Necroscope

Then he would appear to pick up, glance at the next question, scribble away at frantic speed, as if inspired -before pausing again, exhausted - and so on. Harmon could well understand his tension or anxiety or whatever it was: the questions were very difficult. There were six of them, each one of which would normally take at least a quarter of an hour to complete - and only then if the boy's aptitude was well in advance of his years and present level of education at Harden Modern.

What Harmon couldn't understand was why he both­ered at all, why he kept making these furious attacks on the paper, only to sit back each time after a little while, frustrated and tired. Wasn't it obvious to him that he couldn't win? What were his thoughts as he gazed out of the windows? Where was he when his face took on that blank, almost vacant expression?

Maybe Harmon should stop this now, put an end to it. Plainly the lad wasn't getting anywhere...

They were now (the headmaster glanced at his watch) thirty-five minutes into the maths section. As the boy sat back yet again, his arms dangling and his eyes half-closed behind the lenses of his spectacles, so Harmon quietly stood up and approached him from the rear. Outside, the rain was blowing in gusts against the windowpanes; in here, an old clock ticked on the wall, pacing the head's breathing. He glanced over Keogh's shoulder, not really knowing what he expected to see.

His glance became a fixed stare. He blinked, blinked again, and his eyes opened wide. His eyebrows drew together as he craned his neck the better to see. If Keogh heard his gasp of astonishment he made no sign, remained seated, continued to gaze blearily at the rain rivering the windows.

Harmon took a step backwards away from the boy, turned and went back to his desk. He seated himself, slid open a drawer, held his breath and took out the answers to the maths section. Keogh had not only answered the questions, he'd got them right! All of them! That last frenzied burst of work had been him working on the sixth and last. Moreover he'd accomplished it with the very minimum of rough work and hardly any use at all of the familiar and accepted formulae.

Finally the head allowed himself a deep, deep breath, gawped again at the printed answer sheets in his hand - the masses of complicated workings and neatly resolved solutions - then carefully placed them back in the drawer and slid it shut. He could hardly credit it. If he hadn't been sitting here through the entire examination, he'd swear the boy must have cheated. But quite obviously, that was not the case. So ... what did Harmon have here?

'Intuitive,' Howard Jamieson had called the boy, an intuitive mathematician'. Very well, Harmon would see how well (if at all) this intuition of his worked with the next paper. Meanwhile –

The headmaster rubbed his chin and stared thoughtfully at the back of Keogh's head. He must speak to both Jamieson and young George Ha

Jack Harmon was short, fat, hirsute and generally apish. He would be quite ugly except that he exuded a friendlin ess and an aura of well-being that cut right through his outer guise to show the man inside for what he really was: one of Nature's truest gentlemen. He also had a quite brilliant mind.

In Harmon's younger days he had known George Ha

'Young Ha

Harmon had called the Maths teacher down from his own school to Hartlepool in order to talk to him about Harry Keogh. It was the Monday following Keogh's 'examination' and they had met at the Tech. Harmon lived close by and had taken the younger man home with him for a lunch of cold meats and pickles. His wife, knowing it was business, served the food then went shopping while the two men ate and talked. Harmon opened with an apology:

'I hope it isn't inconvenient for you, George, to be called away like this? I know Howard keeps you pretty busy up there.'

Ha

'Oh, he would, he would! Wouldn't we all?' Harmon gri

And I suppose the prestige has a little to do with it, too. You'll know what I mean when you're a "head" in your 'own right. Now then, tell me about Keogh. You're the one who discovered him, aren't you?'

'I think it's truer to say he discovered himself,' Ha

'Ah!' said Ha

'Ha

'No,' Harmon shook his head. 'He failed - miserably! ' The English paper let him down. He tried hard, I believe, but-'

Ha

Harmon nodded. 'I admit that I gave him the most difficult questions I could find - and he made mincemeat of them! If he has any fault at all, I'd say it was his unorthodox approach - if that in itself is a fault. It's just that he seems to dispense with all the customary ' formulae.'

Ha

'I thought it might just be Maths,' said the other, 'but it was just the same with the other paper. Call it "IQ" or "spatial" or whatever, it's mainly designed to test the potential of the intellect. I found his answer to one of the questions especially interesting; not the answer itself, you understand, which was absolutely correct anyway, but the way he arrived at it. It concerned a triangle.'