“Right.”
“Then what I do is I tell Mr Westall, you keep off. And I get myself one of those metal detector things and look for the stuff myself.”
“How big is your farm?”
“Five hundred acres, just under.”
“You realise that it’ll take you about a year to cover it all properly.”
“I’m in no hurry,” said Mr Maggs.
But Mr Westall was in a hurry.
The following morning a telephone call was followed by the arrival of Jack Merriman, junior partner in the firm of Porter and Merriman. Jonas had played golf against him and had concluded that if his law was as erratic as his putting he could be a dangerous adviser.
Jonas said, “I don’t think you’ve met my partner, Mrs Mountjoy. I believe that you want to discuss the law of treasure trove, so I thought I’d have her in on it. She knows much more about it than I do.”
Merriman smiled politely and plunged straight into business. He said, “I gather you advised Maggs not to let Mr Westall have access to his farm.”
“I told Mr Maggs that if any searching was to be done it might be better for him to do it himself.”
“I expect you know that using a metal detector is quite a skilled job. Mr Westall has considerable experience in that field. He’d be much more likely to find the abbey treasures – always supposing they are there to be found.”
“And when he found them?” said Jonas drily.
“He would be quite willing to sign an agreement that any reward paid by the museum would go to Maggs.”
“Yes. I thought about that,” said Jonas. “But I gather there could be some difficulty in policing such an agreement.”
“Overton,” murmured Mrs Mountjoy.
“Quite so. I expect you remember the Overton Farms case. The finder handed over some of the items he had unearthed, but pocketed the really valuable ones.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting—” began Merriman.
“I’m not suggesting anything,” said Jonas. “I’m sure that Mr Westall’s interest is antiquarian and historical. I was simply pointing out that no paper agreement can ever be entirely watertight. My real point, however, was much simpler. The land belongs to Mr Maggs. If he doesn’t want Mr Westall on it, he’s entitled to say so.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Merriman, in the manner of someone about to produce a trump card. “Basically all treasure trove belongs to the Crown. I take it you’d agree with that.”
“Agreed,” said Jonas cautiously. “The finder gets a reward from the museum equal to its value.”
“And if there is reason to believe that treasure can be found in a certain place, then every effort should be made to recover it.”
“That may be so.”
“And to prevent treasure being unearthed is regarded by the law as a ground for the prosecution of the owner of the land.”
Mrs Mountjoy bestirred herself. She was a large woman, and possessed a deep and authoritative voice. She said, “I take it, Mr Merriman, that you are referring to the offence known as Concealment of Treasure Trove.”
“Precisely.”
“It was abolished in 1968. See Section 32(i)(a) of the Theft Act of that year.”
“Oh?” said Mr Merriman rather blankly.
Another putt missed, thought Jonas. When Mr Merriman had taken himself off he said, “Good work, Sabrina. That finished him. I suppose you weren’t pulling his leg?”
“Certainly not. He would have known it himself if he’d kept up to date with his law.”
But Mr Westall was far from finished. He turned to the press. The editor of the South Down News had already published several learned articles from Mr Westall’s pen, some of them rather hard going for his readers. The one he received the following week was more to his taste. “Good stuff,” he said to his second-in-command. “Should start something.”
There is, apparently, a legal right to act the part of the dog in the manger. Although I cannot claim to have proved it conclusively, I have established a strong possibility that a number of priceless artefacts of gold and silver, probably adorned with precious and semi-precious stones, lie buried in a defined area north of the town of Shackleton. Yet the owner of the property has seen fit to refuse to allow even a simple preliminary examination which would confirm or refute this theory. Apparently the law supports him . . .
There followed several paragraphs dealing with the history of Fyneshade Abbey and comparing the stupidity of the law with the unselfish zeal of your true antiquarian. Jonas had just put down the newspaper when the telephone rang. It was Mr Maggs. He had read it, too.
“My wife says I ought to sue him for libel.”
“Don’t think of it,” said Jonas. “It’s probably what he wants. If no one takes any notice, it’s a damp squib.”
Someone did take notice. The next number of the South Down News contained a letter from Professor Templeman of Sussex University. It was written with a practised pen, dripping acid.
I was fascinated to read the effusion in your last week’s issue from our soi-disant antiquarian expert, Mr Westall. He spoke, with bated breath, of artefacts of gold and silver adorned, if we are to believe him, with precious stones! What Mr Westall appears to have overlooked is that Fyneshade Abbey was a Cistercian Foundation under the rule of St Bernard. As even schoolboys know, that rule permitted the use, as ornament, of nothing but iron. I fear the treasures must be dismissed as a figment of Mr Westall’s over-heated imagination. There is, however, another angle to it. King Henry the Eighth’s Commissioners, unlike Mr Westall, would not have been ignorant of such elementary facts. They would have realised that the riches of a prosperous, long-established community like Fyneshade would have been in the form either of currency or gold and silver in bar form . . .
“And that really will stir people up,” said the editor.
It certainly stirred Mr Westall, who rang up his solicitor.
“On the whole I should advise against an action for libel,” said young Mr Merriman regretfully. “Fair comment on a matter of public interest, and all that sort of thing.”
“It’s not fair comment,” said Mr Westall. “It’s outrageously unfair. However, if you say so—”
The ripples did not stop there. The national press began to show interest. Antique ornaments might not evoke great public concern. Bullion was another matter. Jonas had a word with the friendly Detective Superintendent Queen. He said, “I expect you saw what was in last week’s South Down News about the abbey treasure.”
“It’s in the Express and the Mirror this morning,” said Queen. He sounded unhappy.
“I imagine that every amateur treasure seeker in the country will be queuing up to have a look for it.”
“And a lot of not-so-amateur villains,” said the Inspector. “I’ve made arrangements to have a car doing regular patrols. That’s all right by day, but it’s a long perimeter to watch by night.”
“Treasure hunting by night wouldn’t be easy. It’s not a quick job.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have any trouble,” said Queen. “We’ve got enough on our plate already.”
Two days later, at ten o’clock in the morning, when Jonas had just settled down to deal with his post, Claire announced a visitor. It was Dr Makepeace. Jonas knew Dan Makepeace and liked him. He was coroner for the district, one of the new type, qualified in law as well as medicine. He said, “Since you’re acting for Mr Maggs, you won’t be surprised that I’m calling on you.”
“Delighted, certainly, surprised, too. I wasn’t aware that my client had been killed, or had killed anyone.”
“As a solicitor,” said Dr Makepeace, “you ought to know better than to say a thing like that. Do you suppose that coroners are only interested in dead bodies?”
“A slip of the tongue,” said Jonas. “I suppose it’s the treasure.”
“Certainly. Historically it’s the duty of the coroner to look after all the interests of the monarch. Buried trea
sure—”
“Of course. And stranded whales.”
“We don’t get many of them. But treasure, that’s something else altogether. It’ll be my duty to keep a close watch on how things develop.”
“You and the police. Excuse me.” His telephone had rung. He picked up the receiver and said, “I’m busy. I can’t deal with it now.” Then, with a change of tone, “Oh, I see. Yes. Yes, of course. As a matter of fact Dr Makepeace is with me. I’ll tell him.” He replaced the receiver slowly, and said, “That was your officer. You’d better put on your other hat. There’s a dead body in Maggs’s Top Field.”
“Dead by violence?”
“Yes,” said Jonas. He sounded upset. “It’s a clear case of murder, and the murderer is known. Black Bob caught an intruder in Maggs’s Top Field last night and—dealt with him. Rather thoroughly. Maggs would like me to be there to look after his interests. Your officer is on his way up there.”
“My car’s outside,” said Dr Makepeace. “We’ll go together.”
By the time they got there the police photographers had done their work and the body had been removed to one of Maggs’s barns and laid on a trestle table under a tarpaulin. The coroner’s officer, a stolid ex-policeman, indicated it to the coroner, but seemed disinclined to approach the table himself. When the coroner had lifted the tarpaulin, Jonas understood why, and went outside to regain control. A superficial glance at what was lying on the table suggested that Black Bob had stamped or jumped with sharp hooves several times on the body, and once at least on the face.
Dr Makepeace said, “We shall have to rely on the clothing for identification.”
Chief Superintendent Whaley, who was there with Superintendent Jack Queen, nodded his agreement. He, too, seemed unwilling to make any closer inspection. He said, “We’ve telephoned the pathologist from Portsmouth. As soon as he gives the word we’ll have—that—taken down to the mortuary. When we have his report, we may be able to get somewhere. And you – what’s your name? Tommo. Don’t go too far away. We’ll need a statement from you.”
Jonas saw that a boy was trying to efface himself in a corner of the barn. Maggs said, “My wife’ll look after him, Superintendent. He’ll be handier here than at his home. You can telephone us when you want him.”
“All right,” said Whaley. “I’m getting back to the station. And Jack, I think you’d better stay here for the time being.”
Queen nodded. He said, “Leave me two men. When this news gets about we’ll have a job keeping people out of the Top Field.”
“Keep them out of my farm altogether,” said Maggs. He sounded angry.
As the crowd started to disperse, Jonas said to Maggs, “If you’ve got Tommo’s story, I’d better hear it as soon as possible.”
“My wife got most of it from the boy before the police arrived. If that Superintendent frightens him he won’t get nothing out of him at all. He’ll just clam up. We’ll walk up to the field.”
When they got to the Top Field there was a policeman guarding the gate, but the field itself was empty.
“I moved Black Bob down to one of the barns,” said Maggs. “I daren’t let anyone else handle him. He’s in a wicked mood. Not that you can blame him, really, with his hide full of shotgun pellets.”
“He’d been shot?”
“Shot at. Young Tommo was under the top hedge. Sleeping out, he says. Rabiting I don’t doubt, though he won’t admit it. It must have been between three and four in the morning. Not starting to get light, but not too far off it, when he heard a car stopping in the road – a big car, by the sound of it. Maybe a van. He didn’t see it. He heard people getting out, and the door slamming, and about ten minutes later – and I can tell you he was surprised – he saw three men coming into the field.”
“You mean they’d got through that hedge?”
“And the wire fence. But there’s more to it than that. Come and have a look.”
They walked across.
When the local authorities had widened the road at this point, they had not only compensated Maggs handsomely for the land they had taken. They had built him a fence of stout diamond mesh along the new verge. This ran outside the old thorn hedge, itself a formidable barrier.
“Professional work,” said Jonas.
The intruders had cut a neat square in the fence, folding back the flap, and had then carved their way through the thick roots and branches of the old thorn hedge to make a sort of tunnel.
“They wouldn’t have done that in a hurry,” said Jonas.
“Have another look,” said Maggs.
When he got down on his knees at the opening of the tunnel he saw what Maggs meant. He said, “You mean they were reopening a tunnel that had been made before. I can see the old cuts now. All they had to do this time was to chop away stuff that had grown since they were here on the previous occasion. How long ago would you think?”
Maggs examined the cut ends and the new shoots. He said, “Thorn’s not a quick grower. Not like elder. I’d say two years, maybe less.”
“It looks as though they knew that all they had to do was cut the fence and do a little hedging.”
“They may have known about fences and hedges. They didn’t understand my black prince. They knew he was there, right enough. That’s why they brought a gun. They thought they could scare him. So when he moved over to have a look at them, they loosed off. I’d guess when the pellets hit him he just went mad. Tommo didn’t care much for talking about the next bit, but the end of it was one man badly hurt – a broken arm it sounded like – and another man helping him. They got away because Bob was attending to the third man who was lying on the ground.”
“And the others just left him there, and drove off?”
“That’s what Tommo says. He was scared blue. He slid off home, but his mum saw there was something wrong and got the story out of him and sent him back to tell us. We rang up the police.”
Jonas said, “As far as you’re concerned, of course, there’s nothing to worry about. They were trespassers, and worse than trespassers. They broke into your property, armed.”
“I thought I was probably in the clear,” said Maggs, but he sounded relieved. “It didn’t seem to me that they were ordinary treasure hunters. To start with, they didn’t have one of those metal detectors you were talking about.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Certain sure. When Bob got at them, all they wanted to do was get clear. Anything they were carrying they dropped it. When I came up this morning I found a pick and a spade and—I don’t know what you’d call it—a long rod it was, measured off in feet and inches. The police, they took them all away.”
Jonas thought about it, and the more he thought, the odder did it seem. He said, “It looks as though they not only knew the treasure was there, but had been told where to dig, maybe by the people who cut the original hole in the hedge.”
“It certainly looks like it,” said Maggs.
“You clear off.” This was to a young man in a trench coat who had crawled through the gap in the hedge.
“Be a sport,” said the young man. “Give us a story for the South Down News. We’re ahead of the London boys for once.”
“I haven’t got no story for you,” said Maggs. “And if you don’t clear out, you’ll find yourself in trouble, I can tell you that.”
The policeman was already advancing across the field. As the young man backed reluctantly out of the tunnel, two more cars drew up on the road outside. One had a notice ‘Press’ on the windscreen. The other had a blue light on top.
“Dead heat,” said Jonas. “We’d better be getting back to the house before they start pestering Mrs Maggs.”
The editor of the South Down News said to his faithful staff of two, “It’s our story, and the way I’d like to run it is this. Do some research in the libraries. Portsmouth and Brighton will be best. They’ve got sections dealing with local history. And have a word with Mr Westall. He’ll be keen to help. I believe
that the abbot, Robert Beaufrere, was a well-known man. I don’t mean that he was popular. Rather the contrary, from what I’ve been able to find out. But a strong man.”
“You think it’s his spirit still protecting the treasure? His curse will be on anyone who tries to disturb it? That sort of thing.”
“Lovely,” said the editor. “Work it up.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Whaley, “and I don’t like it.”
“It’s odd whichever way you look at it,” agreed Queen. “If these people had been normal treasure hunters they’d have brought the proper equipment with them. They didn’t need to, because I’d guess that someone had already used a detector and located the site. They knew they wouldn’t be allowed to lift the stuff, so they came back at night to dig it out.”
Whaley said, “It’s possible, but it’s got snags to it. If someone had already been over the ground with one of these detectors and had located the treasure, how did he keep clear of that bull when he was doing it?”
“Maybe it was that young Tommo. He seems to know how to dodge in and out.”
“He’s a slippery customer,” agreed Whaley. “But I don’t somehow see him as a treasure hunter, do you? And there’s another difficulty. If he was hunting for it, how’d he know it was in that field? There are half a dozen other fields in Maggs’s Farm. All that old Westall ever proved – if you can call it proof – was that it could have been in one of them.”
“There’s another odd thing, too,” said Queen. “The pathologist is still working on the body, what’s left of it. But we’ve got a preliminary report on the clothes. You saw it?”
Whaley nodded, “Nothing in the pockets. An expensive suit, but all tailor’s tabs cut out. No laundry marks.” The two men looked at each other. The same thought was in both their minds.
“They were professionals,” said Whaley, “and ten to one they came from London. As soon as we’ve got the prints we send them up to Central to see if they’re on record. Then, maybe we can see where we’re going. All we can do meanwhile is keep people off the farm and hope the thing dies down.”
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