The Potato Factory (92 page)

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.

On a day of persistent drizzle, with swirling clouds obscuring the top of the great mountain, the
Midas
sailed from the river port bound for London. On board was Mr David Solomon, who had been carefully drilled in the description of each item in the safe and the value of the gem stones. Though Hannah was not as expert as Ikey in this she had a keen eye for appraisal and knew each precious stone individually. Also in his luggage was a set of scales for weighing gold and a new pistol of American design.

The voyage home to England was uneventful and the
Midas
berthed at Gravesend, where David immediately sent a letter by courier to Hawk at the hop farm where he worked asking him to come to London at once to meet him on board the
Midas.
On the same day Hawk received a message from the ship's chaplain that a letter awaited him from Mr Ikey Solomon which he was instructed to hand over to him personally on board.

When Hawk opened the letter Ikey was already dead. He had passed away not two weeks previously. His funeral had been a mixed affair, one of the first few to take place in the Hobart synagogue which had been open for five years. One hundred and eighty of the male Jews in Hobart Town attended Ikey's funeral and filled the tiny synagogue to overflowing. As well, standing outside, was a crowd which the polite society of Hobart found most undesirable. Publicans and whores, touts, con men, cock fight proprietors, sly grog merchants and most of the racing fraternity of Hobart Town stood outside the little synagogue.