He laughed with a hint of embarrassment. “Not really, Grace. I was the science child in an arts family. I had to at least try to keep up. Mum took Will and me to countless productions of Shakespeare plays as soon as we could sit still. My education was probably a little light when it came to Winnie-the-Pooh and Alice, but I can get by without program notes at the Globe. And anyhow,” he added, “I’ve been over the ground again in this last couple of weeks, like all of you!”

“Don’t listen, Grace,” Lucy teased, suddenly thinking there was a lot of Dr. John Dee in his many times great-grandson. “Alex knows as much poetry as I do. And I know nothing about stem cells.”

Alex’s father had sat quietly, closing his eyes in the unseasonably warm sunshine. Now he smiled at her enigmatically. “In my experience, Lucy, men of science often know more about the arts than we humanities students know about their discipline. But don’t put him on a pedestal. Alex isn’t keen on heights.”

Henry’s expression was opaque, and she was unsure what he meant. Had Anna placed him up too high, so that he would inevitably fall?

Henry continued speaking. “Each of these interpretations could be valid. Queen Elizabeth, Lucy, and Katherine Carey—and how intriguing if Shakespeare’s ‘dark lady’ is connected with the house. Your mother would have enjoyed that, Alex, and she’d have known.” Henry was full of regret that he’d never appreciated the fascination of her family until this time. “What has ‘May’ to do with the riddle?”

“I believe time will have a part to play,” Alex said. He looked hard into all the pensive faces. “Simon, you’re uncommonly quiet.”

Simon had indeed been strangely mute, but he answered Alex with animation. “Yes, I’ve been so absorbed in all of this new information, I almost forgot. Grace and I found a connection with your magic number in the text that begins ‘Over one arm the lusty coursers rein.’ It’s the thirty-fourth line of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. Lucy pointed out the references to these lovers in several texts.” Simon paused to read aloud the appropriate page. “But here’s the weird thing. The painting Venus and Adonis in the National Gallery—Grace has a copy here with her—is cataloged as NG34. It was the thirty-fourth painting acquired by the Gallery in the early nineteenth century. It represents the waning love between Philip and Mary Tudor, and Mary was Henry VIII’s daughter too. Venus begged Adonis not to hunt—which I guess was about her not wanting Philip to stray.”

“To her sister, Elizabeth!” Grace had taken a postcard of the painting from the basket beside her, and showed them an image that Simon passed first to Lucy and Alex, and they in turn gave to Henry.