The Vivero Letter

by Desmond Bagley

  So with this letter I send you gifts, one for each, made in that marvellous manner which my father learned of that stranger from the East which the Moors brought to Cordoba many years ago and of which I have spoken to you. Let the scales of enmity fall from your eyes and look upon these gifts with proper vision which shall join you together with strong bonds so that the name of de Vivero shall echo in Christendom for all time to come.

  The men who shall bring you these gifts are Mayas whom I have secretly baptized in Christ against the wishes of the king and taught our Spanish tongue for their greater aid and safety in seeking you. Look upon them well and honour them, for they are brave men and true Christians and deserve much reward for their service.

  Go with God, my sons, and fear not the snares laid in this forest land by your enemies. Remember what I have told you of the qualities of the true soldier, so that you shall prosper in battle and overcome the wickedness of the heathen to possess this land and the great wonder contained therein. So the name of de Vivero will be exalted for evermore.

  It may be that when this is brought to pass I will be dead, for the king of the Mayas becomes old and he who will be king looks not upon me with favour, being corrupted by the papas of Kukulkan. But pray for me and for my soul, for I fear I shall spend long in purgatory for my pusillanimity in hesitating to convert this people to Christ for fear of my life. I am but a mortal man and much afraid, so pray for your father, my sons, and offer masses for his soul.

  Written in the month of April in the year of Christ,

  One Thousand, Five Hundred and Thirty Nine.

  Manuel de Vivero y Castuera,

  Alcalde in Spain,

  Friend of Hernando Cortes

  and Francisco de Montejo.

  III

  I put the transcription of the Vivero letter back into the file and sat for a moment thinking of that long-dead man who had lived out his life in captivity. What had happened to him? Had he been sacrificed when the king died? Or had he managed to whip up a little more ingenuity and double-talk the Mayas into letting him live?

  What a mixed-up man he was -- according to our modern way of thinking. He regarded the Mayas as the man regarded the lion: 'This animal is dangerous; it defends itself when attacked.' That smacked of hypocrisy but de Vivero was educated in a different tradition; there was no dichotomy involved in converting the heathen and looting them of their gold simultaneously -- to him it was as natural as breathing.

  He was undoubtedly a brave and steadfast man and I hoped he had gone to his death unperturbed by the mental agonies of purgatory and hell.

  There was an air of tension in the living-room and it was evident that the birdies in their little nest had not been agreeing. I tossed down the file, and said, 'All right; I've read it.'

  Fallon said, 'What did you mink of it?'

  He was a good man.'

  'Is that all?'

  'You know damn well that isn't all,' I said without heat. 'I see the point very well. Would I be correct if I said that this city of ... Uax . .. Uaxua ...' I stumbled.

  'Wash-wan-ok,' said Fallon unexpectedly. That's how it's pronounced.'

  '. . . Anyway, that this city hasn't been uncovered by you people?'

  'Score one for you,' said Fallon. He tapped the file and said with intensity, 'On Vivero's evidence Uaxuanoc was bigger than Chichen Itza, bigger than Uxmal -- and those places are pretty big. It was the central city of the Mayan civilization and the man who finds it will make a hell of a name for himself; he's going to be able to answer a lot of questions that are now unanswerable.'

  I turned to Halstead. 'Do you agree?'

  He looked at me with smouldering eyes. 'Don't ask damn-fool questions. Of course I agree; it's about the only thing Fallon and I agree about.'

  I sat down. 'And you're racing each other -- splitting your guts to get there first. My God, what a commentary on science!'

  'Wait a minute,' said Fallon sharply. That's not entirely true. All right; I agree that I'm trying to get in ahead of Halstead, but that's only because I don't trust him on something as important as this. He's too impatient, too thrusting for an important dig. Hell want to make a quick reputation -- I know him of old -- and that's the way evidence gets destroyed.'

  Halstead didn't rise to the argument as I expected. Instead, he looked at me sardonically. 'There you have a fine example of professional ethics,' he said mockingly. 'Fallen is ready to run anyone's reputation into the ground if he can get what he wants.' He leaned forward and addressed Fallon directly. 'I don't suppose you want to add to your own reputation by the discovery of Uaxuanoc?'

  'My reputation is already made' said Fallon softly. 'I'm at the top already.'

  'And you don't want anybody passing you,' said Halstead cuttingly.

  I'd just about had enough of this bickering and was about to say so when Katherine Halstead interjected, 'And Professor Fallon has peculiar means of making sure he isn't passed.'

  I raised my eyebrows and said, 'Could you explain that?'

  She smiled. 'Well, he did steal the original of the Vivero letter.'

  'So we're back at that again,' said Fallon disgustedly. 'I tell you I bought it from Gerryson in New York -- and I can prove it.'

  'That's enough of that,' I said. 'We've had enough of these counter-accusations. Let's stick to the point. From what I can gather old de Vivero sent the letter and gifts to his sons. You think that the gifts were two golden trays and that there is something about those trays that has a bearing on Uaxuanoc. Is that right?'

  Fallon nodded and picked up the file. There was a hell of a lot of gold in Uaxuanoc -- he mentions it time and again -- and he made it quite clear that he wanted his sons to be leaders in sharing the loot. The one thing he didn't do that he might logically have been expected to do was to tell them where to find the city. Instead, he sent them gifts.'

  Halstead broke in. 'I'm sure that I can figure this out just as well as Fallon. Vivero's family life wasn't too happy -- it seems that his sons hated each other's guts, and Vivero didn't like that. It seems logical to me that he'd give each of them a piece of information, and the two pieces would have to be joined to make sense. The brothers would have to work together.' He spread his hands. 'The information wasn't in the letter so it must have been in the gifts -- in the trays.'

  'That's how I figured it, too,' said Fallon. 'So I went hunting for the trays. I knew the Mexican de Vivero tray was still in existence in 1782 because that's when Murville wrote about it, and I started to track it down from there.'

  Halstead sniggered and Fallon said irascibly, 'All right; I made a goddamn fool of myself.' He turned to me and said with a weak grin, 'I chased all over Mexico and finally found it in my own museum -- I'd owned it all the time!'

  Halstead laughed loudly. 'And I'd beaten you to it; I knew it was there before you did.' The smile left his face. 'Then you withdrew it from public exhibition.'

  I shook my head irritably. 'How the devil can you own something like that and not know about it?' I demanded.

  'Your family did,' pointed out Fallon reasonably. 'But my case was a bit different. I established a trust, and, among other things, the trust runs a museum. I'm not responsible personally for everything the museum buys, and I don't know every item in stock. Anyway, the museum had the tray.'

  That's one tray. What about the other?'

  That was a bit more difficult, wasn't it, Paid?' He smiled across the room at Halstead. 'Manuel de Vivero had two sons, Jaime and Juan. Jaime stayed in Mexico and founded the Mexican branch of the de Viveros -- you know about them already -- but Juan had a bellyful of America and went back to Spain. He took quite a bit of loot with him and became an Alcalde like his father -- that's a sort of country squire and magistrate. He had a son, Miguel, who prospered even more and became a wealthy- shipowner.

  'Came the time when trouble rubbed up between Spain and England and Philip II of Spain decided to end it once and for all and began to build the Armada. Miguel de Vivero contri
buted a ship, the San Juan de Huelva, and skippered her himself. She sailed with the Armada and never came back -- neither did Miguel. His shipping business didn't die with Miguel, a son took over, and it lasted quite a long time -- until the end of the eighteenth century. Fortunately they had a habit of keeping records and I dug out a juicy bit of information; Miguel wrote a letter to his wife asking her to send him "the tray which my grandfather had made in Mexico". It was with him on the ship when the Armada sailed for England. I thought then that the whole thing was finished.'

  'I got to that letter before you did,' said Halstead with satisfaction.

  This sounds like a cross between a jigsaw puzzle and a detective story,' I said. 'What did you do then?'

  'I came to England,' said Fallon. 'Not to look for the tray -- I thought that was at the bottom of the sea -- but just for a holiday. I was staying in Oxford at one of the colleges and I happened to mention my searches in Spain. One of the dons -- a. dry-as-dust literary character -- said he vaguely remembered something about it in the correspondence of Herrick.'

  I stared at Fallon. 'The poet?'

  'That's right. He was rector of Dean Prior -- that's not far from here. A man called Goosan had written a letter to him; Goosan was a local merchant, a nobody; his letter wouldn't have been preserved if it hadn't have been written to Herrick.'

  Halstead was alert. 'I didn't know about this. Go on.'

  'It doesn't really matter,' said Fallon tiredly. 'We know where the tray is now.'

  'I'm interested.' I said.

  Fallon shrugged. 'Herrick was bored to death with country life but he was stuck at Dean Prior. There wasn't much to do so I suppose he took more interest in his parishioners than the usual dull clod of a country priest. He certainly took an interest in Goosan and asked him to put on paper what he had previously said verbally. To cut a long story short, Goosan's family name had originally been Guzman, and his grandfather had been a seaman on the San Juan. They'd had a hell of a time of it during the attack on England and, after one thing and another, the ship had gone down in a storm off Start Point. The captain, Miguel de Vivero, had died previously of ship fever -- that's typhus -- and when Guzman came ashore he carried that goddamn tray as part of his personal loot. Guzman's grandson -- that's the Goosan who wrote to Herrick -- even showed Herrick the tray. How your family got hold of it I don't know.'

  I smiled as I said, 'That's why you laughed when I told you to see Dave Goosan.'

  'It gave me something of a shock,' admitted Fallon.

  'I didn't know anything about Herrick,' said Halstead. 'I was just following up on the Armada and trying to discover where the San Juan had sunk. I happened to be in Plymouth when I saw a photograph of the tray in the newspaper.'

  Fallon raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'Sheer luck!' he commented.

  Halstead grinned. 'But I was here before you.'

  'Yes, you were,' I said slowly. 'And then my brother was murdered.'

  He blew up. 'What the hell do you mean by that crack?'

  'Just making a true observation. Did you know Victor Niscemi?'

  'I'd never heard of rum until the inquest. I don't know that I like the trend of your thinking, Wheale.'

  'Neither do I,' I said sourly. 'Let's skip it -- for the moment. Professor Fallon: I presume you've given your tray a thorough examination. What did you find?'

  He grunted. 'I'm not prepared to discuss that in front of Halstead. I've been pushed far enough.' He was silent for a moment, then he sighed. 'All right; effectively, I found nothing. I assume that whatever it is will only come to Light when the trays are examined as a pair.' He stood up. 'Now, I've had just about enough of this. A little while ago you told Halstead to put up or shut up -- now I'm putting the same proposition to you. How much money will you take for the tray? Name your price and I'll write you a cheque right now.'

  'You haven't enough money to pay my price,' I said, and he blinked in surprise. 'I told you my price might not necessarily be in cash. Sit down and listen to what I've got to say.'

  Slowly Fallon lowered himself into his chair, not taking his eyes from me. I looked across at Halstead and at his wife who was almost hidden in the gathering shadows of evening. I said, 'I have three conditions for parting with the tray. All those conditions must be met before I do so. Is that clear?'

  Fallon grunted and I accepted that as agreement. Halstead looked tense and then inclined his head stiffly.

  'Professor Fallon has a lot of money which will come in useful. He will therefore finance whatever expedition is to be made to find this city of Uaxuanoc. You can't object to that, Fallon; it is something you would do in any event. But I will be a part of the expedition. Agreed?'

  Fallon looked at me speculatively. 'I don't know if you could take it,' he said a little scornfully. 'It's not like a stroll on Dartmoor.'

  'I'm not giving you a choice,' I said. 'I'm giving you an ultimatum.'

  'All right,' he said. 'But it's your skin.'

  'The second condition is that you help me as much as possible to find out why my brother was killed.'

  'Won't that interfere with your jaunt in Yucatan?' he queried.

  'I'm not so certain it will,' I said. 'I think that whoever wanted the tray enough to send a man armed with a sawn-off shotgun also knew that the tray had a secret. Possibly we'll meet him in Yucatan -- who knows?'

  'I think you're nuts,' he said. 'But I'll play along with you, I agree.'

  'Good,' I said pleasantly, and prepared to harpoon him. 'The third condition is that Halstead comes with us.'

  Fallon sat bolt upright and roared, I'll be damned if I'll take the son of a bitch.'

  Halstead jumped from his chair. 'That's twice today you've called me that. I ought to knock your -- '

  'Belt up!' I yelled. Into the sudden silence that followed I said, 'You two make me sick. All afternoon you've been sniping at each other. You've both done very well in your investigations so far -- you've arrived at the same point at the same time and honours ought to be even. And you've both made identical accusations about each other, so you're square there, too.'

  Fallon looked stubborn, so I said, 'Look at it this way. If we two join forces, you know what will happen: Halstead will be hanging around anyway. He's as tenacious as you are and hell follow the trail wherever we lead him. But the point doesn't arise, does it? I said that all three of my conditions must be met and, by God, if you don't agree to this I'll give my tray to Halstead. That way you'll have one each and be on an even footing for the next round of this academic dogfight. Now, do you agree or don't you?'

  His face worked and he shook his head sadly. 'I agree,' he said in a whisper.

  'Halstead?'

  'I agree.'

  Then they both said simultaneously, 'Where's the tray?'

  Four

  Mexico City was hot and frenetic with Olympic Gamesmanship. The hotels were stuffed to bursting, but fortunately Fallon owned a country house just outside the city which we made our headquarters. The Halsteads also had their home in Mexico City but they were more often than not at Fallen's private palace.

  I must say that when Fallon decided to move he moved fast. Like a good general, he marshalled his army close to the point of impact; he spent a small fortune on telephone calls and the end result was a concentration of forces in Mexico City. I had a fast decision to make, too; my job was a good one and I hated to give it up unceremoniously, but Fallon was pushing hard. I saw my boss and told him of Bob's death and he was good enough to give me six months' leave of absence. I bore down heavily on the farm management, so I suppose I deceived him in a way, yet I think that going to Yucatan could be construed as looking after Bob's estate.

  Fallon also used the resources that only money can buy. 'Big corporations have security problems,' he said. 'So they ran their own security outfits. They're as good as the police any time, and better in most cases. The pay is higher, I'm having Niscemi checked out independently.'

  The thought of it made me a bit di
zzy. Like most people, I'd thought of millionaires as just people who have a lot of money but I hadn't gone beyond that to the power and influence that money makes possible. That a man was able to lift a telephone and set a private police force in motion made me open my eyes and think again.

  Fallen's house was big and cool, set in forty acres of manicured grounds. It was quiet with unobtrusive service, which clicked into action as soon as the master set foot in it. Soft-footed servants were there when you wanted them and absent when not needed and I settled into sybaritic luxury without a qualm.