The solution given below will present clues from the verse and the image in a way that narrows down the search area to that specific point. Bits of the original image are shown with a tan background. Lines from the verse have a yellow background. (For more detail about any particular clue, check the page for Image 11 or Verse 3.)

Clues Interpretations

"Peridot of old Italy:

Antique, and olivine, and rich" The jewel in the image is sometimes mistaken for an emerald, but it is a peridot, the birthstone for August. The "Litany of the Jewels" tells us that the immigration connection for this stone is to Italy. To solve Image 11, we need to start with a city that has an Italian connection.

The shapes formed by the hair (with the blue halo effect around them) resemble piers jutting out into a harbor. This makes sense because most Italian immigrants would have arrived in an East Coast city by ship during the 1800's. We're looking for an East Coast major port city with a lot of Italian immigrants.

15) Eighteenth day 16) Twelfth hour 17) Lit by lamplight Paul Revere's historic "midnight ride" occurred in Boston on the 18th of April in 1775. He was following a signal conveyed by lamps hung in the Old North Church ("one if by land, two if by sea"). It's one of the most famous historical events connected to the city. These lines from the end of the verse give a solid confirmation of the city. We should be looking in Boston.

1) If Thucydides is 2) North of Xenophon 3) Take five steps 4) In the area of his direction The connection between two ancient Greek historians and the city of Boston might not be immediately obvious, but a few Bostonians probably felt a twinge of recognition. Those are two of the names of scholars and historical figures that are carved into the facade on the front of the Boston Public Library facing Copley Square. Investigating the names would reveal a problem, though. The front of the library faces east and "Thucydides" is to the left of "Xenophon," which means that Thucydides is actually south of Xenophon. So it seems to be too much of a coincidence, and yet it doesn't match the verse precisely. (And who is the person giving us this "direction"? There's no statue pointing off in some direction, or anything like that.) The clue seems to be drawing us here to this spot and yet there has to be something more, beyond what we're seeing. Fortunately, Preiss has brought us to a library where we can do some research.





1) If Thucydides is 2) North of Xenophon 3) Take five steps 4) In the area of his direction Searchers going into the library to look for references to the two Greek historians would eventually discover that in 1774, Horace Walpole sent a letter to Horace Mann that included the following line: "The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York." The lines from the verse match the quote from Walpole's letter (Boston is north of New York), and the mention of Boston is overwhelming confirmation that we are looking in the right city. The quote also solves the mystery of "his direction." Walpole was writing (from Europe) about "the other side of the Atlantic" (i.e., the west). So that's where Walpole is directing us to go. The direction we need to go (from Copley Square) is west.

So now we're coming out of the Boston Public Library in triumph. We have found the right starting point in Boston — with the names "Thucydides" and "Xenophon" displayed in the same place — and the direction where we need to go is west. But how? And how far is a "step"? We are now in downtown Boston, but it's a very densely populated area. Parks are well-maintained and open areas are full of historical significance. Digging here would have been impossible (even in 1981). We need to get away from the crowded area. So our "steps" to the west need to be big ones, far bigger than a footstep. And yet there has to be a definite measurement for a "step" so that we end up in the right place. Searchers leaving the library and looking around for clues would notice a large, boldface, sans-serif T on display very close by. It is the symbol for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (known to locals as "the T") and it's also a very strong match for the perch used by the bird in Image 11. Searchers might also notice that the box the woman is holding has a slanted lid with light spilling up from below, similar to the way a subway entrance appears in the evening. The subway would quickly get searchers away from the downtown area and into a safe place to dig. And the subway makes very clear "steps" between stops. This is a way for us to take "five steps" west and all end up in the same place. There has been a Copley station since 1914 and it is only served by the Green Line, so our directions are clear. We should start at the Copley T station and go west 5 stops on the Green Line.

Now we have a choice to make. There are five ways one can take the subway from Copley. The main Green Line goes east, so that's out. The E Branch goes southeast and was undergoing significant renovation in 1980, with a lot of closures, so it doesn't seem likely. That leaves us with three possibilities: the B Branch, the C Branch, or the D Branch. Here's where five steps on each of those would take us. (Dates of construction indicate that all of these stations existed in 1980.)





Anyone looking to the west of Copley Square for possible destinations would notice the similarity between the Back Bay Fens and Image 11. The fens form the shape of a bent left arm, with a clear shoulder, elbow, forearm, and hand. The Muddy River that flows through the fens creates a winding blue line that weaves back and forth in the area between the "elbow" and the "shoulder." In addition, two city streets beside the fens create the impression of an upraised thumb and a straight-line bracelet that goes across the "wrist" of the arm.

Of the three possible subway destinations, Brookline is the farthest away from our "back bay fens arm." Hawes is significantly closer. But the Boston University Central station is in line with the "thumb" of the arm, directly down Park Drive.

This is the point where searchers might have a hunch but would need some confirmation. If the woman's arm is really the Back Bay Fens and we are really supposed to take the Green Line five stops from Copley to Boston University Central, what is the significance of the castle under the woman's thumb?



Answer: The castle on the box matches the Boston University Castle. It has battlements with the same number of openings as the battlement on the box. It also has a pitched roof at the same perspective as the image. And the castle is an iconic Boston landmark with a long and interesting history.

The photo on the left shows how the Boston University Castle looks today. The photo on the right illustrates how the castle may be represented in Image 11. Notably, the entrance to the Boston University Castle is flanked by two gateposts topped with spheres, as shown in the photo. The Boston University Castle is located on Bay State Rd. across Storrow drive from the Charles River Esplanade, at the end of Back St. where it curves and becomes Granby.



So consider how we got to this point: The verse told us to look in Boston and steered us to Copley Square

The image told us to go down into a subway station and take the T system

The verse told us to go west

The image steered us to the arm-shaped Back Bay Fens

The verse told us to go five steps (or stops) on the subway

The image confirmed that we should arrive at Boston University This is exactly the sort of interplay between verse and image that Byron Preiss described. He always made it clear that solving one of these puzzles would require using both the image and the verse in combination. From here Preiss gives us abundant clues about our next destination.

One of the upper panels on the stole shows a "2" inside a box (turned sideways and half hidden in a shadow). The arrangement resembles a highway sign, presumably representing Massachusetts Route 2, which crosses the Charles River on the Boston University Bridge and then runs along Mountfort Street and Park Drive to the intersection with Beacon Street. Route 2 is also the major road that goes from Boston to Lexington and Concord, which fits in with the mention of Paul Revere's ride.

The bird forms a pig's head with its claws in front of a strip on the wall, making the rebus: "beak" + "bacon" + "street" = "Beacon Street" From the intersection with Park Drive, Mass Route 2 runs eastwards along Beacon Street to Kenmore Square. (If you stand at the right place, you can see Beacon Street, Kenmore Square, the huge Citgo sign, and a Route 2 highway sign all at the same time.)





The triangle on the stole resembles the most famous triangle in Boston: the huge Citgo sign, located at 600 Beacon Street, near Kenmore Square. Both have a wide rectangle framing a set of concentric triangles that point upwards. Anyone crossing Beacon Street between BU and the fens would have a view of the sign. (Citgo sign photo by Beyond My Ken - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link)

The symbol on the woman's stole indicates we're looking for a street grid that forms a double "A." Because Beacon street runs at a diagonal relative to the regular street grids, there are at least two strong candidates (shown at left). The place where both of those patterns overlap is at Kenmore Square on Beacon Street.

We should follow Route 2 from Boston University to Kenmore Square on Beacon Street

5) A green tower of lights 6) In the middle section From Kenmore Square the verse gives us a strong clue to one of the most famous landmarks in Boston: the left field wall at Boston's Fenway Park, also known as the "Green Monster." The park is directly south of Kenmore Square and we can get there by taking the Brookline Avenue bridge over the Massachusetts Turnpike. We are supposed to walk south along Brookline to Fenway Park.

Here's the Green Monster with the "towers of lights" and the Citgo sign in the background. Photo by user KnightLago on en.wikipedia - description page is here, CC BY-SA 3.0

So now we've crossed over the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) and we've reached the corner of Fenway Park at the intersection of Brookline and Lansdowne. And what an amazing view! Looking northeast up Brookline we've got a direct view of the huge Citgo sign. Looking east along Lansdowne we've got an exterior view of the Green Monster. The wall is built like a battleship, with massive steel girders to hold up the weight of those towers. Photo by user Mr. Littlehand on Flickr - CC BY 2.0

7) Near those 8) Who pass the coliseum 9) With metal walls A coliseum is a place of ritual sports battles, and Fenway Park certainly qualifies. And the Green Monster, which forms the northern edge of the park, is very definitely a metal wall ("constructed from 30,000 pounds of Toncan iron"). If "those who pass" means the drivers on the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) which runs parallel to that north wall, then we need to stay close to the freeway and go alongside that north edge of the park. We should go east on Lansdowne toward the Back Bay Fens.

At the corner of Lansdowne and Ipswich there's a big, cavernous building. It's currently a bowling place called Lucky Strike Social, but in the early 1980s it was a rollerskating arena called Spinoff. Photos taken from the turnpike show that it had big windows made from many small, square panes forming a checkerboard. The windows facing Lansdowne have all been replaced now, but it's worth noting that a few of the windows on Ipswich still appear to be the older originals and a few of them are painted in a black and white checkerboard. Did more of those windows have the pattern in 1980? Were we supposed to see a match on Lansdowne with the patterns on the stole worn by the woman in Image 11? There's no way to say for sure without pictures, but it's an interesting possibility.





The similarity between Image 11 and the keyhole design of the Kelleher Rose Garden in the Fens was one of the first connections made by searchers in Boston. Both have large, concentric circles connected by a thin line to a rectangle below. Note that this is a large, obvious clue that would be visible on a map.

Searchers who went to investigate the Kelleher Rose Garden immediately discovered that the rectangular front panel on the woman's dress (matching the rectangular part of the keyhole shape) has a pattern that very strongly matches a design on the fountain structure in the gardens. Like the windows on Lansdowne, this is part of the shift from large, well-known, map-level features (like Fenway Park) to smaller details that can only be discovered on the spot. The casque wouldn't be hidden in a formal, well-maintained garden, though. The clue is a confirmation for the fens, but we still have a ways to go.





The flared, black hair on either side of the woman in the picture resembles the wings spread out behind the figure of "Victory" in a World War II memorial in the Fens. The memorial is northeast of the rose garden and in the direction of the turnpike. There's no chance that the casque would be buried at a war memorial and the site is quite a ways away from the Massachusetts Turnpike anyway. Like the rose garden reference, this clue is just a general confirmation of the Back Bay Fens.

10) Face the water 11) Your back to the stairs These lines appear to tell us that we should be looking for a place where there is a flight of stairs near water. Based on what we know about Image 11, "the water" in this case would most likely be the Muddy River, which flows through the Back Bay Fens and Charlesgate Park. As we go through the Fens, we should be looking for steps near some body of water.

12) Feel at home This is most likely a reference to the song "Dirty Water," recorded by the Standells in 1966. The song's refrain emphasizes the line "Boston you're my home." According to Wikipedia, the song "is beloved by the city of Boston and its sports fans." The reference to "Dirty Water" would be particularly appropriate for a site along the Muddy River. We should stay near the Muddy River.

13) All the letters 14) Are here to see This is likely to be a reference to the Back Bay Fens Victory Gardens where the paths are labeled by letters of the alphabet. The Victory Gardens are between the war memorial and the Massachusetts Turnpike in the Back Bay Fens. We should continue past the Victory Gardens on our way north.

The "checkerboard" curve below the globe resembles the arch of the Boylston Street Bridge. We see it as we pass the north end of the Victory Gardens. (And the connection is emphasized by the reflection on the tabletop.) Once we cross Boylston, there's no ground-level path to continue going through the Fens. Our only option is the elevated walkway on the east side of Charlesgate that takes us over the Massachusetts Turnpike. It doesn't seem like a good spot for digging, but Preiss has already assured us that we should stay near the Muddy River and stay "near those who pass the coliseum with metal walls." We are to continue north past the Boylston Street Bridge and over the Massachusetts Turnpike.



Walking across the Charlesgate overpass, pedestrians have the chance to look down and see an unusual structure tucked in beside the freeway. It's a circle and a curve, both made of bricks, with steps connecting them and a few lamp posts scattered around. The official name and purpose of the structure are unknown but it has been in the same spot for decades. Most people involved in The Secret call it "Two Circles" or "the 2C site." The proportion of the two circles is captured perfectly in Image 11 and even the diagonal line connecting them is perfect. This is no coincidence. We should take the first off-ramp and go down to ground level to investigate the "Two Circles" structure.

We're in a hurry to examine the Two Circles structure, but take a moment to notice where we are. The Charlesgate offramp from the overpass brings us down to Commonwealth Ave which is also the continuation of... Massachusetts Route 2! Searchers who skipped the whole Fenway Park / Back Bay Fens detour could still have discovered this same spot just by following Route 2 eastwards from Kenmore Square. Very clever!











At the bottom of the Charlesgate off-ramp, as we turn back south on the sidewalk to investigate the "two circles' structure that we saw from the overpass, we discover a white utility box with a flat, overhanging, rectangular lid. And, behind the box on the side of the off-ramp, a pipe and a joint form a pair of parallel lines (one wide and one narrow) running along the side of the overpass. This is an overwhelmingly powerful match for the (otherwise pointless) tabletop and wall ridges in the lower left corner of the painting. This is our "Aha Image." We are very close.

If we examine the sidewalk where we are standing, near our Aha image, we discover the same unusual "h" shape from the window ring. This is not a common shape in city sidewalks! Streetlights are usually placed in a grassy area between the sidewalk and the curb, to leave all of the sidewalk available for pedestrians. Even when they're placed in a sidewalk like this, it's very rare for them to line up with the sidewalk joint. (See photos on the Image 11 page for more info.) And the "h" shape in the painting is even pointing directly at the bright star, as if to tell us that the shape is associated with a bright light.

17) Lit by lamplight At first glance, this line reads as if it is connected to the preceding two lines in Verse 3 and is part of the historical reference to Paul Revere's ride and the lanterns in the Old North Church. That's deliberate, but it's only a ruse. Preiss is actually drawing our attention to the streetlamps in the place where we're now standing.

The streetlights in the Charlesgate area, north of the turnpike, have a very unusual, distinctive design. They are large spheres held up by little "pegs" at the base. One globe in Image 11 has the same kind of attachment, so Preiss seems to be drawing our attention to these lights in both the image and the verse. Why??

The circular window behind the woman in Image 11 appears to be made of stone or concrete. With the lines running across it like contraction joints, it isn't hard to picture this as a sidewalk. At the top of the circle there's a big, jagged crack that's too large to be in any city sidewalk. By position and size it seems to be telling us to "tear here."

If we tear apart our window sidewalk at the crack and take out the section that's hidden by the woman, we end up with two sidewalk strips — one marked by a bright star above a line and the other marked by a moon above and between two lines. There's a spot where the sidewalk splits and the outer edge fades away, showing us that the two sections of sidewalk should be joined by the bottom ends. Byron Preiss (presumably) did not expect us to use our Photoshop skills, but with just a piece of tracing paper and a pencil someone could easily map out two straight sidewalk strips from this.

Here are the two sidewalk strips we get out of that.

If we're matching our strips of sidewalk to the "Two Circles" site, the shape and position of the "h" tells us where to start. And if the vertical line of the "h" is associated with a streetlight, maybe we should see if all the vertical lines are the same way. Here's a map showing the area where we are now. (Note that north is to the right.) White circles are lamps or streetlights. The white square is the box that formed the Aha image.

This is the view at the Two Circles site if you are standing where the sidewalk splits, facing south. The spherical streetlamps are all the same size, but when viewed from a distance they appear to be an array of different sizes, similar to all the spheres in Image 11.

Here's the same map of Two Circles paired up with the sidewalk strips around the window. And now, at last, we can see why the puzzle gives so much attention to spheres and lights in the night. The vertical lines all match lights or lamps in the area! The line in the "h" shape (which points to the star in the painting) matches the streetlight on Charlesgate East. The other four lines match the distribution of those spherical streetlights. And the two lines that frame the big, glowing moon in the image frame a notch beside a set of steps in the Two Circles structure.

Here, then, is the final hiding spot of the casque for Image 11. It is (or, at least, was) buried in the notch of the Two circles spot. Let's go down the magic list to check... Face the water?

Yep, there's a river directly in front of us, a few feet away

Back to the stairs?

If you're facing the water, there's a little staircase of three steps behind you.

Feel at home? It's the Muddy River ("love that dirty water, Boston you're my home"). All the letters here to see?

If your back is to the stairs, you're facing toward the victory gardens, where all the letters are used to identify the paths.

Lit by lamplight?

There's a lamp post beside the steps that would throw light over your shoulder and illuminate the dig spot.

On top of all that, it's a little-used spot of land where digging would do no harm. There are barriers on all sides so a searcher wouldn't have to dig up a huge area to find the thing. And the wall even provides a bit of cover so Preiss could bury the casque without being seen.

18) In truth, be free. Who knows? There are so many different references to truth and freedom in Boston that this could be almost anything. Perhaps Preiss is just sending us off with his own pearl of wisdom.