A Murder Shall Commence.

Chapter 6

Fisher, Newham and I managed to get a good half hour of sleeping in before Isabel bustled through the door. After a severe (well, severe by Isabel's standards) telling off, my sister shooed us all off to get clean and settled herself down with a nice cup of coffee.

When we returned, looking altogether much better off, the four of us sat down to stare at the new riddle, which Fisher had written up on the blackboard again.

25 15 21 19 5 5 11 20 8 5 19 5 23 9 14 7 16 18 9 14 3 5 19 19 9 14 20 8 5 3 18 25 19 20 1 12 16 1 12 1 3 5

"It's a whole load of numbers" Isabel pointed out bluntly.

"And we're running out of time" Newham added, looking worriedly up at the clock, which read ten past six.

"Eighteen hours and fifty minutes exactly" Fisher groaned.

"Come on!" I snapped, folding my arms and glaring again. "We're only wasting time when we spend time worrying about how much time we're spending wasting time!"

The three of them looked confusedly at me. I rolled my eyes.

"Let's think" I continued. "Somehow or other, these numbers translate into words. Well, they've got to. What's the most common number?"

There was a minute of silence, as the other three began counting up the numbers on the board.

"5" Isabel said first. "By a long way."

"Yeah" Fisher and Newham chorused in agreement. I nodded.

"So, using a bit of common sense, since E is the most common letter in the alphabet, let's assume that E is 5" I said, crossing to the board and rubbing out all of the 5s and replacing them with the letter E. This was what I was left with:

25 15 21 19 E E 11 20 8 E 19 E 23 9 14 7 16 18 9 14 3 E 19 19 9 14 20 8 E 3 18 25 19 20 1 12 16 1 12 1 3 E

"Right?" Newham said quizzically. "Where does that take us?"

I frowned at the board, tapping my foot. Where did we go from there?

"Look!" Fisher said excitedly, jumping up and taking the chalk from me. "There's a repeat. 20, 8, E. I bet you anything that 20 and 8 stand for T and H."

I nodded.

"It's worth a try. I mean, this is all mainly guesswork, to be honest. We can backtrack and start from square one again if we have to."

Fisher filled it in, and we were left with:

25 15 21 19 E E 11 T H E 19 E 23 9 14 7 16 18 9 14 3 E 19 19 9 14 T H E 3 18 25 19 T 1 12 16 1 12 1 3 E

I sucked my lip thoughtfully. We could very well be getting somewhere with this. Newham and Isabel also stood up, and we began quickly to try out more substitutions.

But as the hours slowly began to tick by, our enthusiasm slowly began to waver. It seemed we would always get to a certain point one way, and then hit a problem and have to start again. Dinnertime came and went, and a pile of pies and sandwiches appeared on Fisher's desk, although the only thing we were really consuming was a steady stream of highly caffeinated tea and coffee.

"For God's sake!" Newham exclaimed finally, at roughly half past nine. "We're getting nowhere here!"

"We all need to eat!" Isabel reasoned, guiding the rest of us over to the food on Fisher's desk. "We can't expect ourselves to think properly if we're all on a caffeine high, can we?" she added, and part of me knew she was right, although I didn't want to admit it. I snaffled something edible off the desk and sat down on the arm of the armchair, while Fisher collapsed into his desk chair and the other two sat on the desk.

"It's...only half past nine" Fisher said hopefully, through a mouthful of pie. There was a general nodding of heads, and I slid off the arm of the chair and flopped sideways over the seat, shutting my eyes for just a few blissful seconds. Over the last half an hour or so, I was beginning to wonder whether there was some sort of overlying algorithm to the puzzle, like there had been with the last one. But when I thought this, mentally, I laughed at myself. "Overlying algorithm". Fisher and his methods were rubbing off on me.

But thinking about overlying algorithms had made me consider some overlying algorithms that could be relevant. I was pretty certain 5 was E, so...

I jolted bolt upright.

"Oh, for God's sake!" I complained loudly. The other three looked confusedly at me. I flopped back down and buried my head in the material of the armchair.

"It's so blinking obvious" I moaned, my voice muffled my the padding of the chair.

"Is it?" Newham asked, sounding more depressed than hopeful.

"Yes" I huffed, sitting up and staring at them. "It's the most basic substitution. Numbers in numerical order to letters in alphabetical order. A is 1, B is 2, E is 5, etcetera."

I collapsed back on the armchair again and stuffed a pillow over my head. I was a complete idiot.

I stayed that way until Newham came over. He wrestled said pillow from my grip and scooped me up like I weighed nothing, sitting back down on the chair with me on his knee in such a way that I had no choice but to look at the blackboard. It read:

You seek the sewing princess in the crystal palace.

"Helpful" I grumbled sarcastically, folding my arms and looking the other way.

"Stop being so childish, Alianna" Newham snapped, turning my chin rather roughly to face him. "How do you think the rest of us feel? We would have gone around in circles forever with that number code, so just because you didn't solve it as quickly as you would've liked to doesn't mean you can suddenly turn stroppy and stop putting the effort in. I know you're tired. We're all tired. But I thought you'd know more than anyone that we can't stop now. We're running out of time, and past events prove really you're the only one smart enough for this, so we need you more than any of us to keep going."

I didn't know whether it was the tiredness, the frustration, the overdose of caffeine or the lack of proper meals, but some part of me just broke.

"No!" I said angrily, wriggling away from Newham and half running to the door. All three of them called my name after me, and I turned at the handle.

"It's too much" I choked, holding back tears. "I know what you all think's happening. You think I'm turning into Smart. You think all I care about is riddles and puzzles and solving things, that all I care about is proving how right and how clever I am all the time. You think I want to work day in, day out, with no sleep, because you think that's what I live on, the question, the chase, the case, the quest for the answer. But it's not. I'm not. I can't. I'm not like Smart. I'm not a machine, and really, neither is he. We're human. And I can't do this. It's too much. I'm done."

And I ran.