Or perhaps not, commented Jack to himself.
Mr Cadwallader sat in silence for a few more minutes, then rose shakily to his feet. ‘I must carry on. I know you want to see the work I’ve been doing.’
As a matter of fact, Jack didn’t want anything of the kind, but Henry Cadwallader’s complete certainty was hard to argue with. There was a sort of hypnotic inevitability in the way Cadwallader took Jack’s enthusiastic interest for granted.
‘To do the chantry justice,’ said Cadwallader, deep within his sketch book, ‘needs a real grasp of perspective to get the whole picture, but the detail is vital. Now, as I told you before, I was honoured to have Mr Lythewell himself sit for the work depicting him being received on the steps of Glory …’
He made it sound like a civic function, with God standing in for the Lord Mayor, thought Jack, his sense of humour fully restored.
‘… And, of course, I have the original sketches.’ He opened his portfolio and took out an old sketch book. ‘Now, you just look at these. They show the modelling of the head.’
Jack nodded. The sketches were, as a matter of fact, very good. Henry Cadwallader might approach a conversation with the unstoppable force of a lava flow, but there was no doubt he could draw.
‘Looking at these sketches, I have to admit I’ve been in error,’ said Cadwallader gravely.
‘Error?’ repeated Jack. That was unexpected.
‘Error,’ echoed Cadwallader. ‘For many a year, I’ve dismissed Mr Daniel Lythewell’s skills. I cannot bring myself to feel overly guilty, because Mr Lythewell abandoned his proper calling early on, but, you mark my words, he could have been as great a metal worker as his father.’
Jack blinked. This was really unexpected. ‘Er … How d’you know?’
Cadwallader gazed at him. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Not to me, no.’
‘Look at his metalwork, man. On the tomb,’ he added with ponderous impatience. ‘The detail of the head.’
Jack got up from the pew and went to crouch beside the statue of the grieving man. With the man’s face hidden by his crooked arm as he sprawled across the lid of the open tomb, there was really only part of his forehead and his ear to admire. It looked perfectly fine, but Jack couldn’t see why, after having looked at it for years, Cadwallader should suddenly consider it a masterpiece.
‘It’s such a graceful tribute,’ said Cadwallader reverently. ‘When I saw what Mr Daniel had done, when I really understood it, I was awe-struck. You might consider me slow, young sir, but after all these years, the chantry can still surprise me with the depth and the quality of its art.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jack, ‘I just don’t get what I’m supposed to be looking at.’
‘This,’ said Cadwallader in astonishment at Jack’s slowness. He tapped the statue. ‘This isn’t just any figure. This is a depiction of Mr Lythewell himself. I’ve never understood it before. I wish Mr Daniel had told me what was in his mind, because I could’ve helped him in his work.’ He thumbed through his sketch book. ‘You’ll see from these drawings that he got the proportions of the body wrong, which is a crying shame.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jack, looking from the sketch book to the statue. ‘Mr Lythewell wasn’t so tall and he’s a good deal portlier than the statue.’
‘Yes, well it’s a tribute, not a replica.’ Cadwallader allowed himself a slow smile. ‘That’s the privilege of the artist, sir, to make a few graceful improvements on nature, but the modelling of the head is perfect. Compare it with my drawings and you’ll see.’
Jack took the sketch book Cadwallader was holding. ‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed. ‘It really is remarkable.’
He stood in silence before the empty tomb. An idea, a tentative idea, was beginning to grow. Besides that, he really needed to distract Cadwallader for a little while, to get some time by the tomb unobserved. Mr Cadwallader might have his virtues but the man was positively adhesive.
‘Mr Cadwallader,’ said Jack eventually, ‘can I ask a favour? I’d very much like to have a drawing of Mr Lythewell.’
Cadwallader clutched his sketch book to his chest defensively, as if Jack was about to wrench it from him. ‘These drawings are precious to me, young sir!’
Jack smiled. ‘Of course they are, but would it be too much to ask you to copy one for me? Could you do it now? I’d be very grateful.’
Mr Cadwallader relaxed. ‘A drawing of Mr Lythewell? It’d be a pleasure.’ He looked at Jack with warm approval. ‘It’s gratifying to come across someone with a true appreciation of who Mr Lythewell was and what he did.’
And that, thought Jack cynically, was a good deal more accurate than Mr Cadwallader could ever guess.
‘Which picture would you like?’ asked Cadwallader, holding out the sketch book. ‘I’ll draw it for you right away.’
Jack thumbed through the book and selected a drawing – a profile of Josiah Lythewell – and waited until Cadwallader had set to work.
Then, as if he had nothing in particular on his mind, he set off for a stroll round the chantry. Glancing round, he saw Cadwallader, pencils and charcoal on the pew beside him, his head bent over his sketch, completely engrossed in his drawing.
Jack strolled back to the tomb and, with his back to Cadwallader, knelt down by the flagstone that held the silver inlaid picture of the chantry. Taking an envelope and a metal file from his pocket he scraped a few shavings from the silver inlay, coughing to cover the sound of the file.
He glanced round. Cadwallader, wrapped up in his work, was completely oblivious. Although it really didn’t seem necessary, Jack coughed once more, taking a few more shavings.
The metal came up brilliantly silver. Jack carefully put the shavings into the envelope and safely into his pocket.
Job done.
Thirteen
At half past eight that evening, Jack was enjoying a well-earned whisky and soda in Bill’s sitting-room. Bill had two rooms on the upper floor of an inconvenient but beautifully proportioned Georgian building in Melbourne Road off Russell Square. The sash windows stood open, gilding the well-worn carpet and comfortable chairs with the last of the evening sun.
John Askern’s letters had been duly handed over and were safely in Bill’s possession, to be delivered into the safekeeping of Scotland Yard tomorrow.
‘Those letters are stunning,’ said Bill, topping up Jack’s glass. ‘Askern must’ve been mad to have written them.’
Jack swirled the whisky round in his glass. ‘If you’re defining mad as the courts do when someone’s topped themselves, that the balance of his mind was disturbed, I think you’re probably right.’
He reached for a cigarette from the box Bill had companionably placed on the table by his elbow. ‘John Askern was in the grip of an obsession, and that’s an unbalanced mind, all right.’ He half-smiled. ‘Mrs Askern called the situation ironic. What really is ironic is that if those letters had reached Signora Bianchi, I bet poor old Askern would’ve spent the rest of his life being blackmailed, instead of the Bianchi suckering up for money in fits and starts.’
‘I bet you’re right.’ Bill raised his glass. ‘You were right about John Askern seeing off old Lythewell. Well done. It didn’t,’ he added, after a liquid pause, ‘do him any good though. I mean, he didn’t find this treasure of old Lythewell’s, did he?’
‘No, he didn’t. I think things would’ve worked out very differently if he had. Which is, of course, where those metal shavings I acquired—’
‘Pinched.’
‘Acquired,’ corrected Jack, ‘come into it. I dropped them into Johnson and Cooke, the analytical chemist on the Strand. They stay open till all hours. I hope you don’t mind, but I gave them your telephone number as I knew I’d be coming here.’
‘As long as they don’t ring at four in the morning.’
‘Don’t worry. They might stay open late but they aren’t nocturnal.’
‘What are you hoping the metal will be, Jack?’
‘I think – this is only a guess, mind – but I think the metal might be platinum.’
Bill swallowed a mouthful of whisky the wrong way. ‘Platinum!’ he exclaimed, once he had finished choking. ‘But I remember looking at that picture of the chantry. You do mean the one inlaid into the flagstone, don’t you?’ Jack, his eyes bright, nodded in agreement. ‘But by crikey, Jack, there’s a whole plate of metal in that flagstone! It must be worth an absolute fortune.’
‘Exactly. That’s treasure in anyone’s book, isn’t it?’
‘You didn’t give all of the metal shavings to Johnson and Cooke, did you?’ asked Bill anxiously. ‘If it is platinum, I want the Yard to be able to analyse a sample too.’
‘Relax,’ said Jack. ‘Johnson and Cooke only needed a small amount. Besides that, the inlaid stone in the chantry isn’t going anywhere.’
‘It will, if any of the Whimbrell Heath lot get the slightest hint of what you’ve been up to,’ said Bill in an agitated way. ‘Colin Askern would have it crowbarred out before you could say knife. You’re sure no one guessed why you were there?’
‘Strewth, Bill, calm down! Poor Mrs Askern was far too caught up in her own affairs to ask me any questions, and Henry Cadwallader is convinced that I’m as enthralled by Josiah Lythewell as he is.’
‘But how come no one’s ever realised what the plate’s made of?’ Bill shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it! A fortune – a whole ruddy fortune – literally underfoot. How did you get onto it?’
‘I looked at what we’ve been referring to as the mottoes,’ said Jack, taking his notebook from his pocket. He gave a self-conscious grin. ‘Now, I thought I was blinking clever about this. If you want to say so, you’re at perfect liberty to do so. I won’t disagree.’
‘You’re absolutely brilliant. Is that enough praise? Now tell me how you came to guess the truth about the treasure, damn you.’
‘Okay. I’ll need a few sheets of paper though, to show you properly. Have you got some letter paper?’
Bill rummaged in his desk and produced a pad of Basildon Bond. ‘Will this do?’
‘That’s perfect,’ said Jack, putting the pad on the sofa beside him. ‘Now, let’s pretend this room is the chantry.’
Bill shuddered. ‘God forbid. I thought the place was a nightmare. Go on.’
Jack picked up an armful of cushions and laid them on the carpet in a line. ‘I want you to imagine these cushions are the empty tomb with the picture of the chantry at the bottom.’ He quickly drew a picture of the chantry on one of the sheets of notepaper and placed it at the bottom of the line of cushions. ‘You see?’
‘Tomb, picture. Fine. What next?’
Jack picked up the pad of paper. ‘The flagstones in the chantry with the mottoes on them were laid out like this.’
Tearing off sheets of paper, he moved round the cushions. ‘Now, tell me what you see, Bill.’
Jack had laid out the rectangles of paper on the carpet. They formed two sideways-on V shapes. The point of both V’s pointed to the picture of the chantry at the base of the tomb.
Bill looked at the sheets of paper on the floor. ‘It’s obvious,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s like two arrowheads pointing to the chantry flagstone.’ He glanced at Jack, his frown deepening. ‘I went over the chantry with a fine-tooth comb. How come I didn’t see where the inlaid slabs were pointing?’
‘The shape is much easier to see here than it is in the actual chantry,’ said Jack. ‘They’re a lot further apart there. However, you agree, don’t you, that the inlaid slabs act as pointers?’
‘Of course,’ said Bill. ‘Laid out like that you can’t miss it.’
‘Good. Now for what was written on the inlaid flagstones. We’ll start with the arm of the left-hand V furthest away from the tomb and work up and round. Here goes.’
He picked up a piece of the letter paper from the carpet and, with his notebook beside him, wrote: The church is your true and worthy treasure, then replaced it. He worked his way up the V until the papers read, in order: The church is your true and worthy treasure. Stop, my son, to pause and pray for treasure. A far lesser treasure also behold.
At the point of the V he wrote: Worldly goods will always fade and wither, then continued down the other side with: Art which is wrested from that evil root. That doorway, greater than man can measure, and finished with: The doorway’s here to eternal life! Moving to the other side, and once more starting from the left-hand side of the V, he wrote: Open – look! – to all curious eyes, continuing with: It is yours, O my son, but for your soul. Be wise. Shun greed, let avarice be mute. At the point of this V he wrote: But true metal wrought, cast, forged, small in size, then carried on down the other side with: Is opened for you after earthly strife. Not copper, silver, precious stones or gold and finished with: In penitence here’s shown the greater whole.
Bill pointed to the paper with: Not copper, silver, precious stones or gold written on it. ‘I see why you guessed the treasure was platinum, Jack. Once you’ve taken out copper, silver, precious stones and gold, there’s not a great deal left.’
‘Got it in one. My thoughts exactly,’ agreed Jack. He cocked his head to one side. ‘Can you see anything else significant about what we’ve got here, Bill?’
Bill gazed at the sheets of paper. ‘I’m sorry, I’m stumped,’ he said after some thought.
‘How many sheets of paper – that’s inlaid flagstones in reality, of course – are there?’
Bill puffed his cheeks out. ‘There’s seven sheets or flagstones in each V. Three down each side and one at the point of the V.’
Jack nodded. ‘And that gives us fourteen inlaid flagstones altogether.’ He stepped back from the pieces of paper and lit a cigarette. He glanced across to his friend and raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t suppose the fact there’s fourteen means anything to you, does it?’
‘I’m sorry, it doesn’t,’ said Bill after some cogitation.
‘How about,’ said Jack, ‘if you stop thinking of these lines as mottoes, as Henry Cadwallader describes them, and think of them as poetry?’
‘Poetry?’ repeated Bill in surprise. ‘What, as in “Drake is in his hammock and a thousand miles away. Captain art thou sleeping there below?” type of thing, you mean?’
‘I was thinking about a form of poetry a step or two up from “Drake’s Drum”,’ said Jack with a grin. ‘Not that I’ve got anything against “Drake’s Drum”, you understand. But think of Shakespeare, Bill.’
‘Er … Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, you mean?’
‘Not plays but poetry,’ said Jack. ‘What form of poetry do you associate with Shakespeare?’
‘Blimey, I’m blowed if I know.’ Bill shrugged. ‘The sonnet, I suppose.’ He stopped. ‘Hang on a minute! I do know! I remember learning this in school. A sonnet’s got fourteen lines, hasn’t it?’ He looked at the sheets of paper laid out on the carpet and snapped his fingers together. ‘Jack! There’s fourteen flagstones!’
‘Give that man a cigar,’ said Jack with a broad grin. He indicated the sheets of paper. ‘These aren’t random jottings from the loony bin as we first thought, but the fourteen lines of a sonnet.’
‘You’re not telling me Shakespeare wrote this,’ said Bill in frank disbelief. ‘He wrote things like, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”.’
‘Well, only if you feel you must,’ murmured Jack. ‘It’s a little fulsome, but I’m touched.’
‘Idiot! What I mean is, is that Shakespeare’s good. This is a bit – well, not so good.’
‘That’s because old Josiah Lythewell wrote it, and Bill, my old pal, I bet Lythewell thought his sonnet was every bit as good as anything the Bard ever produced. Modest self-effacement doesn’t seem to have been one of old Lythewell’s chief characteristics.’
‘Not judging from the chantry, no.’
‘The thing is that a sonnet, the classic Shakespearian sonnet, I mean, follows a very set pattern. There’s fourteen lines, each line containing
ten syllables. There’s a pattern of an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable, which is repeated five times. The last two lines are a rhyming couplet which is usually a reversal of what the sonnet’s been saying and, at the same time, an affirmation of the theme of the poem.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Bill, blinking. ‘Can you say that again, but slowly?’
‘Well, take a classic, that sonnet that starts, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”.’
‘Hang on, that’s one I know.’
‘Can you remember it?’
‘Not to quote great chunks from, no.’
‘I can manage a couple of lines from memory, I think. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips’ red,” and so on. “I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground”. Shakespeare gives us all these extravagant comparisons and says his girlfriend’s nothing like that, then he flips it over in the last two lines by saying, “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare”. You see? The sincerity of the last two lines reverses and yet affirms what he’s been saying.’
Bill nodded. ‘I do see that, of course. But how did that help you with working out what old Lythewell was on about, Jack?’
‘Well, once I’d noticed there were fourteen lines and had the idea it was a sonnet, I had a set pattern to follow. Lythewell wanted to hide what he was up to, so it was obvious that he’d mixed the lines up, so they appeared disjointed. To put the sonnet back together again – which sounds as if Humpty Dumpty, to quote more poetry, had a hand in it, all I had to do was follow the rules. I didn’t do all this off the top of my head, of course. I lugged out my old guide to Eng. Lit.’ He reached for his notebook again and found the page he wanted. ‘And my old guide to Eng. Lit. tells me that the rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g, where the two a’s rhyme, the two b’s rhyme, and so on.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Bill.
‘And that rhyme scheme,’ said Jack with a grin, ‘helped me rearrange Lythewell’s sub-Shakespearian sonnet into its proper order.’
After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery) Page 22