Necroscope

The answer, in pencil - including what looked like a false start - had been drawn beneath the question and was signed Harry Keogh :

Jamieson stared at it, stared harder, opened his mouth to speak but said nothing. Ha

'It's better than that,' Ha

The head blinked at him. 'Perfect, George? But all magic squares are perfect. That's the lure of them. That's their magic!'

'Yes,' Ha

Jamieson checked again, frowned for a moment, then smiled delightedly. And finally: 'Where's Keogh now?' 'He's outside. I thought you might like to see him...' Jamieson sighed, sat down at his desk. 'All right, George, let's have your prodigy in, shall we?' Ha

'Young Keogh,' said the head, 'Mr. Ha

'This magic square, for instance. Now, I've fiddled about with such things - purely for my own amusement, you understand - ever since, oh, since I was about your age. But I don't think I ever came up with a solution as good as this one. It's quite remarkable. Did anyone help you with it?'

Harry looked up, looked straight into Jamieson's eyes. For a moment he looked - scared? Possibly, but in the next moment he went on the defensive. 'No, sir. No one helped me.'

Jamieson nodded. 'I see. So where's your rough work? I mean, one doesn't just guess something as clever as this, does one?'

'No, sir,' said Harry. 'My rough work is there, crossed out.'

Jamieson looked at the paper, scratched his very nearly bald head, glanced at Ha

'Sir,' Harry stopped him, 'it seemed to me that was the logical way to start. When I got that far I could see what needed doing.'

Again the head and the maths teacher exchanged glances.

'Go on, Harry,' said the head, nodding.

'See, sir, if you just write the numbers in, like I did, all the big numbers go to the right and to the bottom. So I asked myself: how can I get half of them over from right to left and half of them from the bottom to the top? And: how can I do both at the same time?'

'That seems... logical' Jamieson scratched his head again. 'So what did you do?'

'Pardon?'

'I said, what - did - you - do, boy!' Jamieson hated having to repeat himself to pupils. They should hang on his every word.

Harry was suddenly pale. He said something but it came out a croak. He coughed and his voice dropped an octave or two. When he spoke again he no longer sounded like a small boy at all. 'It's there in front of you,' he said. 'Can't you see it for yourself?'

Jamieson's eyes bugged and his jaw dropped, but before he could explode Harry added: 'I reversed the diagonals, that's all. It was the obvious answer, the only logical answer. Any other way's a game of chance, trial and error. And hit and miss isn't good enough. Not for me...'

Jamieson stood up, flopped down again, pointed an enraged finger at the door. 'Ha

Ha

Back inside Jamieson's study, Ha

Ha

Jamieson saw his meaning and nodded. 'Yes, well that's no excuse for insolence - or arrogance.'

Ha

'But why? Surely that's not normal. Most boys of his age like the chance to show off. Is it simply that he's shy - or does it go deeper than that?'

Ha

When he was through, the head said: 'Almost exactly parallel to what we've just seen.'

'That's right.'

Jamieson grew thoughtful. 'If he really is as clever as you seem to think he is - and certainly he seems to have an intuitive knack in some directions - then I'd hate to be the one to deprive him of a chance to get somewhere in life.' He sat back. 'Very well, it's decided. Keogh missed the exams through no fault of his own, so ... I'll speak to Jack Harmon at the Tech., see if we can fix up some

sort of private examination for him. Of course I can't promise anything, but - ' 'It's better than nothing,' Ha

'Thanks, Howard.'

Tine, fine. I'll let you know how I get on.' Nodding, Ha

Keogh was waiting.

Over the next two days Ha