Dr Joseph Bell Perplex Research, Kings Road, Edinburgh EH16 4SD
Head Curator Edward Trumpington National Museum Of Antiquities, Cromwell Row, London SW7 5BD
4th July 2013
RE: Charles Burroughs Lost Impossimals
Dear Edward,
Thank you for the loan of the Charles Burroughs diaries and field notes, they went some way to explain the meaning of some of the paintings and we used this as a starting point but like their counterparts they also appear on further examination to be some form of collaboration. Pages have been meticulously added to the diary and field notes over time, the first being in 1829 and the last 1983, more than a hundred and fifty years apart but all using the same ink composition and handwriting, again you get the feeling they ’ve been handed down through the years hidden from prying eyes. Unfortunately whilst working on the field notes I accidentally knocked over a glass of water and nearly ruined the notes for the Slurping Sipping Slosher, I saved it from severe damage by drying it out gently. Curiously as it dried I noticed strange patterns occurring across the paper and it gradually dawned on me that there was a code written in citric acid across the notes, exposure to heat had been the trigger. The code was a set of numbers 02812141-90812021-57819001. It was a few weeks later as I sat staring at them that I had a breakthrough, they were dates, or to be more precise dates written in reverse, 02812141 became 14121820 which in the correct format is 14/12/1820 the exact birth date of Charles Burroughs! I quickly checked the others; they were birth dates too, 12/02/1809 and 10/09/1875 of Charles Darwin and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Our intrepid explorer Charles Burroughs was an invention, or was he? Thankfully Charles Burroughs ’s diary contains a reference to his birthplace in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, so it was only a matter of looking up the parish records to confirm his existence. The register is not yet online so yesterday I made the long journey to visit St Chad’s Church in Shrewsbury where the register was made available for me to search. Working from the birth date I went through month after month trying to locate a baptism date to no avail; as I flipped over the last page my blood froze. Written on the back page was a message in the same handwriting as the diaries and field notes, it simply said ‘Let the games begin’. It’s impossible that Charles is still alive, we need to do something, Edward, this whole business is starting to unnerve me; I’m constantly looking over my shoulder and questioning everything around me. The Lost Impossimals contain some kind of secret, a dangerous secret that has been hidden for hundreds of years, we are fools to try and unlock its mysteries. It’s been made worse by two new discoveries this morning, firstly all the paintings are connected like an intricate jigsaw and secondly hidden in every painting is I was puzzled, what did they mean and why hide them?
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker