“There’s a man following us,” Sue said to the driver. “We need to get a move on!”
There was no reply other than a smile in the rear vision mirror.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “Faster!” I said. “Go faster!”
“We go Jesuit house soon,” he said.
“No!” Sue replied. “We go now!”
“Sorry, madam. No can do. We go short time ride taxi first. One car already following I think. Please no look. Man who follow you still standing and looking at us.”
It took all my willpower to keep from turning, and I had to grab Sue by the chin to stop her as well.
“What are you going to do?” Sue asked of the driver, and I could hear the anxiety in her voice.
I suddenly realised that we could have walked into a trap. Maybe Joseph’s room at the hotel had been bugged by Jackson Lee. Maybe he knew about the Jesuits and knew about the note that had been left for us. He could have been listening outside Joseph’s door. Maybe he now knew everything that we had told Father Joseph and all he needed was the location of the chest.
“Stop the car!” I ordered.
“No can do, sir,” he replied. “Father Angelo tell me bring you Jesuit house.”
“Ben, what is it?” Sue asked, and I knew that she was almost as scared as I was. I reached for the door handle and realised that opening it and trying to jump out was out of the question. I could grab the driver around the throat and make him stop, but that could get us killed.
But could Jackson Lee have bugged the room? No. It couldn’t have happened. Joseph had been in there waiting for us to come to him. He had been in there ever since he had left the note, and he had been in there even before we had arrived at the airport. And there was no way this fellow could have got hold of a rosary in time. They weren’t something that was readily available in China.
“What did Father Joseph tell you to do with us?” I asked.
“Not speak with Father Joseph. Speak with Father Angelo. He tell me make the cross sign, drive you for short time, maybe long time. Tell me make sure no other car following us.”
“It’s okay, Sue,” I said. “For one minute I thought maybe he wasn’t on the level.”
If this driver had been told by Jackson Lee to pick us up he wouldn’t have had a story as good as this ready.
“Are we going to be okay, Ben?” she asked.
“We’ll be fine,” I replied. “Everything’s going to be just fine. Isn’t that right driver?”
“I show you good time,” he replied, smiling into the rear-vision mirror again. “I drive everywhere, show you Tiananmen Square, show you where Chairman Mao resting, show you entrance to Forbidden City, maybe go to Summer Palace. We lose them somewhere. This Beijing. Too many cars for them follow us long time.”
“Okay,” I replied, and then turned to Sue. “It looks like we just have to leave it to him.” And then I remembered. I tapped him on the shoulder again.
“They followed us from the airport on a motor-bike. Can you lose one of those?”
“Yes, sir. Maybe take longer, but can do.”
It took at least fifteen minutes before the driver was certain that we had lost our tail, and it took another fifteen minutes before he pulled up outside a grey stone building, maybe fifty or sixty years old, three stories high, hemmed in on either side by similar but different buildings
“It doesn’t look much like a church,” Sue said. “It looks more like a commercial building, like an old bank or something. It could do with a good clean.”
“There’s a plaque beside the doorway,” I said. “Can you read it from here?”
She wiped condensation from the inside of the window and peered through the smog-shrouded gloom at the heavy stone portico for a few seconds, and then said: “It’s definitely the Jesuits.”
“You go inside please,” the driver stated.
“How much do we owe you?” I asked as the cold air rushed in through the open door.
“No money. All okay.”
“Thanks,” I replied, and we climbed out.
“Bu keqi,” he said, smiling again, then dropped the car into gear and eased away from the kerb.
The door of the building opened and Father Joseph was standing there with my back-pack.
“Come inside. This is our residence in Beijing. I will show you where you will sleep later. First there are others who wish to meet you.”
We went up one set of stairs, down a corridor, and up another set of stairs and into what appeared to be a library. There were two other men in the room, both in dark-coloured religious clothes; one middle-aged and rather portly, with a pudding-bowl haircut, his vestments slightly more colourful and finer than those of the other older man. Both men were slightly shorter than Joseph. He deferred to them both.
“This is his reverence, Bishop Petro,” Father Joseph said quietly, bowing slightly to the heavy-set one. “And this,” he said, smiling and indicating the older of the two men. “Is Father Angelo, the keeper of all of our church records.” He then translated what he had said into Italian. The Bishop stepped forward with his hand held towards us. I reached out and shook it. Sue moved forward and, to my surprise, touched the back of his fingers to her lips. Father Joseph said a few more words in Italian, the Bishop said several more, smiled, and then left.
“The Bishop does not speak English,” Joseph said. “But his Mandarin is most proficient. Bishop Petro has been sent by the Holy Church in Rome to assist with this matter and to guide us in our efforts to regain those items which were so savagely taken from us.”
Was it my imagination, or was Joseph not exactly happy with the Bishop’s presence in the seminary?
“And Father Angelo?” I asked, directing my question to Joseph.
“My English is not so perfect,” Father Angelo replied quickly, running the fingers of one hand through what was left of his almost white hair, and then pushing his heavy-framed glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “But good enough, I think, for our purpose.” His Italian accent was strong, but not as bad as some of the clients I’d had in my law office from time to time. “Please call me Angelo, except when the Bishop is in our presence, and then you should call me either Father, or Father Angelo. The Bishop is not as relaxed about these things as we lesser mortals. May I call you Ben and Susan?”
“Of course,” Sue replied. “Except its Sue, not Susan.”
“Good,” Joseph interrupted, hopping from one foot to the other. “Now that the introductions are done with, Angelo has some exciting news for us, some news which I have only just heard about. Tell them, Angelo.”
“Ah, the impetuousness of youth,” Angelo replied, directing his remark to Joseph. “But then, I was young once. I remember how it was.”
“Angelo!” Joseph said abruptly. “Please?”
“Of course, of course.”
“And Angelo,” Joseph added, flicking the hair from his eyes. “Please don’t be your normal longwinded self.”
“Of course, Father Joseph.”
“If you two have quite finished,” I said to Angelo. “What’s this exciting news?”
“Please, let us sit first,” he replied. “It is not a long story, but it will take some minutes.”
I could see that Joseph was getting frustrated, so I sank into the nearest chair and said nothing further.
“I presume that Joseph has told you how the Boxers broke into the church,” Angelo began. “And how they stole the holy items and all of the Church’s regalia?”
We both said that he had, and Sue added: “And we know about the relics.”
“Ah, yes, I see.” He looked at Joseph and Joseph merely shrugged his shoulders. “Well,” he continued. “I was puzzled when Father Joseph telephoned and said that there were two Chinese gold ornaments that were supposed to have been amongst the items which your Lancer soldier ancestor took from the Boxers.”
“Captain Monty wasn’t our ancestor,” Sue interjected. “He wasn’t anything to do with ei
ther my family or with Ben’s. He was related to another family in England.”
“Of course, of course,” he replied. “You must forgive my ancient addled mind.”
“Before you continue,” I said, much to the annoyance of Joseph, who was by this time becoming quite twitchy. “There was also some sort of medallion, on a gold chain. It doesn’t look at all religious in nature, although it might be. Sue’s got a picture of it and the rest of the pieces on her laptop if you’d like to see them.”
“Later!” Joseph interjected. “Go on Angelo, continue. I know that you’ve found something in the archives, and that’s all I’ve been told. So, could we hear about it, please?”
“Of course, Joseph,” Angelo replied, settling himself more comfortably in his chair and then continued with his news. “Joseph did tell me about the medallion, but I don’t think that it is part of our regalia, although I would like to look at your pictures of it later, just to make certain.” He caught sight of Joseph drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair, and hurriedly continued. “Yes, well, I have found, in our records, a note that was made exactly seven days before the Boxers broke into the church, and I have also found another note which was made by one of the other priests who found Father Michael.”
“Who is Father Michael?” Sue asked.
“He’s the priest who was killed by the Boxers,” I replied. “The one who described what had happened when the other priests found him a couple of days after the attack.”
“Oh, yes. I forgot. Sorry.”
Joseph suddenly turned to Angelo. “I thought that our only knowledge of what had happened was in the statement written down by Father Giovanni?”
“Yes, Joseph,” Angelo replied. “So did I. But I thought I should search through those dusty documents stored away in the furthermost reaches of the old library again; and I found both of these notes. One is a formal note, and the other contains a few sentences spoken by Father Michael, and written down by this other Father a short while after Father Giovanni had spoken to Father Michael and had left. They were other details of the assault that Father Michael remembered.”
“Who wrote these other few sentences?” Joseph asked.
“We don’t know. The single piece of paper was fastened to the formal note, and there is no signature. Perhaps this priest intended to give the paper to Father Giovanni, but omitted to do so.”
“So, Angelo,” Joseph asked, and I could see he was ready to scream. “What do these few sentences tell us, and what was written in the formal note?”
“I will tell you of the later details given by Father Michael first.” He dropped both hands to his lap and placed one on top of the other, then reached up and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “They tell us that the Boxers ripped the holy book from its repository and threw it to the floor.”
“What kind of repository?” Sue asked.
“It was a large chest,” Angelo replied, and then continued. “They tossed the chest aside once they realised that it was made only of base metal. The Boxers cursed Father Michael as they thought it might have been made of gold, and not mere copper.”
“So, why is that important?” I asked.
“Well,” Angelo continued. “The holy book had always been kept in this large copper chest of which he speaks. When our people finally arrived at the church the holy book was still lying on the floor, but the chest had disappeared. It means that it is highly likely that the chest your ancestor, sorry, that the Lancer officer found, is the very same chest. It also, with God’s blessing, means that they placed the cross and the boxes containing the holy relics in this chest. It also means that if that was indeed the case, then the contents of the chest would have been protected from the elements.”
“Why’s that?” Sue asked.
“Well, as I have said, the chest was made of copper. It would not rust nor would it decay. And the chest was made to be airtight, in order to protect the holy book.”
I had been watching Joseph. The smile on his face seemed to get wider and wider. I knew that he would have been worrying about the chest. I hadn’t told Joseph what the captain had said about the box in his letter. Joseph knew that if it had been made of ordinary iron or steel, it would probably have rotted away during the more than one hundred years that it had been lying under the ground. I was certain he had figured out from the expression on my face that it was buried. And Joseph wasn’t stupid. He knew that the only way Captain Monty would have hidden the chest would have been by burying it. If the chest had rotted, his holy relics would have gone the same way. Captain Jenkinson-Smythe hadn’t said much about the chest, apart from its approximate size and that it was made of brass. But he could have easily mistaken copper for brass, and the good captain hadn’t been concentrating on the chest. He was more concerned about the contents.
If it had been an ordinary Chinese brass chest, there was no way it would have been airtight. Moisture would have seeped in and either destroyed or severely damaged anything that was inside. There was now a good chance that everything would be safe and sound. It hadn’t been something that had concerned Sue and me. We both knew that neither jade nor gold would turn back into the earth that had created them.
Sue turned to Angelo and asked: “But what about the note that you found, the note you said had been made a week or so before the attack?”
“Ah yes,” he replied. “The note.”
“Well, what about it?” I asked.
“It was the only other document that I could find connected with the Church and those dark days. In fact it is two documents, joined together with a very rusty pin. One is a simple record of a deposit with the Church, and the other is a note written by Father Michael concerning this deposit.”
“A deposit?” Sue asked.
Joseph hadn’t said a word. It was obvious by the puzzled look on his face that he didn’t know anything about this latest discovery.
“Yes, Mrs Dunlop,” Angelo continued. “A number of items had been left with the Church for safe keeping.”
“When did you make this discovery, Angelo?” Joseph asked. “When did you find this note?”
“It was only yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you until I had researched the matter further. I wanted to find out more about the persons who had made the deposit.”
“What was the bloody deposit?” I asked, becoming frustrated by the way he seemed to be drawing this disclosure out, as though it was a surprise at some birthday party or other.
“Yes, Father Angelo,” Joseph said with an even harder edge to his voice. “What was the deposit, and who made it? What is in the note?”
“Ah, yes,” Angelo went on, still using the same slow, carefully chosen words. “The deposit was one of valuables from one of the larger Buddhist temples nearby. They were placed in the same secret room that was the repository for our sacred relics.”
“Buddhist?” I asked.
“Yes, Ben, Buddhist. Although we were of entirely different religions, we had a good and tolerant relationship. We still do.” He paused, waiting for further questions, and then, when none seemed to be forthcoming, he said: “Now, if you will let me, I will continue.” And again he paused. I could see that Joseph was getting ready to explode and was holding himself back with difficulty. “Good,” he finally said, and then continued. “Now the monks who were in charge of this temple were presumably worried that the Boxers, and those opportunists and criminal gangs who were following in their wake, were going to attack all religious places, not simply because of religion, but because of what could be taken from them.”
“But what about the note?” I asked again, my temper rising.
“Yes!” Joseph said, beginning to go red in the face. “What was in the blessed note!”
“Ah, yes,” Angelo went on. “The note that Father Michael had made in the days before his death sets out in some detail a description of the items which were deposited with us.”
“Does it include some nineteenth century jade and a couple of go
ld ornaments?” Sue asked.
“Yes, it includes the gold item which you posted on the internet, or rather, the descriptions in the note would seem to match in a number of respects. There is a list of several other items in gold, as well as some in silver, and some older jade items.”
“And the note made by Father Michael definitely states that they were from this Buddhist temple?” I asked.
“Yes, my son.”
I turned and looked at Sue, my eyebrows raised.
“So,” Sue said. “They can’t have really had anything to do with Jackson Lee and his family. If they already belonged to the Buddhists before the Boxer rebellion then they couldn’t have been stolen from Lee’s family by bandits during the rebellion, unless they were stolen a short time prior to the rebellion and Lee has his facts wrong. He does claim that it was a story passed down to him by his grandfather. Maybe the time line is wrong.”
We both turned to Joseph.
“What do you think?” I asked Joseph.
“I think that Jackson Lee is lying. I think that Jackson Lee knows something about this temple treasure. I think that he is a thief, or intends to be a thief.”
“My God!” Sue suddenly exclaimed, and then: “Sorry, Fathers.”
“What?” I asked.
“The timeline! Of course!” she blurted out again. “The timeline is all wrong. Why didn’t we see it before?”
“What timeline?” I asked.
“Well, Jackson Lee told us that the pieces were his grandfather’s, right?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, they couldn’t have been.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because he said that his grandfather escaped from the Boxers during the last days of the Boxer rebellion, with his children. If his grandfather had children then he had to be at least twenty-five or thirty years of age in 1900, meaning he would have been born around 1875, which means that Jackson Lee himself would have to be at least fifty or sixty years of age.”
Dark Eye of the Jaguar Page 16