chapel to her was a word used by the Wesleyans and not at all appropriate to the ancient, gloomy building the Jews used as their church. Almost the moment she thought this the words transposed in her mind. 'White-chapel!' she exclaimed triumphantly, clicking her fingers. Mary's nimble mind now began to sniff at the words in quite a different way. Long after her usual time for bed she had isolated a group of words which could have a double meaning or be fitted together: safe, beneath, familiar and finally, ground. She was too tired to continue and finally went to bed.
The next morning after breakfast, when Ikey had left to totter down to his cottage in Elizabeth Street to sleep, she gave the words to Hawk.
'Work with these, there may be something,' she said explaining the link between the words 'chapel' and 'white', into the word Whitechapel. Several days passed and one morning Hawk came into Mary's office at Strickland Falls and gave her his brilliant smile. Then he started to signal, his fingers working frantically.
'The safe in Whitechapel containing Ikey's fortune is within the house beneath the ground!'
'Huh?' Mary said, taken aback. 'What you mean, lovey?'
Hawk handed Mary a piece of paper and Mary saw that it was written somewhat as an equation. But first he had transcribed the lines: In a chapel white, there safe it be 'neath familiar English ground Safe = Safety + Iron box. 'Neath = under. Familiar = family. English = London. Ground = soil + below surface.
Beneath these careful notations Hawk had written in his beautiful hand.
Translation: The treasure be in a safe below the ground in the family home in Whitechapel.
'Good boy!' Mary beamed, delighted with her son's tenacity and careful analysis. But then she added, 'That be the second verse, what of the first and the third?'
Hawk signalled that he was convinced that the first verse was meant to deflect any suspicion of a hidden meaning and meant exactly what it said. Then he frowned. 'Last verse be most difficult, Mama.'
Mary set aside her barley mash register, a ledger in which she kept the temperature of the barley mash as it came out of the crusher. 'Here, let me see that poem again?' she asked.
Hawk produced the poem and Mary read the first and the last verse. She agreed that with the first verse Ikey had meant to mislead by the very fact that there was no ambiguity within it. But the last verse sounded very strange and she read it aloud.
On my flesh these words be writ: 'To my one and only blue dove'
To this cipher be one more to fit then add roses ringed to love.
Mary pointed to the word 'cipher'. 'This verse is where the numbers be,' then added, 'but what numbers? Why does we need numbers?'
Hawk smiled and Mary was delighted at his sudden lightness of mood. 'Like the safe you bought, Mama, they be a combination!' he signalled.
'Oh my Gawd!' Mary cried. 'You're right, you're dead right!' Her heart started to beat so loudly that she could hear the thumping of it in her throat. 'If we can get the numbers from the verse then we've got the combination to the safe, the fortune!'
Hawk shook his head slowly.
'What you mean?' Mary cried, disappointment written on her face.
Hawk's fingers spoke. 'Half, we got half the combination.'
'Half?'
'Ikey said the poem only be half, three digits. Six is what's needed.'
Mary had in the past often wondered about Ikey's persistence with his family, for whom, with the exception of Sarah and perhaps Ann, she knew he had a general dislike, as well as a great loathing for Hannah and in recent years David. His periodical visits to New Norfolk, taken with their history with the Newmans and the debacle when he had come out of Port Arthur, had never made any sense. Ikey was a loner by nature and his pretence at being a diligent and caring family man had never convinced Mary in the least. She had often urged him, for his own peace of mind, to cut his ties completely, but he had always made the same reply: 'We have unfinished business, my dear.'
Now Mary knew what it was. Hannah had one half of the combination to the safe in their home in White- chapel and would not part with it.
Mary urged Hawk to keep trying to isolate the numbers as she herself would, but admitted, 'Alas, I doesn't know nothing useful about the last verse, save that it should lead to three numbers, but if we should somehow find them then you must not tell Ikey!'
Mary realised that if she had half of the combination she had the means to avenge herself on Hannah Solomon. But she simply told Hawk of the probability that Hannah possessed the second set of numbers. Hawk looked disappointed. 'It don't matter, lovey. We will find a way. Trust Mama! It be most terrible important you stay stum! Ikey must not know, we tell him nothing, all right?'
Hawk nodded, his fingers working fast and his face took on a look of determination. 'I shall solve it or die!'
Mary grabbed him and kissed him. 'Life is too precious that you should die for money, lovey. If you has to die, then die for love!'
'Like you was prepared to do for me?' Hawk's fingers spoke and his eyes were serious.
Tears rolled down Mary's cheeks. 'You and Tommo, gladly,' she whispered.
'Mama, we shall find Tommo too!' Hawk's fingers said. 'And I shall never tell Ikey if we should find the numbers.'
Mary and Hawk became obsessed with solving the riddle of the last verse and were hardly able to wait for Ikey to go to his ledgers before they began each evening. The third line in the last verse, 'To this cipher be one more to fit', seemed at first obvious to Mary. The second set of numbers, Hannah's set, were the one more to fit, which would give them the total combination. Hawk agreed that this might be so, but then logically the numbers must come from the first two lines in the last verse and, in particular, from the second line, 'To my one and only blue dove', as the first line of the last verse was simply a location of some sort and the final line, 'then add roses ringed to love', was an addition to whatever discovery or number they would make in the second line.
On my flesh these words be writ: = location 'To my one and only blue dove' = key to numbers To this cipher be one more to fit = Hannah's combination then add roses ringed to love = additional information.
It did not take them long to realise that the line 'On my flesh these words be writ' must represent a tattoo worn by Ikey, and while Mary had slept with Ikey perhaps a dozen times while they were joint owners of Egyptian Mary's she did not remember any such tattoo. However, she admitted to herself that the dreaded deed took place in the dark and that he might quite possibly have obtained the tattoo while a convict in Van Die-men's Land, in which case she would know nothing about it.
However, this did not overly concern them, they simply assumed that the words were written on Ikey's flesh, as all the other information made sense, and worked on the second line for the numbers they were now convinced it contained.
Both Mary and Hawk were practised in leaps of logic and exceedingly good at numbers, and they soon worked out a logical way of converting the line 'To my one and only blue dove' into numbers. They took each letter and equated it with its number in the alphabet, for example the letter A = 1, B = 2, Z = 26, and so on. They gave each letter in the line its appropriate number and the total came to 276. If they reduced this number down to the next lowest it became 2 + 7 + 6 = 15 and if they reduced this further, it became 1 + 5 = 6. As they already knew the final result must have three digits the combination number could only be 276.
But they were both too logical of mind to believe this, for it made the final line 'then add roses ringed to love' redundant to the solution. Both knew Ikey's mind was too tidy for this and he would not simply add a gratuitous line to complete the rhyme. The final line must be one of great importance to the whole.
But they could go no further and after a few more weeks were forced to abandon their efforts, almost convincing themselves that the number must be 276. Finally Mary capitulated and gave Hawk permission to ask Ikey if the number was 276. Though she insisted he tell Ikey that he had reached this conclusion on his own, and if Ikey asked if she was involved to deny it. This way, Mary concluded, Ikey would tell the truth.
It was now six months since Ikey had posed the riddle and he was most impressed when Hawk told him he had solved it.
'I hope you are right, my dear!' Ikey said.
Hawk was ready to listen to his stomach, hear with his eyes and see with his ears. He handed Ikey a piece of
