‘We’ll have to climb over,’ he remarked. ‘It doesn’t look easy.’
‘We won’t have to,’ said Sheere next to him. ‘Our father described every inch of this house in his book before he built it, and I’ve spent years memorising every detail. If what he wrote is correct, and I have no doubt that it is, there’s a small lake behind these shrubs and the house stands further back.’
‘What about these spears?’ asked Ben. ‘Did he write about them too? I’d rather not end up skewered like a roast chicken.’
‘There’s another way of getting into the house without having to jump over them,’ said Sheere.
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Ben and Ian asked together.
Sheere led them through what was barely an alleyway, a small gap between the railings surrounding the property and the walls of an adjacent building with Moorish features. Soon they reached a circular opening that looked as if it served as the main sewer for all the drains in the house. From it came a sour biting stench.
‘In here?’ asked Ben sceptically.
‘What did you expect?’ snapped Sheere. ‘A Persian carpet?’
Ben scanned the inside of the sewage tunnel and sniffed.
‘Divine,’ he concluded, turning to Sheere. ‘You first.’
THEY EMERGED FROM THE TUNNEL BENEATH A small wooden bridge that arched over the lake, a dark velvety mantle of murky water stretching in front of Chandra Chatterghee’s house. Sheere led the two boys along a narrow bank, their feet sinking into the clay, until they reached the other end of the lake. There she stopped to gaze at the building she had dreamed about all her life. Ian and Ben stood quietly by her side.
The two-storey building was flanked by two towers, one on either side. It featured a mix of architectural styles, from Edwardian lines to Palladian extravaganzas and features that looked as if they belonged to some castle tucked away in the mountains of Bavaria. The overall effect, however, was elegant and serene, challenging the critical eye of the spectator. The house seemed to possess a bewitching charm, so that although the first impression was one of bewilderment you then had the feeling that the impossible jumble of styles and forms had been chosen on purpose to create a harmonious whole.
‘Is this how your father described it?’ asked Ian.
Sheere nodded in amazement and walked towards the steps leading to the front door. Ben and Ian watched her hesitantly, wondering how she thought she was going to enter such a fortress. But Sheere seemed to move about the mysterious surroundings as if they had been her childhood home. The ease with which she dodged obstacles, almost invisible in the dark, made the two boys feel like trespassers in the dream Sheere had nurtured during her nomadic years. As they watched her walk up the steps, Ben and Ian realised that this deserted place was the only real home the girl had ever had.
‘Are you going to stay there all night?’ Sheere called from the top of the stairs.
‘We were wondering how to get in,’ Ben pointed out. Ian nodded in agreement.
‘I have the key.’
‘The key?’ asked Ben. ‘Where?’
‘Here,’ Sheere replied, pointing to her head with her forefinger. ‘You don’t open the locks in this house with a normal key. There’s a code.’
Intrigued, Ben and Ian came up the steps to join her. When they reached the door, they saw that at its centre was a set of four wheels on a single axle. Each wheel was smaller than the one behind it, and different symbols were carved on the metal rim of each, like the hours on the face of a clock.
‘What do these symbols mean?’ asked Ian, trying to decipher them in the dark.
Ben pulled a match from the box he always carried with him and struck it in front of the lock mechanism. The metal shone in the light of the flame.
‘Alphabets!’ cried Ben. ‘Each wheel has an alphabet carved on it. Greek, Latin, Arab and Sanskrit.’
‘Fantastic,’ sighed Ian. ‘Piece of cake …’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Sheere. ‘The code is simple. All you have to do is make a four-letter word using the different alphabets.’
Ben looked at her intently.
‘What is the word?’
‘Dido,’ replied Sheere.
‘Dido?’ asked Ian. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s the name of a mythological Phoenician queen,’ Ben explained.