Finding Arcadia

by Chesterman, Simon;

  “Timing device? What does it say?”

  “2:48.”

  “A clock? So it’s almost two hours slow. Is that good?”

  “Not exactly. It says two minutes and forty-eight—sorry, forty seconds.”

  Henry’s mouth starts to form a word and stops as tears well in his eyes. But she must focus.

  Three wires. Red, blue, green. The timer and the doughy substance are fixed into the box, though the wires seem to invite cutting. But which one? Or all of them?

  A note addressed to her. “To Arcadia, with Love.”

  She lifts the front panel and looks at it more closely, turning it over. On the side facing the interior of the box there is more engraving.

  Dear Arcadia,

  Cutting one of the wires—one and only one of them—may stop the timer. I promise that this much is true. Next I can assure you that one and only one of the following statements is true: green when cut will stop the timer; snipping the blue will not stop the timer; or it might be that green when cut will not stop the timer. Onward now—never say die!

  M.

  M? Surely not Magnus. His absence is odd but in any case he would never address any missive “with love”. Other Ms? No time. File for later.

  Two minutes, ten seconds.

  “Magnus!” she calls again. She could go to the corridor but abandoning Henry might cause him to panic. And lose precious time.

  So think. A puzzle, addressed to her. Another code? Not quite.

  Cut one wire. Swiss Army knives have been made for over a century, but acquired their name only after the Second World War because American soldiers couldn’t pronounce Offiziersmesser—“officer’s knife” in German. Scissors are not always one of the tools included, but hers has a pair. She folds the screwdriver back and extracts the scissors. Small, but certainly capable of cutting a low-voltage electrical wire. So which one?

  Two minutes.

  Cut one and only one wire. If that is untrue then the whole riddle makes no sense. But only one of the next three statements is true. Green stops the bomb. Blue does not stop the bomb. Green does not stop the bomb.

  The first and third cannot both be true: green cannot stop and not stop the bomb.

  What about red? What happens if you cut the red wire?

  One minute, forty-seven seconds.

  Remain calm. Be systematic. One and only one can be true. There are only three statements.

  If the first is true, that green stops the bomb, then it is false that green does not stop the bomb, so the third statement is false. But the second statement, that blue does not stop the bomb, would then be true. Two statements are true so that cannot be it.

  Henry is trying to sit up, seeing something in her expression. “Be still,” she says, a little more loudly than intended. He is still.

  One minute, thirty-two seconds.

  If the second statement is true, then blue does not stop the bomb. So it could be red or green. But just as the first and third statements cannot both be true, they also cannot both be false. If the first statement is false then green does not stop the bomb—but if the third statement is false then green does stop the bomb. Contradiction again, so that can’t be the answer.

  A familiar buzzing noise. Not from the device, but her phone, vibrating within her bag. Not the time to answer it.

  One minute, five seconds.

  Calm. Systematic.

  If the third statement is true, then green does not stop the timer. So blue or red. But the other two statements must be false. If the first statement is false, then green does not stop the bomb. So far, so good. And if the second statement is false…

  She reaches into the box and carefully separates the wires with her fingers. Holding it between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, she holds her breath also and cuts the blue wire with the Swiss Army knife scissors.

  Forty-seven seconds.

  She watches the timer for a full five seconds, but it does not change. Then it emits an ascending series of beeps in what is presumably intended to be a cheerful tune and the three digit display briefly registers “OFF” before going dark.

  Exhale.

  A more genuine smile at Henry. “I think we can try to take this off now.”

  He wipes his eyes and sits up, as she reaches around his torso to unclip the straps. Wires are sewn into the canvas straps, but the plastic clips that secure them have no metal contact points. Curious.

  Straps loose, the device is light in her hands. Henry looks inside it for the first time and catches his breath again. “Is it safe now?”

  “I think so,” she says, placing it carefully on his desk.

  They are sitting on Henry’s bed. Knees just touching. Yet somehow it does not feel awkward.

  A buzzing noise again. Her phone. She retrieves it and sees that it is Magnus calling. The previous call was him also. She picks up.

  “Arcadia?” He sounds agitated.

  “Yes, Magnus? What’s wrong?”

  “They won’t let me into Hall. I’ve explained that I’m an Old Boy but they say I must be accompanied by a current student. If you’ve finished up there, perhaps you could come and join me? By all means invite what’s-his-name also.”

  “Henry.” Her brother’s appetites often drive his behaviour, but this is extreme even for him.

  “Yes, Henry,” he repeats. “So I’ll see you soon?”

  “Very well.” She puts the phone back in her bag, trying to work out what she missed. To Henry: “Magnus is in Hall. Do you feel like some afternoon tea?”

  “No thanks. But I’ll walk out to the quad with you. I think fresh air might do me some good.”

  They stand and she retrieves her coat from the chair as Henry takes his down from a hook on the wall. Only now, she sees that Magnus must have picked up his own when he left to answer the telephone. Not planning to return.

  “Wait,” Henry says. “Do we need to stay here until the bomb squad arrives?”

  “I don’t think we will be needing a bomb squad,” she replies, putting the engraved front panel from the device in her bag and opening the door.

  “Why?” Henry follows her into the corridor that runs the length of the dormitory.

  “I need to speak with Magnus first,” she replies. “Though I think the danger has now passed.”

  Henry is about to say something when they reach the stairs and almost collide with Mr. Pratt. The science teacher was absent from school for a month after a car accident the previous school year, but is now back in rude health. He appears to be on his way to yell at another student for some infraction, though he seizes the opportunity to accost them also.

  “Miss Greentree,” he says. “Would you mind explaining what you are doing on the boys’ floor of the dormitory building? You know very well that boys and girls are to remain on their own floors after 5pm on Sundays.”

  “Yes, Mr. Pratt. It’s not quite five yet, and I was just inviting Henry to join my brother for high tea.”

  “Ah Magnus is back? A good egg, that boy.” A momentary smile, which fades as his face becomes stern again. “If our Acting Headmaster hadn’t taken down half the school’s CCTV cameras we would be able to check your story. But I’m watching you, Miss Greentree. I won’t be forgetting about this morning either, so you had best mind your step. Move along.”

  A dismissive wave and he is gone. She has not seen Mr. Pratt all weekend and spent the morning in her rooms and the library. Possibly the onset of mental illness? Mad cow disease, perhaps.

  They reach the bottom of the stairs and step out into the twilight, the winter sun already dipping below the horizon. She promises to catch up with Henry for cocoa in the student common room, then heads past Chapel and up to Hall where Magnus is waiting inside the foyer. His irritability will dissipate when he eats something; yet more evidence that he labours under some kind of metabolic problem.

  As she swipes her card to let them both into Hall, her brother glares once at the timid member of staff stationed
at the entrance, past whom he apparently failed to talk his way. She herself avoids making eye contact as they head through the huge oak doors and find a table in the corner.

  Once there, she takes the metal panel from her bag and drops it on the table between them with a dull clang that echoes through Hall. “When did you realise that the ‘bomb’ was fake?”

  Magnus is craning his neck looking for the trolley. “What?” he says absently. “Oh surely it was obvious from the moment we stepped inside the room. The smell of the playdough took me back to my toddler days when Mother would try to get us to sculpt with the stuff.” A flicker of a smile. “Unfortunately my attempts to preserve one or two sculptures by baking them in the kitchen oven led to concern on her part and new rules that one had to be at least six before one could operate the gas flame appliances in the kitchen. I think she discarded much of the family playdough after that, but surely it must have been inflicted on you at pre-school also?”

  The smell. But hardly conclusive without more? Magnus is still looking for the trolley.

  “Of course that’s hardly conclusive without more,” he continues. “So I kept an open mind. When unscrewing the front panel, however, I saw that the wires ostentatiously sewn into the straps did not actually connect to any kind of detonation mechanism. Someone had gone to a reasonable amount of trouble to make it appear that they were linked to a tamper-proof switch, but they did not. Ergo elaborate hoax.”

  More. But not enough. She presses: “How does a faulty tamper mechanism prove that the bomb itself is not dangerous?”

  “Well, ‘prove’ is a very strong word. I was thinking in terms of probabilities. All this added to the fact that the ‘bomb’ appears to have been more of a letter to you suggests that this was a way of gaining your attention rather than blowing you or what’s-his-name up. I figured, as it was addressed to you, that I would let you read the note in private.”

  “Henry,” she corrects absently. Still not enough. Magnus could be coldly rational, but even a low probability of his sister being killed would encourage him to act rather than walk away. Something more.

  “The phone call,” she says.

  Magnus has spotted the trolley and is waving it over eagerly.

  His phone ringing was the ostensible reason for his departure but she did not see the number. He went outside to answer it and did not return. Whose call would be sufficient to leave his sister with a bomb, even if it may be fake?

  “So who called?”

  “All in good time, sister dear,” he replies as the trolley approaches. “I am cultivating a lead, but have promised to be discreet.”

  A lead into what? Six months ago, Arcadia discovered that she was adopted. The following day, her father was murdered and her mother left in a coma, where she still lingers. As the months pass, the chances of a recovery diminish, though the doctors—and the reams of medical literature she has consulted—still hold out small rays of hope. The late Headmaster of the Priory School confessed to the attack, but his connection to Sophia Alderman and the “professor” of whom they spoke remains unclear. Headmaster’s death and Miss Alderman’s flight have left few clues.

  Is it coincidence that her brother’s arrival is the same afternoon that an elaborate hoax presents her with a puzzle similar to the ones Headmaster used to pass to Mother? “Magnus, why did you say I had invited you to visit me? You arrived without any notice.”

  “You said that I was always welcome.”

  “It was a figure of speech, Magnus.”

  “It was an invitation.”

  The trolley has just pulled up beside them. “In any event,” Magnus says, reaching for a plate of scones, “I was correct, yes? A fake bomb and a letter for you?” A globule of strawberry jam falls from the overburdened spoon he is ferrying towards the scones. “So what did the letter say?”

  She declines a scone proffered by the server and looks down at the metal panel. Turning it over reveals the odd instructions for defusing the “bomb”. Only now seeing that the instructions were to stop the timer. A clue missed.

  Magnus glances at it as he reaches for the clotted cream. “Those people in Devon don’t know what they’re talking about,” he mutters. “What’s the point of clotted cream if it isn’t on top?” A plum-sized dollop is carefully balanced on each jam-smeared half-scone. “So how many seconds did it take before you cut the blue wire?”

  “I was also dealing with Henry by myself at that point.” She sounds defensive.

  “Yes of course.” He is deciding which of the scones to eat first. “But surely less than a minute? Not that it mattered, since the inscription makes it clear that this is only about stopping a timer. You wouldn’t have missed that clue, surely?”

  She is accustomed to her brother trying to get a rise out of her and does not respond to the bait. “I was rather wondering if you had any idea who ‘M’ might be.”

  “No idea,” he responds, a tad quickly. “Though I guess we’ll know soon enough since he is ‘coming soon’.” He laughs at what he appears to think was a little joke, then looks at her in mock concern. “Oh dear dear,” he says. “You’ve had this for half an hour and you still haven’t seen the message within the message? Heavens, this school really is sapping the intellect from you. ‘M’. Initial. Punctuation?” He feigns exasperation: “No one signs off with a single letter and adds a full stop. Hence the clue to look at first letters and punctuation marks. Take the first letter of the first word after each punctuation mark and you get: ‘Coming soon’.”

  A code within a code. An echo from the past. “But who, who is ‘coming soon’?”

  “I’ve absolutely no idea,” Magnus replies, lifting the first of the freshly-baked scones to his mouth. His eyes close as he bites into the scone, its covering of strawberry jam and clotted cream brimming to the edge. For the first time today, he gives her a full and genuine smile. As he licks stray jam from his fingers, a fleck of cream is left adorning the end of his nose. She could tell him, but he will discover it soon enough.

  At least by the time he returns to his rooms in Cambridge.

  2

  STARR

  “All right, all right, settle down.”

  Mr. Ormiston lacks the former Headmaster’s imposing style, though he makes up for it in the evident passion he brings to every aspect of his job. Whereas his predecessor, Charles Milton, withdrew into administration, observing students at a distance through his network of cameras and a continual stream of reports, Mr. Ormiston not only continues to teach but also holds regular lunches with small groups of students.

  Familiarity does breed a small amount of contempt, however, and one consequence is a certain rowdiness at Hall.

  The din reduces to a murmur, sufficient for Mr. Ormiston to indicate that the music for the national anthem should begin.

  God save our gracious Queen!

  Long live our noble Queen…

  Standing beside her, Henry appears to have recovered fully from the previous day’s adventure. Physically, at least. By the time her brother had left and she caught up with him in the student common room, he was sipping thoughtfully on a mug of cocoa. They are both taciturn by nature, but even as she explained that the bomb was fake, there was a new quietness—a new distance between them.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, breaking one of many silences. “I don’t understand why you’re still acting in this way. Like you don’t need any help. Like you have to take on the world yourself. A sane person calls the police when there’s a bomb. Even a fake bomb. When their friend is drugged. But to you it’s—what, a puzzle? A game?”

  At the time she was going to explain that she and Magnus were trying to gather information. That the police would have interfered. Been too late. Not believed; not understood. But she also knows the rush as the timer counted down towards zero. The increase in her heart rate. Cutting the blue wire. Being right.

  What she said was “sorry” and promised to tell him more when she could. Extending the distan
ce between them, which remains even now as she stands next to him in Hall, voices together in the final lines:

  Long to reign over us:

  God save The Queen!

  They sit.

  Standing beside Mr. Ormiston on the stage is a man she has not seen before. Suit fits him well, but the spectacles are unfashionable. Wealthy, or coming from money. Something of an intellectual? Potentially a guest speaker, though they tend to be more recognisable faces. A new teacher perhaps. Biology at last?

  Now that she is in lower sixth, the first of two years that lead to the completion of A-levels, she has narrowed down her specialisations and biology is one of them. Mr. Ormiston has been gamely trying to teach it, but he remains at best one week ahead of his students in the textbook.

  “Good morning everyone,” he says. “As you may recall, we have for some time followed the tradition of new teachers at the Priory School being asked to introduce themselves at morning Hall. We are pleased that today we welcome another addition to the teaching staff, but I thought we might experiment with something a little different. I am therefore asking a student to provide the introduction. Master Stamford?”

  Beside her, Henry stands and then walks to the stage, removing a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. He clears his throat. Why did he not tell her that he had been asked to do this?

  “On behalf of the Priory School, it is my pleasure to welcome our new biology teacher, Dr. Lysander Starr. Dr. Starr studied at Imperial College and holds a graduate degree from Oxford. He is now a faculty member at the University of Reading in the School of Biological Sciences, where he teaches biological anthropology.”

  Biology, then. But why is a university scientist moving to a secondary school?

  “Dr. Starr’s new position as Head of Biology at the Priory School,” Henry continues, “will be a joint position with his role at Reading.”

  A joint position is unusual but not unheard of. Reading is decent enough, but school literature rarely highlights graduates of the Priory School who go to red brick universities.