Painting #1: One Of Six To Eight
BORDER PHRASE: "I am as cold as earth, and as old as earth, and in the earth am I, one of six to eight."
BARBED LETTER WORD: GOLDEN
RED LETTER WORD: HARE
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: CATHERINE'S
HIDDEN HARE: In the central hill
CLUES & COMMENTS: "One of six to eight" is one of the biggest clues in the book, indicating Catherine of Aragon, the first of six wives of King Henry VIII, near whose monument the jewel was hidden. "In the earth am I" confirms that the treasure is, in fact, buried in the ground somewhere, and not inside a building, vehicle, or other man-made structure.



Painting #2: The Moon & Sun Dance
BORDER PHRASE: "Dance in time, if you like, and join us in our jig."
BARBED LETTER WORD: LADY
RED LETTER WORD: MOON
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: LONG FINGER
HIDDEN HARE: Um, kind of in the middle there.
CLUES: Chock full of significance. The moon and sun's hands are pointing to March 21-22, the spring equinox, the two days when the shadow of Catherine's monument would point to the burial spot of the jewel. Also, it's worth noting that the man with the violin from Painting #9 is not playing, indicating that something has stopped–in this case, the sun, so it could cast a shadow.



Painting #3: The Day Begins
BORDER PHRASE: "The day begins, and the sleepy hours of night are over."
BARBED LETTER WORD: SUN
RED LETTER WORD: RISE
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: OVER
HIDDEN HARE: What, you can't see him?
CLUES & COMMENTS: Jack is standing on a rock with frog's eyes. Guess he's being watched on his travels.
An anonymous visitor added, "The relevance of the rock with frog's eyes in picture 3 is that in Ampthill Park there is a stone nicknamed the frogstone for its rounded, lumpy shape."



Painting #4: The Penny-Pockets Lady
BORDER PHRASE: "Choose a number and a colour; find the pocket, now pass me by."
BARBED LETTER WORD: HONEY
RED LETTER WORD: COMB
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: SHADOWS
HIDDEN HARE: Hiding beneath Penny-Pockets' skirt.
CLUES & COMMENTS: The magic square puzzle around Penny-Pockets' wrist is crucial to decoding the master riddle's solution phrase; it acts as a key to the colored letters on the Sir Isaac Newton painting. Her skirt contains the same four colors as Isaac's paper and puppet rings, as well.
Meanwhile, the little girl was the young daughter of Kit's chemist (pharmacist), and Kit painted her as he thought she might look when she was older in the 14th painting. For the time being, however, she seems positively elated at the prospect of being horribly stung by bees.
It is not just an ordinary magic square, (constructed by putting the numbers 1 to 16 in a 4 x 4 grid and then reversing the diagonals), but the version used by the Renaissance artist Durer in one of his engravings, Melancholia I. Durer took the standard magic square and transposed the two middle vertical rows of numbers, which does not alter the square's properties, but makes it unusual.



Painting #5: Tara Tree-tops
BORDER PHRASE: "The hills are not as high, the sea so deep, as a dream."
BARBED LETTER WORD: LIGHT
RED LETTER WORD: AIR
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: EARTH
HIDDEN HARE: As a very small piece of shrubbery (Ni!) in the lower right corner.
CLUES & COMMENTS: The treasure was NOT buried under the topiary hare. The neighborhood depicted is Tewkesbury. Publisher Tom Maschler's name is on the moving van in the lower right corner. The athletic field to the left contains a red herring magic square; the numbers are atomic numbers, and when translated into their elemental abbreviation counterparts, the grid spells out FALSE NOUU THINK AGAIN. (I read the two Us as "double-U," a homonym for the letter W, but I've also heard people think it means two U's, making the phrase "no use." Either gets the point across.) Kit says that only four people spotted this–one of whom was 12-year-old girl.
Gemini seemed to me at the time, and certainly after the solution was revealed, a kind of confirmer (Gem in Eye) though KW did not allude to this as far as I know–not in Quest for the Golden Hare, the paperback solution, nor any other articles I have seen. As we all know, you often see in the artwork and text many elements which you think must have been intentional but which are just happy accidents. It seemed to me when I explored the Tara page that there is a cloud formation to the right of the cathedral which looks like a man and woman entwined, facing one another (the twins!) Below them on the ground and behind the cathedral, though not visible in the painting, is a stone cross.



Painting #6: The Rose Bushes
BORDER PHRASE: "In haste to chase, Jack Hare jumps dog, rose blushing, petals tumble upon air."
BARBED LETTER WORD: CHILD
RED LETTER WORD: MOUSE
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: BURIED
HIDDEN HARE: Not hidden at all, really.
CLUES & COMMENTS: I remember this spread being reproduced in an American's children's magazine called Dynamite. Since the border spells out "mouse," and there's one clinging to a blade of grass in the photo, the magazine asked, "Is the mouse pointing toward the treasure?" It was silly, but hey, it was a children's magazine.
I suppose the only master clue reference could be that this is the first double page picture in the book, indicating a work break in the CLOSE BY AMPTHILL acronym. Word break is also implied by the "break" in the text.



Painting #7: Eclipse!
BORDER PHRASE: "Round and round, I follow you, round and round, you follow me."
BARBED LETTER WORD: FIEND
RED LETTER WORD: FOUL
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: YELLOW
HIDDEN HARE: Smack dab in the middle.
CLUES & COMMENTS: One of Kit's least concrete clues: the ant near the hare is meant to imply Ampthill, which means "ant-hill." He used the ant clue a second time on the Sunday Times clue.
I originally thought that that moon's odd finger positions were merely sign language. And they may be — her right hand shows the combination of the letters I, L, and Y, which is American Sign Language for "I love you," which makes perfect sense in a storybook of lost love. But upon seeing the solution I realized how crucial her hands were in this portrait.



Painting #8: All Animals Are Equal
BORDER PHRASE: "End to end to end all animals are equal in a tale of tail to tail."
BARBED LETTER WORD: LOST
RED LETTER WORD: SMILE
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: AMULET
HIDDEN HARE: Turnin' like a wheel.
CLUES & COMMENTS: Through the magic of anagrams, the red letter word could be MILES (as in what Jack must travel), but it's actually supposed to be SMILE (as in what the sun is doing).
If you turn the picture upside down and look at the sun that way, it wears quite a different expression, certainly needing some encouragement to SMILE.



Painting #9: The Man With The Violin
BORDER PHRASE: "Riddle de dee, a rose in May. Fiddle de dum, a daisy day."
BARBED LETTER WORD: SAD
RED LETTER WORD: MELODY
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: MIDDAY
HIDDEN HARE: All over the tree.
CLUES & COMMENTS: I do believe it's the guy from Painting #2.
When I first read saw this book when it first came out and my whole family used to go through it. My dad had lines drawn through it and we ended up with several copies. I was about 10 years old and on the first page I instantly got the ‘One of six to eight' as being Catherine of Aragon and I also got the equinox dates. THIS picture gave me what I considered to be my biggest clue. The pig has grass on his back. I looked in all the map indexes for a place called HAM HILL. I know it vaguely sounds like Ampthill looking back.
If I had read my Conan Doyle then I would have read ‘The Musgrave ritual' where Sherlock holmes uses a shadow to find treasure and I think the equinox dates would have become more obvious.



Painting #10: Jack In The Green
BORDER PHRASE: "I am old, Jack in the Green, eye glass put in order to pass."
BARBED LETTER WORD: MOULD
RED LETTER WORD: JELLY
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: POINTS
HIDDEN HARE: There's always room for (hares in) Jell-O.
CLUES & COMMENTS: Jack in the Green is a character from English folklore, so the green gelatin where Jack appears here is a pun. The names Lister and Levy on the storefronts in the background are the owners of the Portal Gallery, where Kit's work was displayed for many years.



Painting #11: The Practical Man
BORDER PHRASE: "Fire boil kettle at high tea. Wave quench fire at high tide."
BARBED LETTER WORD: GULL
RED LETTER WORD: HERRING (and in red, no less)
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: THE
HIDDEN HARE: Peeking out over the tall grass at the top of the page.
CLUES & COMMENTS: Janet Fishwick suggests: "I think that you already have your answer in the red-letter HERRING that this painting is not important. I think that this is confirmed by the fact that the word from the master riddle contained in the painting (THE) is not vital to the overall meaning of the riddle (the riddle can still be understood without this word)." However, even more specific information was added by someone else who wrote it later: That's no ordinary bird…it's a Herring Gull. So it's not important to the master riddle, but as usual, there's more going on that you might immediately notice.



Painting #12: Sir Isaac Newton
BORDER PHRASE: "Jack be nimble, Jack "bee" quick, and Jack jumps over the flame."
BARBED LETTER WORD: SIR
RED LETTER WORD: ISAAC
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: HOUR
HIDDEN HARE: Hanging on the rack in the back of the picture.
CLUES & COMMENTS: This is the key to the whole book. The colors in the magic square pinned to the wall correspond to the numbers in the magic square on Miss Penny Pockets‘ wrist. This color sequence matches the rings on the puppets; when a line is drawn from the eyes through the longest finger/biggest toe on each creature in every picture in the book (as per the clue on the book's title page, about using your eyes and pointing to the prize), the lines point to the letters on the border, and the master riddle phrase is spelled out: "Catherine's long finger over shadows earth buried yellow amulet midday points the hour in light of equinox look you." The first letter from each word in that phrase spells "Close by Ampthill," a geographical confirmer and the heart of Kit's riddle. The letters on Sir Issac's magic square are the first initials of towns near Ampthill, and the numbers to which they correspond are their approximate distances from Ampthill in miles.
The game of "Jack Be Nimble" was from a rhyme chanted during the old game of candle leaping, which was played by lacemakers on St. Catherine's Day. Catherine of Aragon introduced the Ampthill region to lacemaking.
Janet Fishwick notes that picture 12 is the most important in the book–but the painting before and the painting after it in the book are red herrings.
In case anyone's wondering, the letters in the magic square denote towns and villages as follows:
1 – M – Millbrook
2 – F – Flitwick
3 – C – Clophill
4 – R – Ridgmont
5 – K – Kempston
6 – T – Toddington
8 – B – Bromham
9 – N – Northill
10 – DU – Dunstable
11 – HI – Hitchin
12 – OL – Olney
13 – WO – Wolverton
14 – PO – Potton
15 – ST – Stony Stratford
16 – EY – Eynesbury
The distances in miles are correct to within about 0.25 miles if you measure them from the burial location itself to the towns' centres.



Painting #13: Jack Meets The Fish
BORDER PHRASE: "My reflection I have seen in deep waters blue and green."
BARBED LETTER WORD: GOLDEN
RED LETTER WORD: CARP
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: IN
HIDDEN HARE: Ghosted in the water on top of the fish (or below it, depending on your point of view).
CLUES & COMMENTS: As important as the previous painting was, this one seems not at all.
I have always assumed from the very first time that I read Masquerade (I bought the book when it was originally published and I was still at school) that the GOLDEN (notched letter word) CARP (red letter word) is actually a "red fish" i.e. a red herring – therefore this painting is also unimportant. Again, this theory has since been confirmed for me by the fact that the word from the master riddle contained in the painting (IN) is not essential to the meaning of the riddle.



Painting #14: Crystal Aquamarine
BORDER PHRASE: "I am hydrogen, two of one to eight, of oxygen am I, crystal aquamarine."
BARBED LETTER WORD: STONE
RED LETTER WORD: FROG
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: LIGHT OF EQUNOX
HIDDEN HARE: On the girl's swimsuit.
CLUES & COMMENTS: The meaning of "Two of one to eight" is, of course, water–two atoms of hydrogen, the first element on the Periodic Table (two of one) to the Table's eighth element, oxygen. The building in the rear is Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire, and Kit painted it from a photograph; he had not been there at the time he painted the scene. A visitor named James adds: "Sudbury Hall was an interesting building to use in a picture in Masquerade. I wonder if Kit Williams was aware that a version of Poisson's Shepherds of Arcadia was/is kept there. That painting has long been thought of to contain hidden geometry, lines etc that are supposed to provide clues to a hidden treasure (something to do with Christ). Very similar to the paintings in the book and lines from the end of fingers, etc. That painting has caused furor and controversy similar to Masquerade."
Intrigued? KMAC offers even more background: "The mystery revolves around a priest and a church in Rennes-Le-Chateau France. It is very interesting tale that many believe points to a hidden treasure trove (the priest became suddenly wealthy and decorated the church unconventionally with possible clues such as patron saints of lost treasure, etc.) Many others however believe it points to a bloodline decendency from Christ which has been followed by secret cults over the years and has been hidden by the church. For more information you might enjoy Holy Blood, Holy Grail (very very conspiracy theoryesque) or the town's website, www.renneslechateau.com. Also, the video game writer Jane Jensen took the story and threw in a vampire twist to it and made it into one of the last good Sierra computer games, Gabriel Knight 3." This game is once again available for sale.



Painting #15: A Culmination
BORDER PHRASE: "Over the water, a destination; under the sky, a culmination."
BARBED LETTER WORD: CLOUD
RED LETTER WORD: SILVER
WORD FROM THE MASTER RIDDLE: LOOK YOU
HIDDEN HARE: In the clouds.
CLUES & COMMENTS: The magic square on this page represents the number of letters (and in some cases words) in the master phrase. To put those words in order, follow the pattern of Penny Pockets‘ square. A culmination is the point at which a heavenly body reaches the peak of its path, such as the sun as seen from earth, meaning noon–the proper time to view the shadow of Catherine's cross.


Times Clue