving across it, but a police officer’s shoes have trampled over what might have been the intruder’s footprints.

  It is only the living room that has obviously been disturbed. In addition to taking the television, the drawer from the desk by the telephone has been emptied onto the floor and various items on the mantelpiece have been knocked down — broken glass from a vase is scattered across the floor. But it looks more like someone making a mess than searching for valuables. The back door is intact and locked once more. She examines it from the outside. Not even a scratch.

  Mother is fiddling with her mobile phone and Father is surveying the damage. She moves upstairs to her own room. Though unlikely to be regarded by anyone as tidy, it is orderly with its piles of papers and half-completed experiments. The police do not appear to have been inside, but someone else has. It takes her a few minutes to identify the signs, as the intruder was very careful. No obvious disturbance of the carpet or the items in the room, but there is something.