Fantom Chapter 1, part 4.

  They found a map on a leaflet in the library, and sat down to try and work out the remainder of the clues.
  “They don’t seem to be in any sort of pattern,” Tom said.  “Assuming we’ve got the right places.”
  “I’m pretty sure the container’s right,” Ruth said.  “Try drawing a line from that to- which bridge is it linked with?  Two?  That’s the Langwith one that’s not there.”
  “I remember where it used to be,” Tom said, drawing a line.  “I suppose the library bridge is the first bridge?”  He drew another line from there to the music practice rooms.  
  “Maybe all the lines are should overlap, and whatever it is we’re looking for is at that point?” Adam suggested.
  “What about the third one?  Where could you draw a line to from the third bridge that would overlap with those two?”  They all stared at the map, but found no further inspiration.  
  After a while they left the library- they were getting some angry looks from students trying to work.  Ruth lingered outside, looking down on campus spread out before her.  Langwith and Vanbrugh colleges, the physics building, the health centre, Central Hall- hmm.  She looked at the clues again.  They were obviously written with members of the G&S society in mind, places that were connected in some way to their activities.  No one else would include the storage container.  So surely Central Hall would feature?
  “Many things and nothing well,” she said thoughtfully.  “Lecture theatre, concert hall, ceremonial venue, theatre- it’s Central Hall.  The third line is between the chemistry bridge and Central Hall.”
  Tom pulled the map out and drew the new line.  “Well, they don’t all meet in the same place.”  
  “But they do cross each other,” Adam said.
  “One and two, two and three, one and three,” Patrick said.  “Let’s look where the pairs cross.”
  There was nothing to see at the first place they tried, at the meeting of the line between the first bridge and the music room and line between the second bridge and Central Hall.  It was a grassy hillock near the entrance to Langwith porter’s lodge, round behind the rubbish bins.  Their hopes, which had risen believing they had guessed all the clues, sank again.  
  “We might just have missed it,” Patrick said, ever the optimist.  “We don’t know what we’re looking for.”
  “Well, let’s try the next anyway,” Ruth said.  “Maybe there’s be something more obvious.”
  Next was the crossing point between the second and third lines, the ones between the second bridge and the container and the third bridge and Central Hall.  These met near one of the paths between Langwith and Vanbrugh.  Patrick wandered away from the path, across the grass strewn with goose-droppings.
  “Look at this,” he said after a minute.  Sticking up from the ground were a row of three black swan feathers.  Ruth bent down and pulled one.  She was surprised that it did not come up easily.  She gave another tug and it came out, and she saw something was fastened to it.  Wiping the mud off she saw it was a plastic pod, a bit like a car key fob.
  “What on earth?” Tom said.  He pulled at another of the feathers.  It too had a pod on the end.  Patrick pulled up a third.  
  “Two and three, you’ll find the key,”  Patrick said.  “But the key to what?”
  “We’re on the right track, anyway,” Ruth said.  “Let’s try the third one- three and one.”  Tom looked at the map.
  “They don’t cross,” he said, dismayed.  The others looked.  It was true, the line from the third bridge to Central hall did not cross the line from the first bridge to the music rooms.
  “We must have got one of the clues wrong,”  Adam said.
  “Two and three must be right, or we wouldn’t have found the keys,” Tom said.  “It must be one that’s wrong.”
  “Anyone fancy a drink while we work it out?” Patrick asked.  They wandered back towards Langwith, but the bar there was full of people watching a football match so they continued on to Derwent.  While they were waiting at the bar Ruth stared at the doors where they had met Tom- if it had been Tom- the night before.  Why had he given them this treasure hunt?  Why not just tell them where to go?  Why had he seemed in such a hurry?  And what on earth could be the answer to the last clue?
  The bar was fairly busy, so they made their way with their drinks down to the far end and sat at a table in the old dining hall.  
  “I still can’t quite work out how they did shows in here,” she said.
  “Hmm?” Adam wasn’t listening.  
  “The society’s first show,” Ruth said, louder over the noise from the jukebox.  “They did Pirates in here.  And Iolanthe the next year, I think, before they moved into Central Hall.”  Suddenly they looked at each other.
  “That must be it,” Tom said, pulling out the map.  Rubbing out the line from the first bridge to the music rooms, he drew it instead to Derwent dining room and bar.
  “Of course,” Adam said.  “Often sat- we’re always in here after rehearsals!  How did we not get that?”
  “We’ve got it now,” Tom said.  “Let’s go and find it!”
  “Whatever it is,” Ruth said.
  Quickly drinking up they hurried to the new crossing point of the first and third lines, which was somewhere in a corridor in Langwith.  They looked around.
  “Well you couldn’t bury anything here,” Ruth said.  “But I suppose you could hide something behind a noticeboard or something, depending on what it is.”
  “Or in a cupboard,” Patrick said, indicating the cupboard where the G&S society kept their music and keyboard.  “Shall I get the key from the porters?”
  “The other place is near the porters lodge anyway,” Tom said.  “We might as well look there first.”
  The new crossing point of lines two and three was just outside one of the Langwith accommodation blocks.  But it didn’t look much more hopeful than the previous one.  
  “Just a flowerbed,” Ruth said.  Patrick was looking at it.  He stooped and lifted one of the flowers, a rose that, oddly, was a different colour to all the others on that bush.  Beneath, hidden among the leaves and thorny stems, was a booklet.  
  “What does it say?” Adam asked.
  “Quick start guide,” Patrick read.  He flicked it open.  “Lots of diagrams and things- is that music?  It doesn’t make much sense.”
  “Let’s go and check the cupboard,” Tom said.  Patrick got the key from the porters lodge and they headed back to the corridor.
  “Did that door used to be here?” Adam asked, as Patrick was unlocking the cupboard.  He pointed to another door, immediately opposite it.  They looked at it.
  “Yeah, it must have been,” Ruth said, trying to remember.It seemed no different to any of the other doors on that corridor, leading to seminar room, offices, cupboards.  And yet...just as she had with Tom the previous evening, Ruth felt there was something odd about it, as if it didn’t quite belong.
  “But where does it go?” Adam asked.  The door was marked ‘L/047 B.’  Ruth tried to remember that room.  She’d never been in there for lectures or rehearsals.  
  “It must be an office, or another storeroom,” she said.  “There can’t be much room, it’s right on the edge of the building.”  Again she felt uneasy, as if her brain was trying to tell her something.
  Patrick walked over to the door and tried the handle.
  “There might be someone in there!” Tom objected.
  “At this time of night?” Patrick said.  He pushed, but the door didn’t budge.  “Locked,” he said.  He pulled out the key fob he had pulled from the ground, still with the feather attached.  There was a depression on one side of the fob, which he put his thumb in and pressed.  A key sprang out of the fob.  He tried it in the lock, and they heard the click as it turned.  Patrick opened the door.

The story continues...