A Che ning Ad nture
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In Devon: Teignmouth and Shaldon
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Chapter 5 continued...
The Ferry Boat Inn wasn’t really the right place for unaccompanied teenagers but fortunately it had an outdoor riverside area. The children sat down at a table.
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“Can I help you?” smiled a barman with a pencil-thin moustache.
“We’re looking for Eddie,” said James.
“Well, you’ve found him mate,” came the reply.
“Oi! Don’t start that again!” shouted another bartender collecting glasses nearby. “I’m Eddie!”
“Don’t believe him sonny. He always lies. I am the one who tells the truth,” said the first man, fiddling with his moustache.
“Stop it Arnold! It’s not funny. I don’t know why you have to cheat and con ALL the time. We’ve got work to do here.”
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The bartender with the glasses turned to James for a moment. “OK sonny, look - you can have one question and one question only. We’re busy! But don’t listen to him. He always lies. I’m the one who can do nothing but tell the truth.”
“Says you – liar!” came the retort. “I’m as honest as the day is long. But Arnold over there is right about one thing. We can’t afford to lose our jobs, so you’ve got one question. Let’s hear it mate.”
This was crazy. How would they be able to tell who was who; and who was telling the truth? James picked his words carefully and laid the missive on the table.
“We’ve got this leaflet hiding a message; and we need to know whether it’s genuine. We’ve been told that Eddie would know.”
“I do mate!”
​“Leave it out Arnold. I’m the expert ‘ere. Let the boy finish. Quickly sonny, carry on – but just one question mind.”​
There was a long pause. Then suddenly, Sarah noticed a glint appear in James’ eye. He turned to the man with the moustache.
“So tell me, er… ‘Eddie or Arnold’; would he say that it is genuine?” asked James, pointing to the other ‘Eddie or Arnold’ holding the glasses.
​“Ha, ha!” Both men smiled. “Got a clever lad here haven’t we. To answer your question: he’d say it’s a fake. Come to think of it, if you asked him what I would say, you would get the same answer. Well played my lad.” The men shared a fist-bump and strolled back towards the pub laughing.
“So, where do we take it?” shouted Sarah after them.
“One question and one question only remember,” came the reply. “Besides love, it’s as close as le nose on your face anyway!”​
“What on earth?” said Sarah, trying to take in the bizarre events. “So it’s a fake then?”
“No. It’s real,” smiled James. “The whole thing was a logic test.”
“But he said…” started Sarah.
“If one was definitely lying and the other was definitely telling the truth, then asking one person what the other would say would always end up as a lie. The liar would lie and the true one would say the truth, so the result would always be one lie, no matter who was who; or who spoke first.
You know, in WW2 there were loads of agents secretly gathering information and trying to trick each other. Many were working to give out false info to mislead others. There were double agents and even triple agents! In fact, the British Army had a special team overseas tasked with causing as much disruption as possible. They were called the Special Operations Executive (SOE); while MI5 dealt with spies over here.”
“Crumbs! Sneaky stuff,” said Sarah, unfurling the message again. “But back to our message: where do we take it?”
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“I’m not sure but there’s something funny about what they said at the end. ‘It’s as close as le nose on your face...’ Isn’t the expression meant to be ‘as plain as the nose on your face’? And why did they say ‘le’? There was no trace of a French accent when they spoke."
James pondered.
"Let’s look at that map and the leaflet again.”
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Click here to examine the leaflet
