The Fangs of the Dragon by Simon Cheshire Read Free Book Online Page B

suddenly become thicker again when the pen was dipped. In all it said:
    Now, three by itself of eighth, solar revolutions twenty from Bonaparte’s fall, and nine, I hereby veil my dark and mighty treasure.
    Through its right eye, it sees a bullet-line down half a corner. Through its left eye, the canvas.
    Bisect and again, and lo! the needle’s mark, Rome’s war-god steps to the circle’s edge.
    Eastward the sky, westward the earth, northward we go and beneath.
    Mirror the prize and see the trees, fall from the glass and feel the soil.
    Down, and down, and where the saucer goes, go I.
    SM
    ‘Well,’ said Jack, reading the paper again over my shoulder, ‘I’ve come across some obscure treasure trails in my time, but that takes the cake!
It’s gobbledegook. It’s a joke, it has to be.’
    ‘It’s not gobbledegook,’ I said, peering closely at the parchment in the grey light from the window. ‘It’s simply a complicated puzzle. It leads to this “dark
and mighty treasure”, I’m sure of it. It’s far too elaborate to be nothing more than a practical joke.’
    ‘OK, then, make sense of just one line,’ said Jack. ‘Show me exactly what one line means, and I’ll believe you.’
    I read through the words again. They certainly appeared to defy logic! But, assuming that I was right and that they did actually mean something, it was possible to make a guess about what
the first line might mean. After all, if you were writing an important document, what would you be most likely to put at the top?
    ‘I can tell you the exact date on which this was written,’ I said.
    ‘Oh yeh?’ said Jack.
    ‘Oh yeh,’ I said. ‘I just need to check a historical fact.’
    I flipped my phone open and called The Fountain of All Knowledge, or Izzy, as she prefers to be called. ‘Quick fact-check,’ I said. ‘Could you look up the date on which
Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated?’
    ‘Who?’ muttered Muddy.
    ‘French bloke. Late eighteenth century, early nineteenth,’ I said. ‘I think. If I’m remembering what I read in The Boy’s Big Encyclopedia of Facts correctly.’
    There was a click on the line as Izzy returned. ‘Battle of Waterloo,’ she said. ‘1815. Is something interesting going on?’
    ‘Something very interesting indeed. I’ll get back to you. I may need a lot of background info finding on this one.’
    I pocketed my phone, turned to Jack, and pointed out the first line on the treasure ‘map’, up to the bit that said ‘my dark and mighty treasure’.
    ‘There’s the date,’ I said.
    My maths is generally about as strong as a soggy tissue, but with a bit of lateral thinking and a bit of simple maths I could see that the first part of the sentence was a date and a month. And
then, using a bit of maths and a bit of general science knowledge, I could see that the second part of the sentence gave a year.
    Can you work it out?

 
    ‘This was written on 9 August 1844,’ I said.
    Now, three by itself of eighth, solar revolutions twenty from Bonaparte’s fall, and nine . . .
    ‘Three by itself of eighth,’ I said. ‘Our whoever-it-was is putting the date at the top of his work. “Three by itself” could be simply the number three, on its own?
Not if this is meant to be a puzzle! That would be far too easy. No, I think it’s three times itself, three times three. Nine. Of course, I can’t be sure of that, but I
reckon it’s likely. And “of eighth”? Of the eighth month? August.’
    ‘Hmm, s’pose so,’ said Jack doubtfully.
    ‘Next, the year. “Solar revolutions”? Well, one revolution of the sun means one year, right? We did that in science ages ago, yes? So, twenty years from
“Bonaparte’s fall”, and then another nine. Napoleon was defeated in 1815, add twenty-nine and you get 1844.’
    ‘Why not take away twenty-nine?’ said Muddy.
    ‘Because you’d be dating your document before “Bonaparte’s fall”,’ said Jack, ‘and that wouldn’t make sense,