inspected for purity. He purchased a set of gold scales and a testing kit and drilled Hawk in the weighing of gold and silver and in the testing of both to see if they were genuine and of what quality, though Hawk often declared himself puzzled that Ikey should wish him to be so interested. One day, while Ikey was explaining the valuation of diamonds and carefully drawing the various cuts of the stones, Hawk signalled that he was impatient with the lesson and wished it to end.
'Please, my dear, you must pay attention!' Ikey had said in something of a panic. 'There is a fortune waiting for you in this knowledge!'
'Why?' Hawk signalled, his face sullen. 'I shall be a brewer. What has the cut of diamonds got to do with the brewing of ale?'
'If you are to get the machinery you will need, and own the land to grow your own hops as you must if you are to succeed, you will pay very close attention to what I say,' Ikey insisted.
Hawk was seldom impolite in his manners and though he knew Ikey to be a villain, he loved him, but now he had had enough. 'I grow weary of this stuff, Ikey. Mary says our great good fortune, our luck is in hard work and the making of good beer, that this is luck more than enough!'
Ikey looked at Hawk and then said quietly, 'Hawk, I shall give you a riddle and you must believe me, should you find the answer you may be halfway to owning a fortune which be a king's ransom!'
Hawk, who was very adroit at listening to his stomach, hearing with his eyes and seeing with his ears as Ikey had taught him, knew with absolute certainty that Ikey was no longer playing, or even attempting to teach him yet another tedious lesson. He indicated to Ikey that he was listening most carefully.
Ikey relaxed, regaining his composure. 'Ah, my dear, you 'ave done well, very well and exceedingly well and weller than most wells and better than most bests. I be most proud, you has the same affinity with numbers as Mary and perhaps you will become even better in time.' Ikey paused and appeared to be momentarily lost in thought, then he looked up at Hawk. 'Words can become numbers, just like the signs you now use to talk to me can become words. There are secret, silent numbers to be found in the most innocent words if you know how to decipher them. A code o' numbers to unlock a fortune!'
Hawk became immediately interested, for not only did he sense that Ikey had never been more serious, but that he was about to give him a riddle. There was nothing he loved more than solving one of his mentor's riddles. His eyebrow arched and his hands motioned Ikey to continue.
'Here is a riddle made to a poem to test you beyond all solving, my dear. But should you solve it, it be half o' the key to a great fortune.'
'And then shall I have the other half when I have solved this riddle?' Hawk asked wide-eyed.
Ikey shook his head. 'I cannot say, but without the answer to my riddle you have no hope. With it, there be a great chance that you will gain the fortune for Mary and yourself.'
'Will you give it to me then?' Hawk's hands shook with excitement as he made the words with his fingers.
Ikey cackled the way he had done when Hawk and Tommo were young and a new lesson was about to come from him, and he clapped his hands and rolled his eyes in secret congratulation at his own cleverness, just like old times, then he began to recite.
Hawk had never before been confronted with a riddle so elaborate or beautiful of rhyme and he fetched quill and paper and made Ikey write it down so that he knew every word was correct.
'Remember always,' Ikey chuckled as he read what he'd written, 'the answer is at arm's length and words can have two meanings!'
'Numbers from the words and words what has two meanings?' Hawk signalled, wanting to be sure he had it right.
'Aye, words what mean other things and numbers from words, if all is done properly you will be left with a three digit number! There be three more to come, six in all!' With this said, Ikey would cooperate no further.
Hawk worked for several weeks in what time he could spare on the riddle, but came no closer to solving it. Finally he had returned to Ikey, but he was evasive, other than to say, 'It be about London'.
This helped Hawk very little, for while Ikey had talked a great deal to the two boys about London when they'd been younger, he had only the knowledge of what he'd read about the great city and no more.
Finally, one evening when he and Mary were walking home from Strickland Falls after work, ashamed at his ineptitude, Hawk begged Mary to help him, telling her about the riddle and explaining what Ikey had said about it being half of a great treasure.
Hawk at fourteen was considered a grown man. He already towered above Mary and stood fully six feet. With his serious demeanour, many took him to be much older. He worked a full day with Mary at the Potato Factory and was reliable and hardworking, though Mary sometimes wished he were not quite so serious-minded for a young lad.
Hawk handed her the slip of paper with the poem and Mary, who had much on her mind, read it somewhat cursorily and was unable to venture an opinion so she simply said, 'It be a nice poem, lovey.' Though in truth she thought it somewhat maudlin and typical of Ikey's increasing preoccupation with his own demise.
'What's a minyan and kaddish?' Hawk signalled.
'It's Jewish religion, a minyan be ten men what's got to be present when a Jew dies and kaddish, that be the prayer they says at the funeral,' Mary replied.
'Ikey said it be about London and a treasure, a treasure in London,' Hawk repeated and then asked with his hands, walking backwards so that Mary could plainly see his fingers, 'Did he ever say anything about a treasure to you?'
Mary shook her head. 'Careful, you'll fall,' she cautioned, then with Hawk once again at her side added, 'Ikey be very tight-fisted about money, tight-mouthed too, tight everything!' She laughed. 'He often stored stolen goods in all sorts o' places when he was prince o' all of London's fences.' Mary stopped, her head to one side and seemed to be thinking. 'Maybe it be the number of a house where he's got something stashed?' Then she added ruefully, 'Well, it ain't much use to him now. He can't go back to find it and he won't trust any o' his sons not to tell Hannah, so he might as well…' She stopped suddenly in mid-sentence and pointed to Hawk and said softly, '… send you!'
Hawk looked startled at the idea. 'What do you mean?'
Mary did not answer for a moment, then she shrugged. 'I don't know, lovey, I'll think about it tonight. Make a copy o' this for me, will you?' She handed the poem back to Hawk.
Hawk nodded though he looked anxious. 'You'll tell me what you thinks, won't you? I be most anxious to be the one to work out the riddle.'
Mary laughed. 'Don't worry, lovey, it be more'n a mouthful, believe me. My stomach tells me Ikey be onto something what ain't no nursery rhyme.'
'A three digit number has to come out of all this,' Hawk said finally, folding the poem and placing it back in his pocket.
That night, after she had made Ikey his tea, Mary sat at the kitchen table with the poem and read it more carefully. The first incongruity which struck her were the words 'chapel white'. In the context of a Jewish funeral these seemed strangely Christian. Why would someone of the Jewish persuasion use them about his funeral?
'Chapel white?' she said aloud. She had passed the Duke Street synagogue a thousand times as a child and
