The Spoils of Avalon

by Mary Burns

  I was about to make a sharp and witty retort, when a sudden light burst upon me.

  “That was the object under the glass bell in your office!” I said.

  He looked surprised, and a little discomfited. “Why, yes, indeed, it most certainly is, and what a sharp eye you have, Miss Paget,” he said. “Quite the lady detective, I must say.”

  I knew I should have refrained from going further, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “And you really think that it is actually, in fact, the index finger bone of King Arthur, a legendary warrior from the Dark Ages, perhaps not even a real person, but an amalgam of various Welsh and English heroes who fought off the Saxons—and that only for a brief time—after the Romans deserted Britain?”

  Mr. Wattendall blinked several times, rapidly, as if fanning his brain into service, to answer my affront. “Why, Miss Paget, I don’t…I mean to say…that is, it is a certified relic, with a great deal of paperwork that goes back two or more centuries, as to its provenance and disposition. The Reverend Crickley prided himself on working with only the most trustworthy antiquaries.” He drew himself up to his spindly height, coming up nearly as tall as John, who was well over six feet. “It is authentic.”

  “That’s as may be,” I said, rushing onward. “But I beg of you, and I hope you will not take this question in the wrong way—can you tell me why Reverend Crickley would give you this most highly treasured and interesting relic?” A strong suspicion was gathering in my mind, and I began to feel a chill as I stood confronting this pompous man. It might have been more prudent to be less direct, but I couldn’t help that now.

  He opened and closed his mouth several times, rather like a fish dying on the shore.

  “It…was…a…gift,” he said, pronouncing each word with great deliberation. “I shall deign to tell you no more than that.” He was becoming highly indignant—his nostrils flared, his face was growing red—and I feared for the safety of the furniture and china pieces in the room, should he start flailing in his outraged righteousness. He took a step toward me, and I felt John stir as if to jump to my aid, but Mr. Wattendall merely reached down to retrieve a notebook—in which he had intended, no doubt, to write his inventory—and then he turned to leave the room. He walked to the door, looked back at us, and said, in a very loud and injured tone, “I bid you good day, Miss Paget, Mr. Sargent.”

  We heard the front door close with conscious firmness, and we gazed at each other in astonishment.

  “What a very odd person!” I said. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

  John shook his head. “I really cannot tell—it would be dashed barefaced of him to say it was a gift when it wasn’t—but then, there’s no one to contradict it, is there?”

  “No, sadly, no one,” I said. I walked over to the sofa and sat down upon it, suddenly weary. John paced back and forth.

  “But that’s not all,” he said, and I remembered the look he had given me when I came in the room.

  “Yes?” I said. “What have you found out?”

  “When we first walked into the room,” John said, “I was behind Mr. Wattendall, and I noticed that he immediately looked at the staircase, up to the top of the stairs. Then, when I looked up in that direction, as if following his lead, he looked a little pale and said something like, ‘I couldn’t help but imagine poor dear Reverend Crickley, falling down that staircase.”

  “Humph,” I said. “Do you think he was looking to see if the wire were visible?”

  “Hard to say,” John said, and shrugged. “What he said was quite plausible, I mean, after all, it is where the poor man died—one couldn’t help but think of that.”

  He came over to the sofa and quickly sat down next to me.

  “But there’s one more thing—he asked about the book!”

  I clutched at his arm. “No! Really? What did he say?”

  “Well, we were standing looking at some of the books on the desk over there,” he said, waving a hand at the Reverend’s tidy desk. He screwed up his face to imitate the lawyer’s unctuous tones. “And he said, ‘there was a small book, that the Reverend was very fond of, about the relics of Glastonbury and where they may have ended up, after the Dissolution of 1539. It used to lay right here, but I don’t see it.’ ”

  “What did you say?” I urged, leaning forward, and repressing the impulse to laugh at John’s excellent imitation of that fatuous man.

  “Well, of course I didn’t let on that I knew anything about it, but I asked him why he was curious about it, and he looked at me rather strangely, as if he had been caught out or something, and then said something like, ‘Oh, I thought it might be helpful to me when I do the inventory of the Reverend’s relic collection.’ And that’s when we went over to the cabinet, and he started to explain to me what some of them were, and I asked him if he knew what had been in the empty spot.”

  “Well done, Scamps,” I said, and lay back against the cushions. “Our Mr. Wattendall is getting curiouser and curiouser.”

  As we sat there musing, we heard the house bell ring, and I looked at my watch – half past noon, already!

  “That must be Mr. Gravely,” said John. “Do you think we should show him what we found, the wire and all that?”

  “Most definitely,” I said. “And I’ve a few other questions to ask him as well, during luncheon. What a day this is turning out to be!”

  28

  O brother, had you known our mighty hall,

  Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago!

  For all the sacred mount of Camelot,

  And all the dim rich city, roof by roof,

  Tower after tower, spire beyond spire,

  By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook,

  Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built.

  –Idylls of the King

   23 July 1539 

  Lanercost Priory

  Arthur begged leave of his father to stay behind him and Gwillem Moor at the Priory for a while, to say his prayers and visit what was left of the church. Wil acceded with a nod and a sad smile, and mentioned only for Arthur to have a care inside the church, whose broken ceiling had a tendency to come crashing down in pieces unexpectedly.

  The summer sun was gathering strength behind the early afternoon clouds as Arthur cautiously made his way through the gaping doorway to what had been the vestry, rooms behind the great altar and sanctuary, where the priest and servers would robe themselves in beautifully woven and decorated vestments, and where the Mass books, chalices and plate were kept.

  No more.

  The very doors of the wardrobe closets had been torn off, the shelves pulled out, and all the iron and brass handles and knobs taken—now probably adorning a dozen different houses in Brampton, perhaps, or further afield. The richest items—the golden and jewel-studded chalices, the silver ciboria that held the consecrated hosts, candlesticks, monstrances, vestments heavy with gold and silk thread—were reserved for the King’s majesty, with a few items diverted into the Visitors’ own pockets, of course.

  Lanercost Priory, home of Augustinian black-robed canons, had never been wealthy in relics, scholarship, or tithes, serving as parish priests for the towns in the North, as well as a parish church for the villages near Lanercost, including the inhabitants of Naworth Castle, although the castle had its own chapel for daily Mass. But there had been some items of particular veneration, especially a noted relic of the Magdalene.

  He stepped over the threshold of the vestry door into the sanctuary, and took a deep, steadying breath at what he saw. The altar was desecrate, its marble slabs broken and smashed on the floor. There was no lamp to signify the Holy Presence—indeed, it seemed all too clear that God had forsaken this place, or had simply, unaccountably, been driven away. Who could do that? Arthur was deeply puzzled at the depth of wanton disregard—amounting to hatred—that seemed to govern those who carried out the King’s desire to defy the Roman Catholic Church, in the spurious name of reformation. Wasn’t it
enough to deny authority to the Pope in Rome, and take the headship of the Church in England to himself? Did he have to destroy every physical symbol of a Faith that after all, the king himself still claimed to believe in? The bare and frigid, angry faith that the Protestant reformers were forcing upon the people lacked all warmth and brightness, the friendly human sympathy of the saints, the touch of kindness, the smell of holy incense rising with prayer, the sounds of dolorous, serene chanting and the slow peal of bells. He shook his head at the desolate sadness of it, the relentless rationalizing of the zealots of reform.

  Arthur walked slowly down into the main part of the church. For some reason, the tiles and lead of roof and ceiling on the far west end—the nave—had been allowed to remain, while the high altar and transepts of the church were open to the elements. Along the side aisles, the low pedestals that had once held statues of saints were empty, with here and there a hand, a foot, a length of stone robe, littering the floor like the aftermath of a great battle. A sudden burst of sun through the clouds sent rays of color streaming through the high windows—so high, perhaps, that no one had been able to reach them to either break or take them away.

  Midway down the main aisle, Arthur turned to face the ruined sanctuary, the destroyed high altar, and knelt in the dust on the broken floor. He prayed to the blessed Saint Bridget for his family, for the Abbot and the brothers at Glastonbury, and all the monks and nuns who had been forced from their homes and lives in community out into the world, whether they would or no. Then he prayed for the enemies of the Church, as he knew he should do, but it was a hard duty to be sincere.

  He rose from his knees after a long while, and walked over to the elaborately carved stone tomb of the late Sir Thomas Dacre and his wife, buried in the south transept; it was untouched by vandals and looters. The three scallop shells of the Dacre arms were juxtaposed with the checkerboard of the de Vaux family, the original founders of Lanercost and ancestors of the Dacres, with angels and saints carved into panels on either side. The whole formed a solid wall of heraldry and nobility befitting the brave knight and his lady.

  There was too much of sadness here to keep Arthur lingering, and he stepped outside the confines of the once noble building into the summer sun and fresh air. Across the way, in the meadows of the Abbey Farm, he could see folk going out to the haying in some of the fields. Summer was ending, and harvest was coming on, the endless cycle of seasons. It was a lesson in moving on, but Arthur felt in his heart he wasn’t quite ready to accept the truth of that lesson for himself. He had been called to serve the Lord, as a monk, perhaps as a priest; his heart yearned for the quiet beauty of Glastonbury’s library, the fierce, sharp pull of the wisdom of the ancients and the scholar-saints, the immersion in the sacred truths of the Gospels and the Psalms. He didn’t know anymore whether he would ever be allowed back into that life—but whatever happened, he would have to rely on the Lord to see him through, to walk whatever path He had in mind for his servant.

  He slipped around the far side of the church and made his way back to his father’s welcoming home.

  29

  And, brother, had you known our hall within,

  Broader and higher than any in all the lands!

  Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur’s wars,

  And all the light that falls upon the board

  Streams through the twelve great battles of our King.

  Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end,

  Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere,

  Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur.

  –Idylls of the King

   Cottage Perilous 

  Cumberland

  Wednesday Noon

  “Mr. Gravely, you are most welcome,” I said as he appeared at the door of the library. John and I had both risen from the sofa to greet our guest. Mrs. Barnstable was a pace or two behind the coroner, and remained only to close the door as he stepped inside the room.

  “Thank you, Miss Paget,” he said, with a brief bow and nod to me and John. I hurried over to him and, taking him by the arm, led him to the foot of the staircase.

  “We have found the evidence exactly as you surmised,” I said, pointing to the top of the stairs. “There is a length of wire, broken but still attached to the balustre, on the inside of the staircase, and marks which show where it was secured on the other side.”

  “May I go up and see?” he said. I nodded my permission, and he climbed the stairs, kneeling on a step when he came near the top, and examining both sides closely.

  I waited for him to rise and come back down the stairs, then motioned to him to be seated in an upholstered chair across from the sofa, and then sat down again myself. John remained standing; his restlessness frequently kept him in motion, especially when there was a conversation going on.

  “It is a very thin piece of wire,” Mr. Gravely said. His brow contracted, and he was silent for some moments. “Too thin to be, say, piano wire or even hat-making wire.” He shifted in his chair a moment. “The fact that it broke, too, indicates a lightness and a delicate quality to it.”

  “Such as wire used in jewelry making?” John said, still pacing about the room. “Necklaces and that sort of thing?”

  “Precisely,” said Mr. Gravely. “That would be my best guess.”

  “Then whoever put it there would have had access to such tools as jewelers’ use,” I said, thinking aloud. “Or at the least, to have a long necklace on hand that one could unstring and take the wire from. That’s something to go on.” A sudden thought occurred to me, and I blurted it out without thinking. “Lord Parke’s school for girls—they make jewelry there.”

  Mr. Gravely was looking speculatively at me as I said this.

  “This is a very serious matter,” Mr. Gravely said. “I expect we should notify the chief constable as soon as possible.” His tone stopped even John in his tracks, and we exchanged concerned glances.

  “The chief constable!” I said. I truly had not given it a thought, that a murder would necessarily require the attention of the local authorities. In my experience—albeit, in Italy, where the mere presence of the police spelt the end of common sense and all reasonable expectations of solving even the smallest crime—the interference of the authorities was devoutly to be avoided.

  Mr. Gravely looked troubled. “What is it you’re thinking, Miss Paget?” he said, eyeing me almost sternly. “Surely you would not attempt to discover the perpetrator of this heinous crime on your own?”

  Discerning man! Would that he weren’t quite so sharp! Nonetheless, I felt that he would be an ally in our enterprise if he could but be persuaded to join us.

  “Well, not exactly, Mr. Gravely,” I said, hedging to buy some time to think. “Of course the authorities will need to be brought in, but there are…complications.” I looked up at John, hoping to find in his countenance the support I needed to explain our situation. He nodded at me, and smiled briefly—it was encouragement enough.

  “Complications?” Mr. Gravely repeated.

  “Yes. You see, my hotel room was searched…” I got no further than this point when Mr. Gravely interrupted me.

  “Your room searched! Miss Paget, this is intolerable! Did you notify the constable of this?” He read the look on my face. “You didn’t even tell the hotel owner, did you?”

  I shook my head. “Please, Mr. Gravely, let me explain this all to you—I promise I’ll be brief, and then you’ll see, perhaps, why we think it advisable to wait at least just a little time more before calling in the police.”

  I quickly related the situation as we saw it so far—the search of my room, the maid’s seeing someone skulking in the hall—and finally drawing forth from my reticule the now infamous book sent to me by Uncle Chaffee, ending with the revelation of the previously missing relic of King Arthur’s finger bone, and Mr. Wattendall’s reaction to my questions to him. He took the book from my hand, and looked it over, seemingly absent-mindedly, as I talked.

 
“And after all,” I wound up, “if it hadn’t been for your noticing those marks on Uncle Chaffee’s legs, we wouldn’t be in this situation at all, I believe.” I hoped that this reminder would push a little at his conscience, making him feel already to be a conspirator with us.

  “Surely you remember Lord Parke’s initial response,” John spoke up helpfully. “He was, to say the least, skeptical of your findings.”

  I shot John a warning look—perhaps it wouldn’t be that helpful if Mr. Gravely were to know that Lord Parke was now also aware of the wire trap. But I did not catch his eye, and he kept on.

  “As a matter of fact,” John said, “Lord Parke was here this morning, and we showed him the wire, too—he was quite convinced after that.”

  “But nevertheless,” I hastened to add, “this is too much of speculation to bring to the police, and yet, I feel strongly that we have a better chance—and greater opportunity—of scouting out the murderer than the police do, you see, because at this point no one else but we three, and Lord Parke, suspect anything.”

  Mr. Gravely looked at John, and then at me.

  “You are not aware, perhaps,” he said, “that Mr. George Howard, Lord Parke’s cousin, is the magistrate for the county, in his poor uncle’s place, you see—and I think it of the utmost importance that Mr. Howard should be informed of this new information without any due delay.”

  I would not admit defeat entirely.

  “We are to dine at Naworth Castle this evening,” I said, and continued with a show of some bravado, “and I promise you that we will lay before him the whole matter, and see what he has to say.”

  Mr. Gravely appeared to be satisfied with this compromise. He looked at the book in his hands, and leafed through it idly.

  “What is it you think this book holds that would be so valuable that someone would kill for it?”

  I felt on the instant that his question was not an idle one—and I remembered what Delia had told me in the garden.