bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 4 (2015) — Spring 2015 // Printemps 2015, pp. 41–43
D Essex Mackinaw, world’s driest lawyer, sat stiffly in a chair across the table. He emptied his briefcase one file at a time, arranging them squarely in front of him. “Thank you for agreeing to this meeting, Mr. Dikk,” he started. “Please allow me to introduce my client, Dr. Benjamin Trovato. I have recommended your services based both on your record of successful achievement in detection, and also on your established sang froid concerning the, ah, less easily explained elements of certain legal cases we have shared.”
“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Travato,” I said. “Call me Ben, please,” he replied. Travato was short and pudgy, with a mop of white hair, a snub nose supporting round rimless glasses, and an infectious grin. “Doobie and I have been great friends since we met at the Latin Club in college.” I looked around and then realized. Doobie? I managed to keep a straight face. Almost. Mackinaw glared at me. “When the professor explained his situation, at first I was not fully sure whom to call in. Then I thought of you, pro bozo publico.”!
“So what’s the problem?” I asked. Mackinaw started to speak, but Travato cut across him. “In my work as a literature professor, I recently came across something startling!” The lawyer nodded at him to continue. “The story starts in 1623, when English baronet Sir Edward Dering bought the first copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Only about 250 copies are now known to exist. Our university library holds one of them, although not Sir Edward’s.”
“A few weeks ago, I was going over the Folio’s version of Henry V, when I ran across Falstaff’s death scene. I was enjoying it thoroughly when it suddenly occurred to me that Falstaff doesn’t appear in Henry V. verified my suspicions against modern versions. Then I went back and scanned the Folio for other changes. I found lots — Romeo and Juliet surviving Friar Lawrence’s potions and fleeing to Heidelberg, Hamlet seeing a good psychiatrist and resolving his Oedipus complex, Othello divorcing Desdemona and marrying Jago, that sort of thing. But the changes in the First Folio were not stable — they kept appearing and disappearing.”
“I consulted a few colleagues, but they were all copulamus non sapiens. So I tried the techies at the Centre — Liebnitz’s crowd? They worked it out. A man named Sleazewagon had stolen Sir Edward’s copy of the Folio. Simultaneously, he somehow acquired the legendary Qin eraser. The first Qin emperor was an outstanding military leader but the biggest fruitloop ’til Captain Crunch came along. He wanted to remake China in ideological terms. Along with burying Confucian scholars alive, he had all
“Support your town clown”
“Fuddle-duddled if we know” books, except a few on law and technology, destroyed. Given his (quite accurate) suspicion that the scholars were not handing in all their scrolls, he had the state geomancers create a device to register any book it touched and reach out to destroy all later copies. The eraser was entombed with him outside Chang An.”
“Anyway, Sleazewagon hacked into the Gutenberg Project, which makes a digital record of every book it can find, including the First Folio. Then he kludged the Qin eraser into his anti- Gutenberg program. When activated, the program is supposed to erase all the Folios except his own, which would thus become unique and priceless.”
“But the first roll-out of the program wasn’t strong enough. Shakespeare’s literary corpus somehow fought back. The temporary plot shifts reflect a loosening grip on reality, but not enough to effect erasure. So Sleazewagon engaged a black hacker’s collective of alienated lobsters from Joe Batt’s Arm to strengthen the program. Then he had it coded into a virtual reality set-up modelling Julius Caesar’s assassination scene from Shakespeare. To spread the impact, he substituted killers from other Shakespearean plays for the original Roman conspirators. Sleazewagon himself would also replace one of the conspirators and deliver the death-blow with the Qin eraser, disguised as a knife. With that blow, the program would be executed.”
Effie laughed. “A classic killer app!” But Mackinaw scowled. “That’s ridiculous. Once he has the program set up on his computer, all he has to do is click EXECUTE.” I replied, “Agreed. Sleazewagon’s a genius, if twisted. He’s also a melodramatic, self-aggrandizing twit. But here that works in our favour. If we can crash his VR scene and block the hit, we can disrupt the program. But how can we get in to make our play?” The Professor beamed. “By an amazing coincidence, I have access to a holodeck with a cutting-edge intrusion function. It’s part of our Extreme Literature project. I’ve been using it to spy on Sleazewagon’s preparations. I have lots of spare costumes, and the program itself takes care of the language problem.”
Not long after, togged in togas, we entered the holodeck. The professor operated the controls remarkably smoothly for a man who acted like Mr. Pickwick on his seventh glass of port. Soon we were surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of classical Rome. “Via Argiletum, the road leading into Subura. We’ll be meeting our local contact in Bulbericus’ place,” Trovato explained. Pushing through the raucous crowd, we turned down a side street Brutus and his seven co-conspirators have been replaced in the VR scene by seven murderers from elsewhere in Shakespeare, plus Sleazewagon. Each murderer comes from a different play and killed a different victim in that play, using various methods (some duplicated).
Goneril killed with poison. So did the killer from Hamlet but not the one from Othello.
The Earl of Richmond, replacing Brutus, killed with a battle-ax. Sleazewagon is on the killers list five rows above the row listing Regan, the victim from King Lear. He has no play or victim listed, but carries a knife. 4 Longinus replacement Tybalt is from Romeo and Juliet.
The plays in the first and last rows are named after the victims in those rows.
The “lean and hungry” Senators substitute killed a king; the play involved is named after the king’s son, who has the same name as his father. Killer Lucius appears in a row four away from victim Richard III and three away from killer MacDuff in the opposite direction.
Decius’ replacement killed Aaron by burying him alive. MacBeth and Mercutio both fell to the sword.
The plays in the first, seventh and eighth rows are all named after kings, the play in the third after a prince.
The killer Claudius, the victim Roderigo and the play Titus Andronicus are in adjacent rows in that order.
Iago killed with a knife. between tall apartment blocks and entered a crowded space with a smell of spilled wine I that meant tavern in any century. The bartender came over.
Travato cleared his throat. Mackinaw turned to him and said sternly, “Ben, no.” “But I when will I ever get another chance?” the professor replied. Turning to the barkeep, he said, “Gimme a martinus.” Bulbericus rolled his eyes but responded, “Don’t you mean ° ‘martini’, sir?” Trovato chuckled and declaimed, “If I want two, Pll ask for them!”
I spoke to the barkeep. “We’re supposed to meet a guy named Flavius Maximus. He : here?” A large man in legionary armour stood up from a bench in the back of the room : and came over. He said, “Flavius can’t make it, so he asked me to fill in” Bulbericus added, “Said he had a blind date. I told him, ‘Don’t go, Flavius, don’t go” But would he listen?” The centurion went on, “Name’s Costus, I work at the Colosseum. Veni vidi velcro”
“I came, I saw, I stuck around”
Trovato asked, “Are you up on the problem?” “Yes, and I have the information you’re looking for, about the assassins. I’m afraid it’s a bit incoherent — the soldier I detailed to gather it is smart enough, but he gets into the Falernian. He was drunk as Bacchus when he wrote this report. There’s a chart, but he never finished it. Excretus est ex altitudine“ He’s now on his way to the Persian front.” Costus handed over a wood-framed writing tablet with words cut erratically into the wax.
I filled in the chart, putting Sleazewagon in the bulls-eye. Costus nodded. “Good. We’d better get over to the Senate before it’s too late.” As we headed for the door, Bulbericus called out, “Jllegitimi noli carborundum,> Costus”. The legionnaire shrugged and replied, “Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebelli®”.
We strode down the slope past Caesar’s old house, turned right through the Forum and marched onward to the Campus Martius — all pointed out by the professor. The assassins were going to fall on Caesar as he passed Pompey’s statue on his way into the Senate meeting. It was the Ides of March. We arrived just as the drama was being played out. A crowd of senators in broad-striped togas milled around the steps, hassling a tall, pale-skinned, balding man with deep-set dark eyes and a commanding presence. “Caesar,” breathed Costus. “And that guy, over there” — he pointed — “is the one we’re looking for.”
We hustled over. A scuffle broke out, with one of the senators grabbing Caesar’s toga and yanking it down, entangling his arms. Then our target pulled out a dagger and slashed at the struggling man. Just as
“He was severely reprimanded” (more or less…)
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down” “If you grasp their attention firmly, their hearts and minds will follow” he did so, Costus and I jumped him, and he only nicked Caesar in the shoulder. As we pulled the failed assassin away, his friends took care of the doomed leader. The professor checked his smart-scroll. “Mission accomplished. Caesar is still dead of course, but not by the Qin eraser, so the folios are safe.” The disguised Sleazewagon cursed and was led away by two of Costus’ men.
Back in the office, Mackinaw turned to his friend. “Well, Ben, that turned out acceptably well. But it would have been better if you had consulted me earlier. “Cogito eggo sum,”! agreed his friend ruefully, “But you came through for me.” Mackinaw replied, “As Popeye once declared, cogito ergo discoraceo.®” “Ah,” interjected Effie, “Quip pro quo!’ “I’m happy to see things resolved,” I said, “But just as happy to carpe dime et fugito’® — as the bakers say, quod subigo farinam.! Enough already…”
Can you duplicate Shamus’ feat and indicate which of Caesar’s assassins Sleazewagon impersonated? bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a hat containing all correct entries received by July 17. The winner will receive a book autographed by A Aalto. Not necessary to win, but can you also “translate” the title of the puzzle?
“I think I am a waffle”
“T think therefore I yam”
“A snappy return” 10 “Take the money and run” Il “Because I knead the dough”
Free-lance prestidigitator and migrant worker A Aalto continues to shuttle between Canada and Tanu Tuva. This puzzle is dedicated to the memory of the incomparable Terry Pratchett, whose death on March 12 robbed the world of a great master of cod Latin epigrams, surreal footnotes and trenchant social criticism embedded in very funny stories. Sir Edward Dering really did buy the first (and second) copy of the First Folio. Bulbericus’ tavern plied its custom in Ostia (not Rome) over a century after Caesar’s assassination, but the holodeck can compress time and space. On Flavius Maximus and the “martinus” exchange, see Wayne and Shuster’s immortal “Rinse the Blood Off My Toga” www youtube com/ watch?v=sdrzQNvI24w. Thanks as always to Mrs. Aalto for sage advice.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 4 (2015) — Spring 2015 // Printemps 2015, pp. 41–43. Read the rest of this issue →
