Answers: Mary Queen of Scots
The crest on the cover is taken from the back of the sleeve of the eponymous album by the band Fotheringay - this group was formed by Sandy Denny when she left Fairport Convention, named after her song which was printed in the Jack the Ripper section of the Hunt. No one spotted this, possibly because Pablo has the only copy of the album ever sold [14].
The text is an accurate summary of the life of Mary Queen of Scots [1], largely drawn from the excellent biography by Antonia Fraser. The chess problem (which Pablo particularly wanted to include somewhere) was ineptly levered into the middle.
Keys and Symbols
Several words have been replaced with by 'keys' or by symbols, this is consistent with MQOS's own writings which often used a 'nomenclature' cypher where the names of people were replaced with symbols.
The 'key' words had to be slotted into a grid in order to get the key phrase for the final code. The other symbols were drawn from MQoS's own personal code, which will be discussed later on. Because replacing the symbols by words was not a particularly difficult exercise, we don't propose to give any points for those, just for the the completed grid [5] which should have been:
ERSKINE, FLODDEN FIELD, LIVINGSTON, LOUVRE, EDINBURGH, SAINT-REMY, C3, HADDINGTON., JOSEPH RICCIO, KIRK O'FIELD, LOCHLEVEN, WORKINGTON, M
Just to make things more difficult I accidentally transposed David Riccio with his brother and misplaced one of the squares. Why do I add complexity when I can rely on incompetence to do it for me?
The final M was supposed to be clued by the 'embroidery' picture showing "In my end is my beginning" (which was actually embroidered by MQoS while she was in captivity, although she did hers in French). So 'my' beginning was an M, as was the beginning of 'Mary' depending on how you chose to read the message. However, nobody seemed to do it that way, just by extrapolating from the other messages, which were also signed with an M for consistency. (All this was so that we had a keyword of 13 letters which was needed for the particular code being used).
The Chess Problem
Now for that chess problem, which we will be discussed in detail mainly because Pablo met someone in a pub who claimed to be chess champion of Northern Europe (or something) and conclusively demonstrated that it was impossible.
1. It must be Black to move, because he is in check. The only alternative is that the White King is on B2 or C3, obstructing the Black bishop.But the C2 is next to the Black King, so the White King could never have got there, and B3 would mean that Black managed to get White in check with the Bishop and Rook simultaneously and this would not have been possible in one move.
2. So what was White's last move? He must just have moved his King in such a way that Black was put in check by his Bishop. The alternative is that he moved his Bishop, but if so then Black was already in check and that would be illegal.
3. So White's last move must have been to move his King from B3 - either to C3 or A3. The King could not have been on C2 as explained earlier.
4. If the White King was on B3 then how did it get to be in check by Black's Bishop and Rook? The only solution is some move which unblocks the line for both pieces. This is the key to the problem and the solution is hinted at by the fact that the action all seems to be happening on rank 3 - i.e. there was an en passant capture.
5. An en passant capture on A3 would have been impossible because the A4 square, which the a White Pawn would have to go to in order to enable such a move, is occupied by the White Bishop. So the capture by the Black King must have been on C3. The black pawn got there following an en passant capture after White's C2 - C4.
6. Now we know the previous three moves. White's last move was King (B3) takes Pawn (C3). Black's move before that was Pawn (B4) takes Pawn (C4) en passant, double check. And White's move before that was Pawn (C2) to C4.
7. Add the White pawn at C2 and the Black pawn at B4 and it is clear that the reason for White's C2 - C4 was to counter Black's move of his Bishop from somewhere to D5, which put White in check.
The beauty of this puzzle is that all the evidence (the two pawns) has been removed, leaving the impossible-looking situation given. And, by the way, the answer is that the White King is on C3 [7] - Mary Queen of Scots must have been quite a good player to see all that so quickly.
The Codes
There were three codes in all, two of which used the symbols from MQos's personal code which can be found in Harrap's Book of Codes and Cyphers (and probably on the net as well although I don't know where). For the 'false' code you just took the first letter of the words that were substituted in the text of Mary's life and slotted them in to the given cypher. This gives [2]:
PHELIPPES I HAVE OUTWITTED YOU THIS LAST TIME. MY TRUE CODE WILL BE FOUND IN THE PAGES OF HISTORY. M.
"Phelippes" is a reference to Thomas Phelippes, England's first noteworthy cryptanalyst, who cracked MQoS's codes to disastrous effect. This false trail was hinted at by the mythical creature on the code-sheet.
However, the relationship between the symbols and letters we used for this code was not the same as Mary's actual code - in fact it has been roughly reversed. So you needed to do some heavy-duty code cracking or some historical research to decipher the next code, which was the 'real' trail. This was hinted at by the picture of a peach with one leaf attached which, according to the Guinness Book of Signs and Symbols, represents the heart and tongue and hence was adopted by Renaissance painters to symbolise truth (it is sometimes seen in this role in Virgin and Child pictures). Anyway, the deciphered code reads [2]:
WRITE THE KEY PHRASE TWICE OVER THE ALPHABET AND SO DECRYPT EACH LETTER. CHOOSE WITH CARE, MY FRIEND, AND MY FINAL MESSAGE WILL BE REVEALED. M.
This shows what to do with the final code. The key phrase is obtained from the shaded squares on the grid as SILVERCASKETM, which is confirmed by the picture of a silver casket with an M in its clasp. The silver casket, of course, was the container for the so-called 'casket letters' which were held to incriminate MQoS in various plots, but which were probably forgeries or cut-ups of innocuous material.. This is mentioned in the Stage 1 'Cinema' clues and also in the illustration which shows a silver box with an M-shaped clasp.
You write this twice over the alphabet and use this to decipher the encrypted message. The nature of this code means that you have two, and in some cases four, alternatives for each letter so you have indeed to choose carefully in order to find the final route to the code [6]:
TURN RIGHT, PASS THE CHURCH, AND TAKE THE TRACK TO THE MONUMENT. DO NOT ENTER ITS GROUNDS BUT CONTINUE ALONG THE ??. CROSS A BRIDGE AND STYLE AND WALK BETWEEN THE SMALL TREES AND THE FENCE. IN A LARGE OAK TO YOUR RIGHT AT GROUND LEVEL THERE IS A HOLLOW IN WHICH YOU WILL FIND MY TREASURE. M.
The ?? must be replaced from MQoS's code as NW which, when you get there, you realise stand for Nene Way, a long-distance footpath. The starting-point is, naturally, the village of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire, where MQoS was executed - it virtually says this in the 'autobiography', although some people evidently convinced themselves that we wouldn't bury anything quite so far from London.
Of course you must start from a pub, in this case the only pub in the village, The Falcon - the drawings of a falcon and a tree on the code-sheet confirm that this is the correct trail. The 'monument' is the last remnants of Fotheringay Castle, a curiously evocative place - it was a visit by Pablo early in 1997 which led to the choice of this as the hiding place for this year's Hunt [6].
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