The Potato Factory

Chapter Thirty-seven

In years to come Hawk would grow into a man who stood six feet eight inches tall and weighed two hundred and eighty pounds with no lard upon him. People would whisper as he passed that he had once cheated the gallows. As proof they would point to the thick collar of scar tissue about his neck.

'The rope could not break his neck,' they'd whisper, 'but it took his voice.'

This last part was an appropriate enough explanation. Hawk had been dragged behind the wild man's horse and the constant pulling and falling had destroyed his vocal cords. He would never speak again. So that the full trauma of his experience might be truly appreciated, it should be added that during the six months he was enslaved he had been repeatedly sodomised.

On the return journey a most fortunate circumstance befell the terrified couple. The timber getters had found Mary's trail and set out to find who had intruded into their domain. They came upon Mary and Hawk making their way down the mountain on the wild man's horse not two hours after she had killed him. Mary was wearing her blood-stained overcoat to cover her nakedness, and Hawk clutched one of the bloody blankets about his body.

Two of the timber getters continued up the mountain to inspect the corpse which Mary had covered with the remaining blanket, and the three others escorted Mary and Hawk safely down through the wilderness, allowing them to remain on the horse. The two men soon enough caught up with them and started to shout excitedly from some distance before they finally arrived.

'She's killed Mad Dog Mulray!' one of them cried. 'Shot 'im through the 'eart!' the other shouted so as not to be outdone by his partner. One of them carried over his shoulder a bundle made from the opossum skin coat the wild man had worn. The second one now wore a set of military pistols in his belt and was waving Mary's pepperbox pistol which, in her state of shock, she had entirely and most foolishly forgotten to retrieve.

There was much excitement among the three remaining men and the oldest, a man who had earlier most formally introduced himself to Mary as Hindmarsh, looked up at her admiringly. Then the lad threw the skin bundle to the ground and untied it. Inside was the severed head of the wild man.

Mary gasped, though she was too shocked to scream, or perhaps there was no screaming left in her. She instinctively grabbed Hawk and placed her hands over his eyes.

'You 'ave done us a great service, Mary Abacus,' Hindmarsh said at last. 'He were a divil, a monster creature, the anti-Christ hisself. He's murdered seven of our forest folk.' He touched the severed head with the toe of his boot and then turned to the lad who had placed it at his feet. 'Tie it up again, Saul.' Then he laughed. 'It will make a grand Christmas present on the gate post o' the police station in Southport!'

One of the young men now handed the prisoner's purse to Hindmarsh, who examined it briefly and then looked up at Mary.

'This be your'n miss?' he asked. It was obvious to Mary that he well knew the nature of the object he held in his hands.

Mary nodded. 'In it be fifty pounds, it were money offered for the recovery o' me son,' she explained. 'The reward like.' She placed her hand on Hawk's shoulder.

The men surrounding her were rough and ready and now they laughed and looked at each other, their expressions plainly bemused. 'The nigger be your son?' Hindmarsh asked surprised, looking first at Mary and then into Hawk's dark and frightened face.

'Yes, mine!' Mary cried fiercely.

Hawk jumped at the tone of Mary's voice and the blanket slipped to his shoulders and now Hindmarsh and the others saw where the flesh was cut half an inch into the boy's neck to expose the bones. In other parts it was festered and suppurating and slabs of pink scar tissue had been laid down from earlier rope burns. 'Jaysus, Mary Mother o' Gawd!' Hindmarsh said. Then he handed the brass cylinder back to Mary.

'This is not ours to own,' he said.

'I be happy to pay it all, if you'll escort us back to the river where we has a boat,' Mary said.

'Yes we knows about that,' Hindmarsh said. 'It were not very well hid.' He smiled. 'We'll be after takin' you anyways, miss, you'll not be payin' us for that privilege!' He pointed to the horse and then the pistols in the young man's belt. '

'Orse and pistols, they be payment more'n enough.' He looked at the four younger men so that they might pay keener attention to what he was about to say. 'We owes you, Mary Abacus. You be a legend from now among the timber getters, accepted as one of our own kind and welcome to return at any time you wishes, even though I daresay you be a bloody Protestant!' He paused and then added with a grin, 'And so we won't be after makin' you a saint though you comes a bloody sight nearer than most I've 'eard o' what comes from Rome!'

Hawk spent long periods on his own on the mountain. It was as though he was eternally searching for Tommo, trying to recapture the essence of his brother. He soon regained the flesh on his bones and his neck healed well as young flesh does. Mary changed the label on the back of her Tomahawk beer to contain only Tommo's name and description, though all else remained.

Tomahawk Ale was now most famous in the colony and also in Melbourne and Sydney and it seemed almost the entire colony knew of the disappearance of Tommo. Mary never admitted it, but she secretly believed that Tommo was dead, though Hawk did not. Despite being repeatedly questioned in hand language by Ikey upon his return, Hawk could remember next to nothing of the kidnapping. The shock of the experience had completely erased his memory of the incident, but for the fact that they had not been captured by the wild man but by men who knew their names and had been most friendly.

Hawk continued with his studies and was seldom without a book in his hand. Always a serious child, he was now withdrawn and rarely smiled, though when he did, Mary would say, 'It's a smile that could brighten a dark room at midnight'. With the benefit of the hand language which Mary soon learned well, he was able to talk with her as well as Ikey and Jessamy, who had also learned the language. With others, provided they could read, he was able to write upon a slate which he carried on a string about his neck.

Ikey, fearing that Hawk's inability to talk might disadvantage him, spent more and more time with his adopted son. Hawk at ten was already working on the accounting books at the Potato Factory under Ikey's instructions. At thirteen he was most competent with a ledger and had developed a fair hand which Mary wished, when it matured, should be the most beautiful hand in the colony, and so she bought him the latest in handwriting manuals so that he might practise the perfection of his letters.

But Ikey feared that this was not enough and, without Mary's knowledge, he began to teach Hawk all the skills he knew. Hawk was too big in his frame to have ever been a pickpocket, but in all the other tricks of palming he became an expert. His large hands could conceal anything and there was not a card game he could not play or cheat at with great skill, though Ikey despaired of him for he would never cheat in a real game, but much preferred to win with his own wit and intellect. He taught Hawk how to 'christen' a watch, and how to recognise a forged banknote, of which there were a great many in circulation in Van Diemen's Land. Hawk also learned to lip read, even though his hearing was perfect. 'So you may read what a man says across a room or in a crowd,' Ikey explained. Conscious that he had been brought up by Mary to be honest in all his dealings, Hawk would sometimes ask Ikey why he should learn a certain skill.

'Bless you, my dear, it is not an honest world we live in and few can enjoy the luxury o' being entirely honest within it.' Ikey would cock his head to one side. 'Have you not noted that the expression most cherished by those who are rich is the term "the honest poor"? They take much time to extol this virtue in those who have nothing, whereas there is no expression in our language which talks o' "the honest rich"! Honesty, if it be truly earned, be, for the most part, the product o' poverty and occasionally, if it is practised by the rich, a characteristic of inherited wealth, though rare enough in even this circumstance!'

Ikey would warm to the subject. 'There is neither bread nor virtue in poverty but, because it be a necessity, for how else will the rich become rich if they do not have the poor to depend upon, it stands to reason that the rich must manufacture more poor if they are to grow more rich! The rich become rich by taking and the poor by giving. The rich take the labour o' the poor in return for a pittance calculated to make poor men near starve, so that they will fight each other for the privilege o' giving o' the labour the rich man depends upon!'

'But Mary be not like that, Ikey!' Hawk protested. 'There are none that starve who work at the Potato Factory!'

'Aye, Mary be different,' Ikey admitted. 'But you observe, she does not grow rich.'

'That be because she has no capital to buy the machinery she must have if she is to have a proper brewery!'

'Ha! Precisely and exactly and definitely and most certainly! My point precisely, my dear! If she should give the men less and not feed their brats… If she should employ children for tuppence a day and not men for a shilling, she might soon have the capital to expand.'

'I should not wish her to do that!' Hawk replied, his hands working furiously. 'Her conscience and mine would not allow it!'

'Conscience?' Ikey said, surprised, one eyebrow raised. 'That be a luxury you be most fortunate to afford, my dear! That be the single greatest gift and also the worst advantage Mary has given you.'

'Why then must I learn of these ways of yours?' Hawk asked.

'You mean the ways o' perfidy?'

Hawk nodded his head.

'The perfidious man be the normal you will come across in life. Everyone you will meet in business will seek advantage over you, my dear. So you must learn to recognise the cheat and the liar and unless you know the manner of his scam, the method of his ways o' doing you down, you will be beaten. If you knows how a man should cheat at cribbage you will call him early. To know the scam is to make sure it does not happen to you.' Ikey laughed. 'Ah, my dear Hawk, you do not have the character to be a liar and a cheat!' Ikey paused. 'My only wish is that I teach you enough o' the perfidy o' mankind to prevent you from being a fool.'

'You wish me to be hard but fair in my dealings?'

' Hawk asked with his hands.

'Aye, but also to remember the first rule o' doing business, my dear!'

Hawk had a peculiar way of raising his left eyebrow when he wished Ikey to explain further.

'Always leave a little salt on the bread!' Ikey explained.

Hawk's eyebrow arched again and Ikey wondered how best he should answer him. He found Hawk's demeanour most strange, for at thirteen the boy had developed an acute sense of fairness and a natural dignity, and already the men who worked at the Potato Factory deferred to him willingly and took their instruction from him without the slightest hint of malice. These were rough men, born to the notion that the possessor of a black skin was the most inferior man who walked upon the earth's surface, yet they seemed to love the boy and eagerly sought his smile.

Though the kidnapping greatly saddened him, and his love for Tommo had left some part of him permanently distraught, Hawk retained no bitterness from the terrible experience with Mad Dog Mulray. The men who worked for Mary seemed to sense this and respected him accordingly.

Ikey had been pushed into the street from the moment he could crawl about in the courts and alleys of the rookery, and only a minority of the children who had crawled in the filth with him had survived childhood. As soon as he could run from authority he was sent out to scavenge and pilfer what he could from the streets. He had learned from the very beginning that the means of life were desperately scarce and that they went to the toughest. Cunning, quick responses to opportunity and danger, freedom from scruples and courage were the ingredients of survival. The costermonger with his fly weights made a living while the drudging bricklayer went under. The prostitute on the corner fed her children while those of the bloody-fingered woman who stitched gunny sacks starved to death. In a few fortunate minutes a gang of urchins could rob a badly loaded dray and earn more from the goods than their parents could earn in a week of labouring.

Ikey accepted the terms of this society where only the strong survived. But on the first day his father had pushed him onto the streets to trade with a tray of oranges and lemons he had been confronted with a new conundrum, a contradiction to all he instinctively knew in the game of survival. A rabbi had stopped the small boy and enquired as to the cost of a lemon.

'That'll be a ha'penny to you, rabbi,' Ikey had answered cheerily.

'Vun lemon is vun half penny? For twelve, how much?'

'Sixpence o' course!' Ikey replied cheekily. The reb was a foreigner and even if he was a rabbi he must be treated with a certain English disdain.

'Ja, so, let me see, I take only vun lemon for vun halfpenny, or thirteen for six pennies?'

'No, sir, rabbi, that be wrong! Them lemons be twelve for a sixpence!' Ikey corrected.

The rabbi sighed. 'So, tell me, my boy. You like to sell twelve lemons or vun lemon?'

'Twelve o' course, stands to reason, don't it?'

'Then ve negotiate! You know vot is negotiate?'

Ikey shook his head. 'Does it mean you be tryin' to get the better o' me, sir?'

'Very goet! You are a schmart boyski. But no, negotiate, it means I must vin and you also, you must vin!' The rabbi spread his hands. 'You sell more lemons and also, I get more lemons!' He smiled. 'You understand, ja?'

'But you gets one lemon what you 'asn't paid for!' Ikey said, indignant at the thought that the rabbi was trying to bamboozle him.

'Alvays you leave a little salt on the bread, my boy. Vun lemon costs vun half penny, twelve lemons cost six pennies, then vun lemon you give to me, that is not a lemon for buyink, that is a lemon for negotiatink, that is the little salt alvays you leave on the bread, so ven I vant lemons, I come back and you sell alvays more lemons to the rabbi, ja?'

'I tell you what, rabbi, 'ow's about twelve lemons and an orange for a sixpence, what say you?'

The rabbi laughed. 'Already you learnink goet to negotiate,' he said as he took the orange which cost a farthing and the dozen lemons and paid Ikey the sixpence.

'Always leave a little salt on the bread' had become an important lesson in Ikey's life. From the beginning he had always paid slightly above the going price for the stolen merchandise brought to him and it had played a significant part in earning him the title Prince of Fences. The rabbi had been correct, his 'customers' stayed loyal and always returned to him. Ikey had come to believe that 'leaving a little salt' was the reason for his good fortune and the source of his continued good luck. Ikey, like most villains, was a superstitious man who believed that luck is maintained through peculiar rituals and consistent behaviour.

And so Ikey explained the theory of a little salt on the bread to Hawk, who seemed to like this lesson more than most and made Ikey write it out on a slip of paper for him so that he might copy it into his diary. Ikey quickly wrote: Remember, always leave a little salt on the bread.

It was about this time that an event occurred which would change forever the lives of future generations of both families who carried the name Solomon.

Like most great changes there was very little to herald its coming, for it emerged out of a simple puzzle which Ikey, in a moment of mischief and amusement, had composed to bemuse Hawk, although, as with most things concerning Ikey Solomon, it contained a hidden agenda.

Ikey was becoming increasingly rheumatic and found his nightly sojourn around the Wapping and waterfront areas especially difficult. On some nights, out of weariness of step, he would remain too long in one place, and therefore be unable to complete his rounds on time or even to arrive at the Whale Fishery. More and more he relied on Hawk to help him at the races and afterwards he went straight to bed so that he could rise at midnight to do his rounds. He also became more preoccupied with death and was a regular and conscientious member of the new Hobart synagogue.

Ikey also realised that if Hannah and David and his two sons in New South Wales were determined to wait until his death so that they might claim the entire contents of the Whitechapel safe, he was left with a most peculiar dilemma: how to convey his combination number without telling either Mary or Hawk about the safe until he was certain he was on his death bed. It was still his greatest hope that Hannah and David would relent and agree to a fifty-fifty share of the safe and that Hannah would entrust the opening of the safe to his youngest son Mark and to Hawk, who would each separately hold a half of the combination.

Ikey had several times made this proposal only to have it rejected by Hannah and David. They insisted on the eight-part split and grew increasingly confident that they would soon be in possession of the entire contents as Sarah would often express her genuine concern at Ikey's frailty when she visited her family in New Norfolk.

Hannah knew also that Ikey could not openly leave his half of the treasure to Mary or her nigger brat in his will for fear that the authorities might confiscate it. Nor could he write his combination into it because, as his wife, she had the right to attend the reading of the will so that, even if Ikey told Mary or Hawk his combination number, without the addition of her own they could do nothing.

David had once suggested, if only to spite them, that Ikey on his death bed might go to the authorities about the Whitechapel safe, so that they received nothing. Hannah knew this to be impossible given Ikey's nature. And in this she was right. Even if Ikey had not wished to leave his share of the treasure to Mary and Hawk, he could never bring himself to allow the laws of England to triumph over him, even though he should be dead. Rather a thousand times the perfidious Hannah and her odious sons than the greedy coffers of England.

Ikey would have liked to tell Mary about the safe and its contents but he dared not do so for fear she would immediately know that the incident where David had presented him with the severed finger of an Aboriginal child had been brought about, not by his son's demand for Mary's brewery, but because of Ikey's reluctance to trust them with his half of the combination to the Whitechapel safe.

Though it was not possible to prove, Mary strongly believed that Hannah and David were more than mere scheming opportunists when they set up the finger scam. She was convinced they had genuinely attempted to kidnap Tommo and Hawk and their plan had gone disastrously wrong. Though Ikey did not admit it, he, too, had always felt that David knew a great deal more than he had said.

But if Ikey did not have the courage to face Mary's wrath, he knew that before he died he must confess his guilt and tell her of the reward he was to give her as penance. To this end Ikey taught Hawk how to value jewellery and as much as he could about the characteristics of each precious stone and how they should be 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 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 paper with the numbers 276 written on it and Ikey laughed and shook his head slowly. 'No, my dear, you are quite wrong!'

Hawk, close to tears from frustration, bowed his head in bewilderment.

'I told you, the answer be at arm's length,' Ikey said, smiling. But again he would say no more.

At about this time a misfortune struck Mary, for she could not obtain sufficient hops from local sources to meet her needs and she was forced to buy expensive imported hops from Kent. This meant she must put up her beer prices, which was very much to her disadvantage, for times were still hard in the colony and competition most keen.

At first Mary believed it was the local brewers trying to make things difficult for her, but eventually she discovered it was yet another of Hannah's tricks. During this period when the supply of local hops had dried up, even though the season had been a good one, Ikey made yet another visit to New Norfolk and was depressed for days after his return. Mary then discovered that George Madden had cornered the entire market for the distribution of hops in the colony and it was he who would not sell to her. Mary was quick enough to realise that this decision was yet another pressure from Hannah for Ikey's half of the combination. Mary confronted Ikey with the reason for his visit and he admitted that this was what had happened, but again avoided the issue of the combination and explained that Hannah was still avenging herself on Mary for stealing the affection of her children and the love of her husband. Though he conceded that, under the circumstances, this was a somewhat bizarre explanation, he insisted it was true. Mary, who was never easily beaten, determined that she would rent land and grow her own hops. She made the decision to use what few assets she had to send Hawk to England, to the county of Kent, so he could learn the most superior method of growing hops and return with all the varieties of seed he could obtain. She had only the money to pay his fare but if, when he returned, she could rent land with an agreement to buy it one day, she would never again be compromised by the likes of George Madden. Hawk was nearly fifteen years old and Mary had no hesitation in placing her trust in him, though she had a second reason for sending him to England.

Hawk still carried an absolute conviction in his heart that Tommo was alive.

'If Tommo were dead, Mama, I should know!' he would insist, and as he grew older the certainty that his brother was alive became even stronger. On several occasions he had 'spoken' to Mary about going to find him. Hawk now stood well over six feet and was enormously strong, and Mary knew that he was old enough to leave her. This single determination, to find his brother, was more powerful than anything else in his life. Hawk was all Mary had and loved and she thought that by sending him over to England for two years she would delay losing him.

Mary also had a plan which she revealed to Hawk on the morning of his departure. She handed him a brass key, a duplicate of one she had found some years before in Ikey's overcoat, which she knew to be the key to Ikey's Whitechapel home. She urged Hawk to use it to enter the house.

'We must determine whether a safe exists beneath the floor,' Mary said.

Hawk sighed and then signalled, 'But, Mama, we have come to a dead end, what is the use? We do not know Ikey's numbers, and if we did, it is only half the combination.'

Mary touched him on the sleeve. 'Ikey is not a young man and I believe he will give me his part of the combination if he thinks he is going to die. If there be a treasure he will do anything so as to avoid Hannah having it all, that much I know for certain.' She suddenly paused and announced dramatically, 'And I has the second half!' Mary relished the look of amazement which appeared on Hawk's face. 'That's right, I knows Hannah's combination, Ann give it to me when she were a little 'un in the orphanage! David Solomon were always writing it on his slate and working with it on the abacus. Ann told me it were a number their mother give them what they must never, never forget in case she should die! The number eight hundred and sixteen!'

Hawk signalled the numbers, '816?'

Mary nodded. 'Just you make sure there be a safe in that house, lovey.'

Ikey was terribly distraught at the news of Hawk's departure to England, for he was convinced he would not live long enough to see Hawk again.

Hawk was able to comfort him a little by promising to spend his last day helping Ikey at the Saturday races, even though he would rather have climbed the mountain and spent time with Mary. Hawk was by now doing most of the work at the races and he knew Ikey could not manage without him. This would be Ikey's last day as a bookmaker. Poor Ikey had given up his nocturnal wandering, unable to manage the walking. The races were his only remaining pleasure.

Hawk would take a sad memory away with him of this last day with Ikey. Late in the afternoon, while Hawk's back was turned, a drunken punter accosted Ikey, accusing him of cheating, and knocked him to the ground. Hawk arrived moments later and picked the drunk off Ikey's prostrate and squealing body, giving the man a cuff across the side of the head which sent him spinning to the ground. Hawk picked up the sobbing Ikey. The shoulder of his ancient coat and also the sleeve of his shirt had been torn in the struggle so that his thin white arm hung bare. It was then that Hawk saw the tattoo. It was of two blue doves surrounded by a garland of red roses, and in a ribbon across the top of the circle of roses was the legend, To my one and only blue dove.

Hawk took scant notice of this at the time, being more concerned for Ikey's welfare. Later, when he thought about it, he simply concluded that their guess had been correct and Ikey wore a tattoo with words from the poem. He told Mary of his findings and they congratulated each other on their perspicacity, but otherwise decided the information was of no additional help.

With Hawk away, Ikey seemed to fade and in the next year he progressively became an old man much dependent on his daughter Sarah, and on Mary, who was increasingly under pressure as local hops were being denied her and imported stock was not always available.

Ikey decided to relent, and acknowledged that one-eighth of his fortune was still sufficient to buy a large tract of land and give Mary the financial independence she desperately needed if she were to survive. He felt it was time to settle his moral debts before he died and though he was deeply humiliated that Hannah and David Solomon had finally beaten him, Ikey's love for Mary was such that he was prepared to compromise. But he decided not to tell Mary until he had the one-eighth portion safely deposited in her bank account.

Ikey proposed that one of Hannah's sons, he preferred it to be Mark, should take a ship to England with her combination to the safe, while he would instruct Hawk by letter of his combination and the whereabouts of the safe.

Hannah was adamant that David go. It delighted her to think that he was to be pitted against a fifteen-year-old nigger mute, and she felt sure David would not allow Hawk to win even an eighth of the value of the treasure. But she insisted that David leave immediately, that was in two days' time, when the Midas, a convict ship, was leaving Hobart bound for London.

Hannah's reason for this was so that Ikey's letter to Hawk could not arrive in London before David and thus allow Hawk to get to the safe first and have it removed, or worse, attempt to open it. Ikey argued that the safe could not be opened without the combination, even if it were given over to the Bank of England. Its removal would involve the demolition of a wall of the house and, as the safe was set in concrete, it would require a very large dock crane and a gang of men to lift it out of the ground. Nevertheless, Hannah was resolute that Ikey's letter must go on the same ship as David Solomon so that the two could meet and visit the Whitechapel house on the same day and simultaneously open the safe.

Ikey smelt a rat and thought David would bribe the captain to give him Ikey's letter, so he did not entrust it to the captain but gave it instead to the ship's chaplain whom he swore to secrecy and added further to the man of God's integrity with a nice little stipend for his ministry.