The illustrated story book entitled, Masquerade, by Kit Williams, was first published in 1979 and is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The book introduced the world to a type of puzzle that leads readers to buried treasure. It was the beginning of a whole new genre of books tagged as armchair treasure hunt books. Learn more about the Masquerade Solution.
A basic definition for an armchair treasure hunt is a produced hunt for a treasure which has been intentionally hidden and requires the solving of clues to either physically find a secreted treasure or forwarding a correct claim to its creator for the treasure hunt’s prize. There are various formats and ways these treasure hunts can be constructed.
Masquerade held clues, both visual and verbal, that once solved, led to a golden hare encrusted in jewels buried in the UK countryside worth thousands of dollars. It was found in 1982. Over the years, many armchair treasure hunts were inspired by this first interactive book of hidden treasure.
But you might wonder how exactly Masquerade was constructed and how this puzzle, first of its kind, was solved? Let’s take a look at the book which inspired the world to search for treasure!
It was claimed a child of ten could just as easily solve Masquerade, and dig up the golden hare, as a college graduate, or any other adult, could. While the general concept could most likely be followed by a child, the actual process and steps required to complete such actions, and discover the riddle hidden within the book, probably needed someone older than age 10.
It turned out it was two physic teachers, Mike Barker and John Rousseau, who were able to first follow the book’s clues, find the riddle, and solve it for a location. Unfortunately, they didn’t discover the hare. They had dug in ‘almost’ the right spot, but missed the buried hare by inches. The hare was found a few days later by another searcher, but that story is for another time.
Following is the solution to Masquerade as intended by Kit Williams, and realized by Barker and Rousseau of the UK. It is in the book, Quest for the Golden Hare, that Bamber Gascoigne lays out their thoughts, and below is a summary of that ‘Perfect Solution’.
Mike Barker learned about the Masquerade Armchair Treasure Hunt through a clue released for the hunt in the Sunday Times on December 21, 1980. He was able to solve a few ‘puzzles’ with his friend John, who he recruited to help him.
It wasn’t until they began questioning, ‘How could Kit Williams provide instructions to a reader for a precise place to dig through his book?’ that they started to put the required elements together to find the solution. They felt in order to give a set of instructions for someone to understand the exact spot to dig up the buried hare would require the comprising of quite a few words.
With this assumption they started to think of how that could be done in the book, and they noticed that letters in the border seemed off at times- suggesting they were being pointed to from inside the frames. They tried multiple methods and through the use of anagramming came up with options. Too many options. They then felt there has to be something telling them of a system for how to point to letters in the border.
This is when they considered the many rings in the illustration of Newton (the book hadn’t any page numbers). They thought his hands, and the puppet’s hanging, might be the key. It was, and eventually they came up with the correct method to spell out the riddle. What they discovered was if they followed the puppets order of Man, Children, Frog, Hare, Mammals, Birds, and Fish, and drew lines from their eyes to their longest digits, a riddle was spelled out.
Lines from the Left Eye through the Left Longest Finger, Left Eye through Left Longest Toe, Right Eye through Right Longest Finger, and Right Eye through Right Longest Toe, to letters in the bordering frame of the images, provided words or phrases from each image. Together these words formed the Riddle.
It should be mentioned that in the front of the book was the phrase, ‘You must use your eyes’, which also hinted to the method.
The Riddle found was:
Catherines Long finger Over Shadows Earth Buried Yellow Amulet Midday Points The Hour In Light of Equinox Look you.
The first letter of each phrase given from the images yielded CLOSEBYAMPTHILL, confirming the Riddle, and also providing the final location.
But to find the exact spot to dig, they had to solve the riddle. First, though, here is a run down of the letters found on each page by each person/animal giving the Master Riddle.
Image 1:
Hare in hillside gave: CATH
Mice from top to bottom gave: ER, IN, ES
Image 2:
People from left to right: LON, GFI, NGER
Image 3:
Hare: OVER
Image 4:
Penny Pockets: SHA
Little Girl: DOWS
Image 5:
Person: EART
Crow: H
Image 6:
Child: BU
Hare: RI
Mouse: ED
Image 7:
Person: YE
Hare: LLO
Rat: W
Image 8:
Each animal of Hare, Ram , Cat, Horse, Dog, and Cow gives one letter to spell: AMULET
Image 9:
Man: MI
Pig: DDAY
Image 10:
Man: PO
Child: IN
Hare: TS
Image 11:
Man: TH
Bird: E
Image 12:
Puppeteer: HO
Mouse: UR
Image 13:
Fish: IN
Image 14:
Girl: LIGH
Frog: TOF
Fish Left, right, center, below center: E, QU, IN , OX
Image 15:
Boy (Puppet): LOOK
Gull (left to right): Y, OU
Another confirmation for discovery of this Riddle is given in the Square on the last image. If rearranged by the square in image 4, it provides 10, 46, 4, 7, 7, 5, 6, 6 (KW), 6, 6, 6, 3, 4, 2, 527, 43. These happen to be the amount of letters found in each illustration. 10 in the first, 4 and 6 in the second, and so on.
Mike and John solved the Riddle. It took them to Catherine’s Cross in Ampthill and they dug according to where they calculated the shadow would point on the Equinox. As the Riddle Instructed.
They missed the spot by inches on February 18, 1982. As mentioned, it was found almost immediately after by another searcher.
Although only the solution to the Riddle gave instructions for where the Hare was exactly buried, there were many other ‘hints’ in the book to either confirm the location or hint to methods used. For instance, one of the phrases in the border was, ‘One of Six to Eight’, referring to the fact that Catherine was the first wife of six to Henry the VIII, and hinting to the final location.
Currently, another Armchair Treasure Hunt book, entitled Fandango, has a $10,000 cash prize and shares many elements to Masquerade.
Join Discussions on Armchair Treasure Hunts on the MW Forum)
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Best of luck with all that you seek! Always Treasure the Adventure!
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A great write-up, Jenny! It bears mentioning that another armchair treasure hunt — The Golden Apple Tale (1982) — also used the device of presenting words around the frame and was clearly based on Masquerade. It remains unsolved.
True… for those interested in learning more about The Golden Apple Tale, here is an article by Kurt Konecny on that hunt: https://mysteriouswritings.com/the-golden-apple-tale-armchair-treasure-hunt/