Once inside the crypt, Gordon had no more success than the Russells had. He couldn’t figure out how to jimmy the door lock and couldn’t move the heavy stone sarcophagus lid. So he stole the only thing he could carry – one heavy box full of books. That box and seven old volumes had been found in Foxworth’s hotel room, the policeman said. The metal box was exactly the same as the others Inspector Dalton had seen in the basement, and the ancient books were similar to those Thomas Russell had shown him. “They’re held as evidence for now. Once we wrap up our case, you’ll get them back,” he explained.
Inspector Dalton finished the story. Once the thief had the box safely in his car, he noticed a large block lying near the abandoned building next door. He tossed it through the front window to make it look like vandalism. Then he drove away.
Dalton asked if they were going to call the antiquities people now.
Belinda said they weren’t inclined to do so now, but they’d talk it over with their grandson, Edward, to see what he thought.
Saturday morning was hectic at the store. The usual noon closing time passed with customers still lined up at the checkout counter. Edward arrived around 12:30, hugged his grandparents, and helped them handle the last sales. Finally he locked the front door and said, “So what’s new with the hidden room? I’ve been dying all week to know more about it. I can’t think about anything else!”
There was much to tell him. They talked about the steady increase in customers as a result of the newscast, the offer by Mr. “Peterson” to buy the building and the store itself, and the burglary and the man’s arrest.
“He’s sitting in the City of London jail at this moment,” Thomas said with satisfaction. “The inspector says he hasn’t been able to make bail thus far.”
“Really? Well, it’s obvious he didn’t intend to buy the building. He wanted whatever you’ve found in the basement!”
Belinda nodded. “Without a doubt. Whatever’s there is really old and possibly very significant. So we’ve been patiently waiting for your young, strong arms to get back to London to help us figure out what actually is there! Your grandfather thinks he’s got a dead British knight in the basement. My word, what if that were true! It boggles one’s mind, doesn’t it?”
Edward was as enthused as they were. “It does, in fact, but you know, it might make sense. I’ve had precious little time to do any research while I’m finishing my thesis, but the other afternoon I took a break. I rummaged around in the library at Oxford and found a book with a great description of this area prior to the Great Fire of 1666. You know, of course, that everything in the square mile around you sits on top of things far, far older. Back to the Roman occupation, in fact.”
Thomas nodded. “And we also know that this particular building sits on the exact site of the ancient Church of St. Mary Axe. I’m thinking that room below our basement is part of the crypt of the old church.”
“I agree. The old book I found said the church was probably built in the mid-fifth century, around 450 AD or so. That’s the same time the Saxons were battling the Britons. We know for sure St. Mary Axe church was torn down about 1565, sixty years before this current building was erected. I think the church floor was much lower than the street today. It’s possible that in the 1500s what is now your basement was the ground floor of the church. Here’s what I think – the people who built today’s building kept the existing stone floor of the ancient church nave because it happened to still be there and was very solid. By then it was much lower than the street level, so it became the floor of the basement. No one remembered that a room – maybe even a series of rooms – lay beneath it.”
Edward watched his grandmother’s excitement grow. “A series of rooms! Wouldn’t that be something? And if what you just said is true … well, the room underneath must be the crypt. And it could date as far back as the fifth century? My word, how amazing! It all makes perfect sense!” She clapped her hands. “I can’t wait any longer. Let’s get to it!”
Before they went downstairs, Thomas showed Edward the shelves of ancient books in foreign languages that they’d removed from the chamber. “Your grandmother and I looked at a couple of these the other day – I think those could be from the fifth century or so, given their binding and vellum pages. One’s in old English and mentions Angleland. Sounds Anglo-Saxon to me. When you have time, I’d like you to find out more about them.”
They descended the basement stairs and pulled aside the rug. Thomas went down the ladder first and turned on the string of lights. Belinda and Edward eagerly climbed down after him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gordon Foxworth was actually pretty good at his trade. A damned fireman who went to the cops shouldn’t have tripped him up this easily. If that one unfortunate thing hadn’t happened – if the fireman hadn’t remembered him from the pub – he would have at least relieved the Russells of those ancient books in their basement. And maybe the other stuff too. All he wanted was a signed purchase contract. The words in that document would allow him to examine the building. Given time alone in the chamber, he would have figured out how to open that coffin.
There was no doubt in Foxworth’s mind that the sarcophagus and the heavy locked door hid important information from maybe as far back as the Middle Ages. Gordon was highly educated, one of those people who could have made a decent, honest living. But he was drawn to the sometimes lucrative, always exciting world of flimflam. He loved ancient things and he was a confidence man – smooth, glib and easy to like. He had made a lot of money over the years; it was a shame that Foxworth’s one weakness – gambling – had perpetually left him one step from poverty. He was always working on the next deal, always promising himself after this one he’d quit going to the casinos. He’d avoided jail time before. But now he sat incarcerated in the City of London, awaiting arraignment in a few days. Gordon Foxworth needed two things quickly – a good lawyer and ten thousand pounds for bail.
Gordon had a fallback position. As soon as he saw what was in the crypt, he knew who to call – a shadowy European from Prague who had bought hot artifacts from him twice before. That man had money. That man was his exit strategy.
The guard handed Gordon Foxworth his mobile phone and waited while the prisoner memorized a number he looked up. He handed the phone back and was escorted to the jail’s pay phone. The guard looked at the screen, hoping to see the number Gordon had looked up, but the phone was locked.
As the jailer stood a few feet away, Foxworth called the man he believed would want to know about the crypt and its ancient contents. He had faith this individual would bail him out. After all, someone had to do the dirty work. Someone had to get those things out of that dank, dark chamber and into the hands of Juan Carlos Sebastian. The wealthy young collector Gordon had never met was his ticket.
——
After only one afternoon in the crypt with his grandparents, Edward was hooked.
There had been two goals that day – opening the stout wooden door and sliding the stone casket lid sufficiently to see if anything was inside. They’d tackled the lid first. Thomas and Belinda weren’t in shape to help physically. And there turned out to be an insurmountable logistical problem. The sarcophagus had been placed in a recess of the stone walls exactly large enough for it to fit. When the lid had originally been put on, it was merely slid on top of the box from the front. Taking it off would be an entirely different matter. The rear and both sides of the stone box were tight against the wall. As easy as it had been to install, it was impossible to remove without equipment. A person couldn’t get behind or beside the sarcophagus in order to push the lid. And no one, not even five strong men, could have pulled the thick stone slab forward and off the box. It would take a pulley system with a winch to lift it. The sarcophagus would have to wait.
His grandparents showed Edward the faint inscription on the coffin and the copy of it they’d made. He touched each letter with his fingers. “It’s medieval Welsh. It says something like ‘the eternal
guardian of my King.’”
That was exciting – it sounded more and more like a fearless knight, maybe one who’d died in battle. There were many skirmishes between Angles, Saxons and Britons in those days. Edward promised more research on the inscription soon.
Next they moved to the massive old door. Edward knelt and examined the lock closely. He directed his flashlight into the massive keyhole and peered inside. Finally he stood.
“This isn’t going to be any simpler than the coffin lid. The door’s at least eighteen inches thick. And look at the size of the keyhole. The key that fit this lock must have weighed ten pounds and been a foot long. It won’t be hard to spot if we ever come across it. Usually the way these medieval doors work is that there is a sliding iron bar on the other side of the door that moves left and right when the key is turned. In this particular case, the door is locked when the metal bar is all the way to the right, which is how it is now. In my opinion there are two ways to get in here. Find the key or work for days with saws to cut through the door.”
All three were bitterly disappointed. They were inches from something that could be incredible, but they might as well have been miles away. They were totally unable to proceed without involving others, something that Thomas and Belinda wouldn’t consider. They had found what was at the very least a historically relevant site. And if their speculations were correct, this place was fifteen hundred years old and contained the body of a knight. Bringing in outsiders would inevitably lead to governmental intervention, which would mean the project wouldn’t be theirs to control anymore. Not acceptable. Wouldn’t happen.
Edward took a cab home to his flat. He had two of the metal boxes full of books. One heavy box at a time, he hauled them up the stairs and into his living room. He couldn’t deal with them tonight – he had to work on his thesis. He poured himself a glass of wine and settled in at the kitchen table, where research papers were strewn everywhere. For an hour he struggled to accomplish something. He tried to read. He tried to take notes. He tried a lot of things, but all his mind could do was wander back to the stack of ancient books sitting in the next room. Finally he gave up. I’ll get back on the research tomorrow, he promised himself. Tonight I’ll see if I can find out what these books are all about.
Since tomorrow was Sunday, the bookshop would be closed. Edward called his grandparents that morning and asked if they wanted to join him for lunch. “I stayed up half the night going through the books, and I can shed some light on what we have here.”
Two hours later everyone was having a pint and lunch in the garden outside the Horse and Harness pub in Lower Thames Street. The river flowed lazily thirty feet in front of them, and off to the left the magnificent buttresses of the ancient Tower of London reached to the sky.
Belinda laughed as Edward explained how he’d gotten off track yesterday evening. The carefully laid plans to work on his thesis went by the wayside as the ancient volumes beckoned.
He pulled a notepad from his jacket pocket and consulted it. “I took fourteen books home with me. Eight of them were bound with leather covers and had vellum pages, three had wood covers and paper pages, and two had wood covers, vellum pages and some sort of dirty-looking colored glass stones affixed to the covers with tiny metal clips of some kind. I didn’t look closely at the stones, but later we can dig one out if you want.”
He paused and took a drink of ale. “All of the books except one are in Welsh. Not modern Welsh – Welsh the way it was written in the Middle Ages from, say, 400 to 600 AD. I can’t read ancient Welsh, but I’m getting some reference materials that’ll help me translate. So I can’t tell you what they’re about, but they’re in excellent condition for their age. They’re handwritten with some beautiful illustrations, mostly of people. I’ll finish my thesis as quickly as I can, and then I’ll translate them.”
“And?” Belinda asked as he stopped talking and took a bite of lunch.
“And what?”
“That accounts for all of the books except one. What about the fourteenth one?”
Edward grinned at her. “Good job paying attention, Grandmother! I saved the best for last. That one’s something else for sure. It has a beautiful dark leather cover and is maybe two hundred pages long. It’s handwritten on pages of vellum with broad, flowing script. It also probably was written in the fifth century and has a few colored illustrations like some of the others. Since it’s in Latin, I spent more time on it than the others. Latin’s easier; I can read it fluently. The big problem is interpreting the handwritten Latin of someone who wrote it so long ago. It’s like trying to read a letter Henry VIII wrote in the 1500s. Bad penmanship, poor vocabulary and lousy spelling. Know what I mean?”
He stopped, took another swig of beer and sat back with a sly smirk.
Belinda scolded him. “Edward, what are you doing? You’re teasing us! Now you tell us right now what this book’s all about. You’re hiding something. Don’t tell me any more about what kind of cover it has or what kind of pictures are in it. Tell me why this one’s so special.”
“The title is…” He glanced at his notes. “Bellum in Monte Badonis.”
“Thank you very much for that enlightening information. What does that mean?”
“In English it’s called The Battle of Badon.”
“Do I have to pull this out of you? I’m tired of waiting.” She laughingly wagged a finger in his face. “Why is that book significant?”
“According to everything I can find, this could be the first book ever discovered that was written at the same time as the Battle of Badon. Any books I’ve seen were written hundreds of years after it supposedly happened. This one may be an account of the battle by an eyewitness. Think how significant that would be!”
Thomas said sarcastically, “You know, I’m fascinated watching you lead your grandmother on like this. But don’t you think it’s cruel? Isn’t it time to confess what you’re talking about, Edward? What in hell is the Battle of Badon and who cares if an eyewitness wrote about it?”
Edward leaned forward, excitement in his eyes.
“The Battle of Badon has long been thought to be a myth. The story goes that it was fought between the Britons and the Saxons around 500 AD. It was the battle that heralded the Saxon downfall and established the Britons in England and Wales.”
Weary of Edward’s answer-dodging, Thomas said, “My word. That is important. Come on. Is that all there is to it? A book that establishes a war was actually fought that up to now everyone thought was a fable? Big deal, if you ask me.”
“Oh, there may be one more thing I neglected to mention. In that mythical battle, the Battle of Badon, do you know who led the Britons to decisive victory over the Saxons?”
“Who, pray tell?”
“None other than King Arthur and his legendary Knights of the Round Table. Men who until now have been considered by most historians to be fictitious. Now do you see why this book may be so important? It could be the first book ever found that dates from the actual time of Arthur’s reign and mentions him by name. An eyewitness account about a king who really existed, if my initial thoughts are correct. A really big deal, I think. Right, Grandfather?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The call went straight to an answering machine. Its one-word response was, “Speak.”
“Juan Carlos. Gordon Foxworth here. I’m in the City of London jail. I have information about what may be a priceless treasure hidden right here in the City, and I immediately thought of you. I need an attorney to bail me out. Here’s how to contact me.” Foxworth recited the information pasted on the wall above the pay phone. Maybe Juan Carlos would call him. Then again, maybe this number wasn’t even his anymore – it had been years, after all. Maybe Gordon would never hear a word. It was worth a try. All he could do now was wait.
The answering machine sat on a table in a mostly empty flat in Eastern Europe. The rent and utilities were paid a year in advance, but no one ever visited the premises. Like others he maintained
, that answering machine had one purpose – to allow people to contact Juan Carlos Sebastian. Sometimes it was for wet-ops assignments, but he also gave the number to others. From his office in Lucerne, Roberto Maas listened to the message Gordon Foxworth had left.
Four hours later a guard came to Gordon’s cell. “You have company. Come with me.”
The officer led him to a small room with a table and two chairs. A man with a dark complexion who was maybe forty sat at the table. “Sit down, Mr. Foxworth. I’m Curtis Pemberly – I’m here to help you.” The guard remained standing in one corner of the room, arms crossed.
The man’s appearance surprised Gordon. Foxworth had made a lot of money selling the things to Juan Carlos. He’d expected an expensive barrister. This man looked seedy. His suit and shirt were rumpled and he needed a shave.
“Did Juan Carlos send you?”
“Who else?” The man laughed and opened a briefcase. He brought out a document and a pen. “Sign this. You’re appointing me as your legal representative. Let’s get you out of here quickly. We can talk afterwards.”
It took half an hour to process paperwork. Finally Gordon was taken to a room where he changed from an orange jumpsuit to his street clothes. A door clanged open and he was again a free man, standing in the lobby where the lawyer was waiting.
“Now let’s go talk,” Pemberly said. A half hour later they were alone in a dingy East London flat in what appeared to be an empty building. The elevator had smelled faintly of urine and the walls needed a coat of paint. Gordon was wary; this didn’t seem right. However, the guy was obviously legit. He’d shown up after Gordon’s call to the mystery man. And he’d put up ten thousand dollars to spring him from jail. That was what Gordon had asked for. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and all that.
“Thanks for paying my bail. I guess I owe your boss–”
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