Necroscope

Still trembling he got to his feet, picked up Keogh's books and put them in his briefcase, then backed carefully away from the grave.

Cut into the headstone, lichened over in parts, the legend was simple and George knew it by heart:

JAMES GORDON HANNANT

13 June 1875 - 11 Sept. 1944

Master at Harden Boys' School

for Thirty Years, Headmaster

for Ten, now he Numbers

among the Hosts

of Heaven.

The epitaph had been the Old Man's idea of a joke. His principal subject, like that of his son after him, had been maths. But he had been far better at it than George would ever be.

Chapter Three

There was one short maths lesson first thing on the following morning, but before then George Ha

If you could get him interested in a subject deeply enough to make him want to do something with it, then he'd doubtless do something quite extraordinary. Oh, he would still make errors in simple addition and subtraction - two plus two could still on occasion come out five - but solutions which were invisible to others would be instantly obvious to him. That was why Ha

And equally obvious to Ha

But there was still something which puzzled George Ha

'Harry Keogh?' Howard Jamieson seemed a little taken aback. 'How did he do in the Technical College examin­ ation?' He took out a slim file from one of his desk drawers, flipped through it, looked up. 'I'm afraid Keogh didn't take the examination,' he said. 'Apparently he was down with hay fever or some such. Yes, here it is: hay fever, three weeks ago; he had two days off school. Unfortunately the exams took place in Hartlepool on the second day of Keogh's absence. But why do you ask, George? Do you think he'd have stood a chance?'

'I think he'd have sailed it,' Ha

Jamieson seemed surprised. 'Bit late in the day, isn't it'

'To worry about it? I suppose it is.'

'No, I meant this interest in Harry Keogh. I didn't know you much approved of him. Wait - ' He took out another file, a thicker one, this time from a cabinet. 'Last year's reports,' he said, checking through the file. And this time he wasn't at all surprised. 'Thought so. Accord­ing to this none of your colleagues here give Keogh a cat in hell's chance at anything - and that includes you, George!'

'Yes,' Ha

Jamieson nodded. 'Well, it's something when a master takes more than a grudging interest in a Harden boy,' he said. 'And that's not to put anyone down, not even the kids themselves - but they do have a hell of a handicap here, in background and environment, I mean. Do you know how many of our boys got through that exam, by the way? Three! Three out of that age group - which is to say one in sixty-five!'

'Four, if Harry Keogh had taken it.'

'Oh?' Jamieson wasn't convinced. But he was impressed, at least. 'All right,' he said, 'let's assume you're right about the maths side of it. And in fact you are right that the test is a measure of basic intelligence rather than knowledge assimilated parrot-fashion. So what about the other subjects? According to these reports Keogh is a habitual failure in just about any subject you care to mention! Bottom of his class in many of them.'

Ha

'Tell you what,' said Jamieson, coming round his desk and moving towards the door with his hand on Ha

He returned to his desk, took a pen and quickly scribbled something on a blank sheet of A4. There you go,' he said. 'See what he makes of that. Let him work at it through the lunch break. If he comes up with an answer, then I'll see him and we'll see how we go from there.'

Ha

At 1:30 p.m. sharp Ha

'I did as you suggested,' Ha

The headmaster quickly sca

Magic Square: A square is divided into 16 equal, smaller squares. Each

small square contains a number, 1 to 16 inclusive. Arrange them so that the sum of each of the four lines and each of the four columns, and the diagonals, is one and the same number.