Dialogues of the Dead

“His sense of peace, you mean? His belief that he is invulnerable, invincible? I hardly feel it necessary to point out the obvious. As I’ve said before, eventually it is this belief that he can tell us anything about himself and his purposes with no risk of either prevention or detection that will be his downfall. But of course we need your linguistic skills, Dr. Urquhart, to interpret these nods and winks.”

“Well, thank you kindly. OK, the wee bit of verse at the end, it’s a riddle of course. Right wee Jimmy riddler, this guy. And when you find answers, they usually just ask more questions.”

“Which is what the press out there are waiting to do,” said Trimble sourly.

Poor old Dan, thought Pascoe. He came along hoping that rabbits were going to be plucked from hats by the burrowload. Instead, the end of the expert evidence is in sight and he doesn’t feel he’s even glimpsed a vanishing rump!

“Aye, well, if the guid Lord had gi’en us the airt to see the morn today, we’d all be farting through silk, as my auld Kirkcaldy grannie used to say. But dinna despair. Pozzo’s right, he’s giving us clues and I’m the boy to grasp ’em. Anything strike you about this wee doggerel?”

They all looked at their copies of the Dialogue, then Bowler and Novello said simultaneously, “The print,” and looked at each other speculatively.

“That’s right. The print. All them capitals. Could they mean something, I asked myself,” said Urquhart.

“Like he’s a lousy typist,” said Dalziel.

“Not anywhere else, he’s not,” said Urquhart. “No, I reckon this is a chronogram.”

He looked around triumphantly. The returned gazes were blank.

“A chronogram,” he explained, “is a piece of writing in which certain letters are made to stand out to express a relevant date or epoch. Mostly it used Roman numerals because of course they are expressed in letters. For example, Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king killed during the Thirty Years War, had a medal struck to commemorate a victory in 1632 with this inscription.”

He went to the drywipe board and wrote:

ChrIstVs DVX: ergo trIVMphVs

“Which of course means …”

He paused expectantly, playing up to the dominie role that Dalziel had mocked him with.

“With Christ in charge, we’d solve this in no time,” said Novello pertly.

They all laughed, even Trimble, and Urquhart flashed her the louche smile which probably pulled any number of female students, thought Hat maliciously.

“That’ll do nicely,” said the linguist. “Now, think Roman numerals and check out the upper case letters. In Latin inscriptions, U’s are normally printed as V’s of course. Which gives us-” he wrote 100+1+5+500+5+10+1+5+1000+5-“which equals 1632. This also works in English. A famous example is …”

He wrote again.

LorD haVe MerCIe Vpon Vs

“Add this up and you will see we get 1666. The reference incidentally isn’t to the Great Fire but to the other great event which Dryden celebrates in his Annus Mirabilis, the naval warfare between Britain and Holland.”

It was interesting, thought Pascoe. The more he got into his teaching mode, the less marked his Scots accent became.

“This one uses U’s as V’s too, though it’s not in Latin,” said Wield.

“A licence carried over from the craft of lapidary inscription,” said Urquhart. “Before they got power tools, it was a lot easier for masons to carve straight lines and angles than curves. Our Wordman, however, is a purist. In his triplet, only V’s count numerically. And you will note that as in all the best chronograms every numerically significant letter is capitalized and therefore counts. It’s much easier if you just pick out those that add up to the sum you want. Anyway, let’s see what we have.”

He wrote:

1+5+1+1+5+50+1+500+500+1+1+1+500+1+5+1+1+1 = 1576

“Well, there you go,” he said complacently, returning to his seat.

They all sat looking at the board like Belshazaar’s courtiers staring at the wall.

“And that’s it?” said Andy Dalziel.

“Unless my arithmetic’s wrong.”

“But what the fuck does it mean?”

“Hey, man, I’m just the language man, you’re the fucking detectives. But when he says ‘a date I have,’ I take that to mean with his next victim, so 1576 has got to be some kind of pointer.”

“I’m sorry, my history’s pretty lousy,” said Peter Pascoe. “Did anything significant happen in 1576?”

“I expect shit happened, it usually does,” said Urquhart indifferently. “Look, that’s it for me. Unless you’ve got any questions I can answer, I’ve got a lecture to give.”

“I too have promises to keep,” said Pottle. “So unless there is anything else …”

“Else!” echoed Dalziel under his breath but not that far.

Pascoe looked around the room then said, “No that looks like it for now. Again, many many thanks, both. I’ll be in touch. And of course, if anything occurs to you, don’t hesitate to contact me at any time.”