“The thing that interested me about painting Masquerade was, how could you make people look at those paintings…and look…and look…and look again. The puzzle–that was the way to do that.”
— Kit Williams
The children’s book Masquerade, published in 1979, tells the story of Jack Hare, commissioned by the Moon to carry a treasure to her love, the Sun. When Jack finally arrives at the Sun, he finds that he has lost the treasure.
The book is more than just a beautifully-illustrated children’s fairy tale – it is one of the most elaborate and elegant puzzles ever created. Kit Williams created the puzzle, the artwork, and the treasure itself – an 18-karat gold amulet encrusted with jewels and shaped like a hare.
The public was told that amulet was buried in a clay casket somewhere in the United Kingdom and that it was buried on public property which could be easily accessed. The book’s publication set off one of the most famous puzzle-solving contests in history – it sold more than one million copies.
In March 1982, Kit Williams announced that Ken Thomas had solved the puzzle, found the hare, and won the contest. (Despite announcement and accompanying news stories and photographs, puzzleheads in denial continued to search and to dig throughout the summer of 1982!)
But Williams had reservations about the find, which eventually proved to be correct. In 1988, the story broke that the real name of Ken Thomas was Dugald Thompson, who was a business associate of a man named John Guard. Guard’s girlfriend at the time was Veronica Robertson – a former live-in girlfriend of Kit Williams. Williams had told Robertson the general location of where he had hidden the treasure and how to find it.
Robertson pointed Guard in the right direction – she, Guard, and Thompson combed the area at night with metal detectors and shovels looking for it. Eventually, Guard drew a sketch of the final “solution” and prodded Thompson into sending it to Williams to verify, which he did. Thompson, disguised as Ken Thomas, went with Williams to unearth the golden hare.
After claiming the prize, Thompson placed the hare in a bank vault. In 1985, the hare was put up as collateral to fund a software company called Haresoft that ultimately went bankrupt. In December 1988, the hare was placed for auction by Sotheby’s where it sold to an anonymous private collector for £31,900 (approx US$60,000) – Williams himself bid on it to win it back but had to drop out at £6,000.
The whereabouts of the hare remained unknown for over 20 years. After hearing a radio interview with Williams, the owner of the hare agreed to be interviewed for a TV program produced by BBC Four in 2009. For the first time since the hare was unearthed, Williams was reunited with the hare (if only temporarily).
Masquerade was the forerunner of the armchair treasure hunt, which includes David Blaine’s Mysterious Stranger.
I have not spoiled any part of the Masquerade puzzles in this blog entry. But many descriptions of the solution exist on the internet. My favorite one is at bunnyears.net, which also includes links to all of the artwork in the book. Enjoy!
Looks like Amazon has used versions of both Masquerade and William’s second book, The Book with No Name.
I recall that my mother bought a copy of this book, and I spent time looking at it in my high school years. I recall years later wondering if it had ever been solved, and I searched the young internet in the early 90s and found a link to the “winner” and how to solve the puzzle.
Of course since then, I’ve been educated by eP’s puzzles, and I’m sure I could get it myself 🙂