Read Online The Fangs of the Dragon by Simon Cheshire - Free Book Online
Authors: Simon Cheshire
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corner?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘It must mean the dead centre of the wall. Whichever way you halve the wall, top to bottom or corner to corner, you’ll get the same thing.
The centre.’
Hurriedly, Muddy fetched a ball of string and a marker pen from his bag. Standing on a packing crate, I held one end of the string at the top left corner of the wall, Jack held the other end at
the bottom right, and Muddy marked the line. Once the second line was drawn, bottom left to top right, we had our mark!
We stood back from the wall. None of us said anything, but there was a tangible sense of nervous anticipation in the room, an eager thrill of discovery.
Rome’s war-god steps to the circle’s edge.
‘Logically, we must now need to go somewhere from the centre point we’ve just marked,’ I said. ‘And this next line on the parchment implies we go to the edge of a circle.
Or at least, I think that’s what it implies.’
‘With the centre point as the centre of the circle?’ said Jack.
‘But how big a circle?’ said Muddy.
We stood there pondering for a few moments. The late morning sunshine threw geometric shapes of light across the wall.
‘I wonder if this bit about Rome’s war-god is a measurement?’ I said, more to myself than the others. ‘A measurement of the size of the circle, maybe?’
‘Well, the Roman god of war was Mars,’ said Jack. ‘We know that from doing Ancient Rome in class last year. But we need a number, not a name.’
‘The Romans used letters for numbers!’ cried Muddy suddenly. ‘Is that it?’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘The only letter in ‘Mars’ they used was the M, and that equalled one thousand. A thousand of anything would be too big a measurement to fit on the
wall.’
‘How about the planet Mars?’ I said. ‘Our friend Silas seems to like these little cross-references, doesn’t he. Mars is the fourth planet. Hang on, is it? Er . . .
Mercury, Venus, Earth . . . yes, Mars is fourth, definitely. There’s a possible number.’
‘Yeh, but four what?’ said Jack. ‘What’s the unit of measurement? Good grief, look at us, doing maths in our spare time! Mrs Penzler would be delighted!’
‘Four . . . “steps”, presumably,’ I said, frowning. ‘Rome’s war-god steps to the circle’s edge.’
‘But how big is a step?’ said Jack. ‘It depends how long your legs are!’
‘And how do we walk along the wall to measure them?’ said Muddy.
‘It can’t literally mean steps, as such,’ I said. ‘Remember, this is a puzzle. The word “step” must translate into our missing unit of measurement somehow.
Silas must have wanted to indicate something standard, something that would be meaningful to whoever was meant to follow the trail, something that in 1844 would be —’
I stopped in mid-sentence. My eyes darted to Muddy’s rucksack.
‘Muddy, have you got a ruler?’
Muddy quickly ferreted around in the bag. He pulled out a round, chunky object and handed it over.
‘Muddy,’ said Jack, ‘that’s just a tape measure with a label saying Whitehouse Measure-Tek 2000 stuck on it!’
‘Shut uuuup!’ said Muddy. ‘It does the job!’
I pulled out a length of the metal measuring tape, and twisted it over to read the markings printed on its yellow surface.
‘Of course, feet and inches!’ I cried. ‘Old-fashioned feet and inches. We think of everything in metres, don’t we? But lots of people still use feet and inches, and
people in 1844 wouldn’t have used anything else. The measurement is four feet! That’s the radius of the circle!’
‘Eh?’ said Jack.
‘I told you, “steps” must indicate a unit of measurement,’ I said. ‘What do you step with? Feet. Four feet to the circle’s edge. Terrible example of
word-substitution, but it fits.’
Using the tape measure locked off at the right length, and keeping one end of the tape positioned over the centre point of the wall, we marked out a huge circle.
‘Hey, we’re
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘It must mean the dead centre of the wall. Whichever way you halve the wall, top to bottom or corner to corner, you’ll get the same thing.
The centre.’
Hurriedly, Muddy fetched a ball of string and a marker pen from his bag. Standing on a packing crate, I held one end of the string at the top left corner of the wall, Jack held the other end at
the bottom right, and Muddy marked the line. Once the second line was drawn, bottom left to top right, we had our mark!
We stood back from the wall. None of us said anything, but there was a tangible sense of nervous anticipation in the room, an eager thrill of discovery.
Rome’s war-god steps to the circle’s edge.
‘Logically, we must now need to go somewhere from the centre point we’ve just marked,’ I said. ‘And this next line on the parchment implies we go to the edge of a circle.
Or at least, I think that’s what it implies.’
‘With the centre point as the centre of the circle?’ said Jack.
‘But how big a circle?’ said Muddy.
We stood there pondering for a few moments. The late morning sunshine threw geometric shapes of light across the wall.
‘I wonder if this bit about Rome’s war-god is a measurement?’ I said, more to myself than the others. ‘A measurement of the size of the circle, maybe?’
‘Well, the Roman god of war was Mars,’ said Jack. ‘We know that from doing Ancient Rome in class last year. But we need a number, not a name.’
‘The Romans used letters for numbers!’ cried Muddy suddenly. ‘Is that it?’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘The only letter in ‘Mars’ they used was the M, and that equalled one thousand. A thousand of anything would be too big a measurement to fit on the
wall.’
‘How about the planet Mars?’ I said. ‘Our friend Silas seems to like these little cross-references, doesn’t he. Mars is the fourth planet. Hang on, is it? Er . . .
Mercury, Venus, Earth . . . yes, Mars is fourth, definitely. There’s a possible number.’
‘Yeh, but four what?’ said Jack. ‘What’s the unit of measurement? Good grief, look at us, doing maths in our spare time! Mrs Penzler would be delighted!’
‘Four . . . “steps”, presumably,’ I said, frowning. ‘Rome’s war-god steps to the circle’s edge.’
‘But how big is a step?’ said Jack. ‘It depends how long your legs are!’
‘And how do we walk along the wall to measure them?’ said Muddy.
‘It can’t literally mean steps, as such,’ I said. ‘Remember, this is a puzzle. The word “step” must translate into our missing unit of measurement somehow.
Silas must have wanted to indicate something standard, something that would be meaningful to whoever was meant to follow the trail, something that in 1844 would be —’
I stopped in mid-sentence. My eyes darted to Muddy’s rucksack.
‘Muddy, have you got a ruler?’
Muddy quickly ferreted around in the bag. He pulled out a round, chunky object and handed it over.
‘Muddy,’ said Jack, ‘that’s just a tape measure with a label saying Whitehouse Measure-Tek 2000 stuck on it!’
‘Shut uuuup!’ said Muddy. ‘It does the job!’
I pulled out a length of the metal measuring tape, and twisted it over to read the markings printed on its yellow surface.
‘Of course, feet and inches!’ I cried. ‘Old-fashioned feet and inches. We think of everything in metres, don’t we? But lots of people still use feet and inches, and
people in 1844 wouldn’t have used anything else. The measurement is four feet! That’s the radius of the circle!’
‘Eh?’ said Jack.
‘I told you, “steps” must indicate a unit of measurement,’ I said. ‘What do you step with? Feet. Four feet to the circle’s edge. Terrible example of
word-substitution, but it fits.’
Using the tape measure locked off at the right length, and keeping one end of the tape positioned over the centre point of the wall, we marked out a huge circle.
‘Hey, we’re
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