Page 46 of Right Place, Right Time
‘What sort of comics were they?’ Barney asks while Adam and I are still ruminating on this.
‘In Archie’s shop?’ Ben’s bushy white eyebrows draw together as his brow furrows. He must be wondering, like me, what this has to do with anything.
‘Yes.’
‘Erm … theBeano, theDandy, that sort of thing.’
‘Anything else? Any American comics?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, there were. I was just telling Eve earlier that there were some American imports. I think they must have come over with one or two of the GIs stationed here during the war.’
‘Marvel?’ Barney asks.
‘Yes, although they weren’t called Marvel, they were called Timely Comics back then, if I remember correctly. Archie loved a comic and so did George. I think that’s one of the reasons they stocked them, so George could read them.’
‘Why are you asking, Barney?’ I say. Barney is into comics and superheroes, and he helped me value many of the items from Past Times House we brought from the cabinet in George’s office. He actually bought a few bits off me before they went on sale in the shop.
‘Because there’s some references to Marvel in the books you showed me,’ Barney says.
‘The equation books?’ I ask doubtfully.
‘Yeah, look.’ Barney reaches forTwelfth Night. ‘While you were poring over the map, I continued to look at the books. It was difficult for me to see the map up there.’
‘Oh, Barney, I’m sorry,’ I say, feeling immediately guilty. ‘We should have put it on the lower part of the desk so you could see it too.’
Barney shrugs good-naturedly. ‘No worries. It’s probably a good thing, because although I couldn’t understand all the equations and formulae in the books, what I did see at the back of a couple of them are references that only a Marvel geek would understand. I’m a Marvel geek,’ he says when none of us respond. ‘Well, a comic-book geek, really, but Marvel is my favourite.’ He looks at Ben, who nods approvingly.
‘What sort of references?’ I ask.
‘All sorts that could mean anything, but one in particular might be relevant. It saysEARTHin big capital letters inside a doodle of Captain America’s shield.’
‘I’m sorry, Barney, but you’ll have to explain further?’
‘In the Marvel universe, Earth is referred to with three numbers – 616. It’s complicated,’ he says quickly. ‘But the doodle of the shield is inside what looks a bit like a combination lock.’
‘Like the one on the door?’ Adam is piecing all this together much faster than Ben and I.
‘Exactly.’ Barney points at him.
‘But the combination has six digits,’ I say, not really catching on.
‘I know, but what if three of those digits are 616. If you can discover the second three, you might be that little bit closer to unlocking the secret of what’s hidden behind that door.’
14
In between customers, we pore over the rest of the books looking for a clue to three further numbers, but we don’t find anything that immediately makes any sense. According to Barney, there are more comic-related clues doodled within the pages, but nothing that gives us any numbers. What we do discover, though, is that the doodles are always drawn in a different pen than the rest of the notes within the books.
‘The notes were all written in black ink with a fountain pen,’ Ben says. ‘While these doodles are done with a more modern ballpoint pen, it would seem.’
‘They must have been added later,’ I say. ‘When did people start to use ballpoint pens?’
A quick internet search suggests they first became popular in the 1960s.
‘So do we all agree then that the main body of notes were written pre-sixties and the added doodles sometime afterwards?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Ben says. ‘Some people still use fountain pens today.’
‘But the novels all date from pre-1960, don’t they, so it’s more than likely.’
