Struck in Error

My father’s drafting tools had been assembled into a neat pile on top of the antique Victorian Davenport desk; the same desk he had used to design airplanes, hydroplanes, and hovercrafts; now a beautifully carved monument to his classified work.

My brother and I divvied up the cache of slide rulers, compasses, and drafting sets pulled from the Davenport, being careful to look through the elaborate network of empty pocket drawers and hidden doors. I knew I had found something exceptional when I spotted the little black notebook taped to the false bottom of a slide-out compartment; it had escaped the scrutiny of the G-Men AND my mother.

I concealed the notebook in my hoard, excused myself, and headed to my room to read it in privacy. The first few drawings and notes made no sense to me, mostly numbers, strange markings and repeating patterns of ones and zeroes that had been drawn with the same care as any other design. As I devoured the pages, I recognized the strange markings and numbers were in fact pieces of a larger puzzle my father had constructed as a three- dimensional model using a two-dimensional medium. Typical aeronautical engineer, I muttered to myself, as a smile crept across my face.

By carefully folding the pages along the faded creases I had found on the odd numbered pages; different “blocks” of the puzzle emerged. I duplicated the three-dimensional shapes from the folds I found throughout the notebook into my computer and programmed in the binary patterns of ones and zeroes. Surely, I must be decoding some sort of treasure map with markers and a coordinate system!

If only it was that easy. Instead, the binary code spelled out gibberish, containing nothing meaningful, and the folded shapes all looked the same – five lines with markings at various points on the lines.

Some treasure map.

So, why take the time to crease pages and write out patterns of numbers and markings in this little black notebook?

Why hide it in an Antique Davenport desk from the 1700’s in a way not easy to find? If it does not contain anything meaningful, why hide it at all?

Wait! That must be it. That old Victorian Desk must be part of the puzzle or play some part in decoding my father’s notebook. Why else go to this trouble?

“Seth!” I yelled from upstairs, “grab daddy’s drum-kit and meet me by his desk.”

“What? Do what?”, he countered, as I ran down to meet him.

“Look, I found this little black notebook of dad’s in the desk, and if I am right, the correct series of pitches, tones, and beats from his drum set will mechanically resonate with the desk. I think he wanted us to find something after he died!”

Seth was understandably confused at first but moved past the fact that I initially kept the notebook from everyone and was game to try out my ‘mechanical-resonance-music-theory’.

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” he sighed, “how do we know a drum kit is the instrument of choice here?”

“Easy”, I grinned, “see this strange marking? That’s the drum clef. Also, dad played the drums.”

“Okay, then how do we know which cymbal or tom-tom to hit from the data you copied into your laptop from his notebook?” I went on to explain that each line of the staff corresponded to one of the percussion elements like the Hi-Hat, Snare, Cymbals, Tom-Tom, and Base Drum. When we programmed the three-dimensional shapes into the correct series, according to the page number they were derived from, a drum clef, staff lines and markings for each percussion instrument appeared. The ones and zeroes I originally thought where binary where, in actual fact, the rhythm and timing to use. Everything was lining up.

I printed out the music from my computer as Seth reacquainted himself with the drum kit.

“What are you two up now?” came the stern but playful voice from my mother.

“Seth and I are trying an experiment. We think daddy left us a final message in the form of music or something. Come see!”

Seth began sight-reading the music and playing the drum kit according to the music notation I had transcribed and printed from the little black notebook. I was deep in thought and my mother shook her head when Seth finished the song, and, surprise, surprise, nothing happened.

“We must have the wrong timing or beats per minute setting or something” I said, scrambling to keep the experiment alive.

“It’s too slow”, my mother exclaimed, “I know this song. It’s ‘EZ Come EZ Go’ by Tesla. It’s the only one your father learned to play correctly. Set the metronome to 113!”

Wait, what? I had so many questions, but they would have to wait. We set the metronome to 113 beats per minute and Seth began to play the drum-kit part to Ez Come Ez Go.

The Davenport desk began to vibrate after 33 seconds of playing. It was working. The vibrations grew and grew, threatening to shake the whole antique apart. Then, at the 50 second mark, it collapsed in a pile of dust and oak splinters. The Davenport had been resonated to rubble.

When the dust settled, and the smell of 200 hundred years of Oak dry rot dissipated, shiny glints of metal were visible through plastic packets.

“Oh my God! What did you guys do? Your father’s desk is destroyed!”

“Hold on, what are those metal things? Is that gold?” Seth, giddy with excitement at what he just spotted, couldn’t believe the words he was saying.

“No, it’s not gold”, I said confidently, “these are copper pennies from 1943. They are error coins which means each one is worth $10, 000.

That’s $20, 000 total!”

“Great. You can buy me a new desk.”

Printed, on the back of the packet, was the note “Even something struck in error can be valuable.”

Instantly we knew. My father was talking about himself.