Double or Die

  ‘The next logical step,’ he went on, ‘would be to assume that there are seven distinct parts to the letter, each one giving us a different clue.’

  James read the letter aloud.

  ‘Alexis Fairburn, London, seventh of December 1934. My dear Pritpal, it’s not every Tuesday one comes across seven boys with a love of crosswords. Don’t feel down! The mighty Crossword Society will easily solve puzzles by themselves, now that I am gone.

  ‘As I am sure the almighty Elliot will have explained, I have had to leave Eton. In fact I am leaving the country. My next crossword will be my last, as I will be gone before my next deadline.

  ‘The next part we’ve done,’ said James, and jumped ahead. ‘I will leave behind many happy memories. As you know, I was a boy at Eton myself. How well I remember scoring the winning try in the Field Game against the Duffers, and coxing the Callisto in the parade of boats on June the Fourth.

  ‘Yes, there are many things I shall miss about the old place. Apart from you lads in the Crossword Society (of course) I will miss Latin lessons most of all. I love all those old stories of ancient Rome, like Nero’s great love affair with Cleopatra. You should try to visit the great necropolis in Porta Alta one day and see the marvellous statue of him gazing across towards her obelisks.

  ‘Eton is a place like no other, with its own marvellous traditions. I shall really miss watching the Wall Game, but perhaps every time I read the famous poem, “The Wall Game”, by David Balfour, it will all come back to me, as vividly as if I was still standing there… Come on, we cry, ignore the pain! Tingling with excitement in the rain …’

  ‘You can skip the poem,’ said Tommy. ‘Go on to the last bit.’

  ‘In closing, then,’ James continued, ‘whatever you do, don’t give up on crosswords. I know not everyone enjoys crosswords like you do. For instance, your messmate, the runner, must accept what he is and begin to mature. Yours, AF.’ ‘Right,’ said Tommy. ‘We’re looking for seven sections. Well, there’s the first bit, about the Crossword Society and leaving the school. Then there’s the bit you’ve already solved, with the false names. Then there’s the bit about the Field Game and the parade of boats. That’s three.’

  ‘Then there’s the odd stuff about Nero and Cleopatra,’ said James. ‘That makes four.’

  ‘Nero was never in love with Cleopatra, was he?’ said Tommy.

  ‘No,’ said Pritpal, ‘that was Marc Antony and Julius Caesar. Nero came a lot later.’

  ‘Then there’s the rotten poem about the Wall Game,’ said James. ‘That’s five. And finally, the bit about me not liking crosswords.’

  ‘That’s only six,’ said Tommy. ‘What have we missed?’

  ‘The date!’ said Pritpal excitedly, circling the false date at the top of the letter.

  ‘What could it mean, though?’ said James. ‘The seventh of December, nineteen thirty-four.’

  ‘It could be a number code,’ said Pritpal. ‘Mister Fairburn is a brilliant mathematician. He is in love with numbers.’

  ‘Seven, twelve, nineteen thirty-four,’ said Tommy. ‘Are the numbers significant?’

  ‘Not in any obvious way,’ said Pritpal, slipping a finger under his turban and scratching his head. ‘They don’t appear to be in any kind of sequence. I cannot see any relationship between them.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not that complicated,’ said James. ‘Maybe they just correspond to letters in the alphabet, or something. You know, like A is one, B is two, and so on.’

  ‘That is possible,’ said Pritpal.

  ‘Seven?’ said Tommy, thinking aloud and counting on his fingers. ‘The seventh letter of the alphabet is G.’

  ‘Then twelve gives us L,’ said Pritpal, who was ahead of him. ‘And then…’

  ‘One thousand nine hundred and thirty-four,’ said James, sourly. ‘That’s no good.’

  ‘Perhaps one nine three four?’ said Tommy. ‘A, I, C, D?’

  ‘ “Glaicd”?’ said James. ‘What kind of a word is that?’

  ‘No,’ said Pritpal. ‘We are barking up the wrong tree.’

  ‘What if each number somehow gave us a word, then?’ said James. ‘Instead of a letter.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ said Pritpal.

  James stood up and walked over to the card.

  ‘What if we count the words?’ he said. ‘From the top of the letter, ignoring the date? We’ve got seven, twelve and nineteen thirty-four. So we count seven along, then one, then two, then one again, then nine, three, four…’

  James went through the letter, underlining the words as he came to them.

  ‘My dear Pritpal, it’s not every Tuesday one comes across seven boys with a love of crosswords. Don’t feel down! The mighty Crossword Society will easily solve puzzles by themselves, now that I am gone.’

  ‘Tuesday, one across, seven down, crossword, solve,’ said Tommy. ‘Clear as mud!’

  ‘They are crossword clues,’ cried Pritpal. ‘He’s telling us to solve two clues in a crossword puzzle on Tuesday – one across and seven down.’

  ‘Today is Tuesday,’ said James. ‘But which puzzle?’

  ‘The Times,’ said Pritpal, slapping his forehead. ‘Fairburn’s puzzle appears in The Times every Tuesday.’

  ‘Do you have it?’ said James.

  ‘Of course,’ said Pritpal, hurrying out of the room. ‘But in all the excitement today I haven’t even looked at it yet.’

  4

  Ape X

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Tommy. ‘Why has this crazy beak gone to so much trouble?’

  ‘He obviously doesn’t want any of the masters to know what’s going on,’ said James. ‘It’s like a game. Us versus Them. We have to keep it secret from Codrose. It’s for our eyes only.’

  ‘It had better be worth all this brain ache,’ said Tommy.

  ‘Anything that gets one over on the beaks is a good thing in my book,’ said James, smiling.

  Presently Pritpal bustled back in, waving the newspaper.

  ‘I have it,’ he said, and he put the paper on the table and opened it at the crossword page.

  ‘You’re going to have to show us how to do these cryptic crosswords,’ said James. ‘What was that clue last night? Something about a top-secret monkey.’

  ‘The answer was “apex”,’ said Pritpal.

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ said James.

  ‘What is an apex?’ said Pritpal.

  ‘It’s the top of something,’ said Tommy.

  ‘Yes.’ Pritpal grinned. ‘That’s the first bit of the clue, the word “top”. To be really fair the setter will put a normal crossword clue in. In this case, top, meaning apex. Then the rest of the clue will be a sort of code, a set of cryptic instructions to give you the letters.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow,’ said James. ‘How do the words “secret monkey” give us the letters A-P-E-X?’

  ‘Ape means monkey,’ said Pritpal.

  ‘Yes,’ said James. ‘But why Ape X?’

  ‘What code name would you give to a secret agent?’ asked Pritpal.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said James. ‘Maybe a number?’

  ‘How about Agent X? Or, if he was a monkey, Ape X?’

  The boys laughed.

  ‘That’s too tricky for me,’ said James.

  ‘Don’t give up hope,’ said Pritpal. ‘It just takes a bit of practice. Think of it as a secret code that needs to be cracked. Now, let us look at today’s clues, one across and seven down. Here we are, one across – “Spinning tornado, King Alexander’s problem.” And seven down is “Three-part sporting achievement’s smothered in it.” ’

  ‘Three-part sporting achievement?’ said James. ‘Could that be anything to do with the Triple Cup here at Eton last Easter?’

  ‘Don’t be bamboozled,’ said Pritpal. ‘Don’t try and look for a direct meaning in the words; remember it is a code. The first clue will have nothing to do with a spinning tornado, and the second clue is probably not about a thr
ee-part sporting achievement. In the same way that “top-secret monkey” was not about a monkey.’

  ‘So what are they about, then?’ said Tommy.

  ‘Let us break the clues down,’ said Pritpal. ‘We’ll look at the first one. The answer is two words, of seven letters and four letters.’

  ‘ “Spinning tornado, King Alexander’s problem”…’ said James slowly, hoping that by reading the words they would somehow reveal their meaning.

  ‘The word “spinning”,’ said Pritpal, ‘might mean that we have to spin some of the letters.’

  ‘You mean it might be another anagram?’ said James.

  ‘Very possibly.’

  ‘There are the right number of letters in the words “tornado king” to give us seven and four,’ said Tommy.

  ‘Good,’ said Pritpal. ‘So we need an anagram of “tornado king” that would somehow mean Alexander’s problem.’

  ‘Alexander who?’ said Tommy.

  ‘Who is the most famous Alexander in history?’ said Pritpal.

  ‘Alexander the Great?’ said James.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pritpal. ‘And what do you know about him?’

  ‘That he ruled half the world,’ said James, ‘and he had a horse called Bucephalus.’

  ‘And what problem did he have?’ asked Pritpal.

  ‘I should imagine he had lots,’ said James.

  ‘No. Come on. Do you not know the story of the Gordian knot?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ said James, searching his brain for the information. ‘Didn’t some Persian king tie a knot that was supposed to be impossible to undo?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Pritpal, ‘and he said that whoever could undo it would rule his kingdom.’

  ‘And Alexander didn’t waste any time, did he?’ said James. ‘He just cut the thing in half with his sword.’ He smiled. ‘That’s exactly what I would have done.’

  ‘I know,’ said Pritpal. ‘You are a man of action, James. A blunt object.’

  ‘Not the right sort of man to be solving crossword puzzles,’ said James. ‘I wish I had a sword that could cut through the knots in Fairburn’s cipher.’

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ said Tommy.

  ‘ “Gordian knot” is an anagram of “tornado king”,’ said Pritpal.

  ‘So that’s the answer, then?’ said Tommy. ‘Gordian knot?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Pritpal. ‘Alexander’s problem.’

  ‘But how does that help us?’ said James. ‘We’ve solved the crossword clue, but what is Fairburn trying to tell us?’

  ‘We will have to solve the other clue to find out, I fear,’ said Pritpal. ‘ “Three-part sporting achievement’s smothered in it”. One word, seven letters.’

  But, try as they might, the boys couldn’t solve the clue. Pritpal thought that the answer might be something to do with threes, and they played with every variation of words beginning tri that they could think – trio and triplet and tricycle and triathlon…

  In the end it was something of a relief when they heard a long drawn out shout of ‘B-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oy!’ from the upper boys’ corridor.

  They all three leapt to their feet. One of the senior boys, a member of Library, needed something done – his boots polished, his tea cooked, or an errand run – and it was up to one of the lower boys to do it for him.

  Tommy and Pritpal ran out. James hastily turned the map back round and followed them. Whichever boy arrived last at the Library would have to run the errand.

  As James sprinted down the corridor, easily passing slower boys along the way, he was fruitlessly turning the clues over in his head.

  James couldn’t sleep that night. The clues were still running around his brain, teasing him, taunting him. Odd bits of Fairburn’s cipher swam in and out of focus… Luc Oliver… Speccy Stevens… how well I remember scoring the winning try in the Field Game against the Duffers… I love all those old stories of ancient Rome, like Nero’s great love affair with Cleopatra… Eton is a place like no other… ‘The Wall Game’, by David Balfour… Come on, we cry, ignore the pain… Three-part sporting achievement’s smothered in it…

  The words and phrases stayed with him all through lessons on Wednesday morning, and when he trudged out on to Dutchman’s playing field that afternoon to play the Field Game he was at first distracted and found it hard to concentrate on play.

  A muddy ball in the face soon brought him to his senses, however, and after that he threw himself into the game with his usual blood and guts.

  James was tall for his age, a fast runner and utterly fearless, so he had been selected to play for his House on the lower boys’ team. This match was against another House, and Codrose and Mr Merriot were umpiring.

  The Field Game was unique to Eton and was only played in the Michaelmas half. It wasn’t exactly rugger and it wasn’t exactly football. James had been told that it was similar to American football, but it felt like a weird mixture of sports and he was struggling to learn the rules. This was made doubly hard by the fact that the rules seemed to change from year to year and were constantly being noisily argued over by both teams.

  After half an hour he was covered in mud and bruises. He had been running non-stop. It was raining and there was very little grass left on Dutchman’s. His boots were so clogged with soil that they felt like lead.

  A shout went up from the opposing team.

  ‘Cornering! Sneaking! That’s not allowed, sir!’

  ‘I’ll give it. Sneaking it is.’

  Mr Merriot blew his whistle and play stopped. The two teams rested for a moment and regrouped.

  James bent forward, his hands on his knees, and took a great lungful of air. He hadn’t noticed it while he was playing, but now that there was a pause he realised just how exhausted he was.

  It was fatal to stop running, because his brain was soon filling up with words – trident, triangle, triplet. He shook his head.

  Stop it!

  Play resumed and James was soon involved in a bully. He linked arms with six players on his own side; they got their heads down and then locked with the other team. Spread out behind him were the rest of the Codrose players, four Behinds, Flying Man, Short, Long and Goal.

  The ball was passed in to the bully and the boys started trying to grab it with their feet. The Codrose bully surged forward and James found that he had the ball between his boots. He dribbled it along the ground. It was a little smaller than a football and quite heavy. Suddenly the bully broke apart and James found he still had possession. He powered ahead, controlling the ball with his feet. It was absolutely forbidden to pick it up: not even the two boys defending the goals were allowed to touch it with their hands.

  He suddenly noticed that he had an open space in front of him and a clear run to the Timbralls’ line. All he had to do now was cross over and touch the ball down, scoring a try.

  No. Not a try, he reminded himself, that was rugby, in the Field Game it was called a rouge.

  James’s mind wandered again. What had Fairburn said in his letter? How well I remember scoring the winning try in the Field Game against the Duffers . . . That must be significant. Why had he put try instead of rouge…?

  A barrage of screams from the Codrose supporters dragged him back into the game. He was inches away from the Timbralls’ line. What were they shouting?

  Oh, yes. He wasn’t allowed to kick the ball directly over the line.

  Hell. These rules were so complicated. It was just like doing a cryptic crossword puzzle. You couldn’t take the most obvious route. You couldn’t just run down the field and put the ball straight over the line. You had to go round the houses. Without rules there was no game, he supposed. It was just a free-for-all. James didn’t much care for rules. He knew how Alexander had felt when he sliced though that knot with his sword.

  The only way he could score was if the ball was last touched by a defender before crossing the line.

  Well, that could be achieved.

  He turned sharp right just befor
e the line, then ran straight at a defender, who was bearing down on him at great speed. At the last moment James kicked the ball at him with all his strength. It got him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. The boy’s body absorbed most of the impact and the ball dropped a couple of feet over the touchline. James fell on it and the cheers from the spectators told him that he had managed to score the precious rouge.

  His team ran over and congratulated him.

  Now, to gain extra points, they would try to ram the ball.

  A defender from Timbralls took up the position of Post, standing a yard in front of the goal with the ball between his feet. The rest of the defenders dug in to try and protect him and the ball. The Post was a stocky lad, and he would need all his strength because the attackers were going to try and force him over the line.

  James and the three biggest members of the Codrose team grabbed hold of each other by the waist and charged forward. There was a loud thud as the leader’s head battered into the enemy defenders.

  Instantly there was chaos as both teams pushed and shoved.

  Someone jammed a knuckle into James’s ear and a flailing boot caught his shins. He was crushed from both sides and couldn’t breathe. He was smothered – surrounded by the other boys – but he hardly noticed. His brain was working again. Those damned clues were swarming around him like flies.

  Rouge… Try… Three-part sporting achievement… Trio… Triplet…

  Try…

  A try was a sporting achievement.

  Three-part sporting achievement’s smothered in it.

  What if the word try smothered the words in and it?

  Suddenly something gave, the defenders fell, the ram collapsed and everyone was tumbling to the ground.

  As the various bodies picked themselves up and the area was cleared, they discovered that the ball had just got over the line.

  Another cheer went up and Mr Merriot blew his whistle for half-time.

  As his teammates slapped him on the back, James limped off the field. His ear was ringing and his face was a mask of mud, but he had only one thought in his mind.

  Pritpal had been watching the match with the other Codrose supporters on the touchline. James went straight over to him and before Pritpal could say anything, James grabbed him by the shoulders.