‘We should call the police,’ Matt said. He had shied away from this course of action before as he didn’t think there was enough evidence to convince the authorities there was anything wrong. But with a man like Atticus Harper confirming that Dad had been kidnapped, surely they would have to take the matter seriously.
‘That does seem like the most sensible course of action,’ Aunt Jane agreed.
‘It is worth considering, certainly,’ Venture said. There was something in his tone, in the way that he said it, that convinced Matt that Venture had already considered it. Considered it and decided against it. ‘But going to the police might put Arnold in more danger, without achieving anything useful. After all, we have very little to go on, and therefore very little we can tell the police. Where would they start?’ he wondered rhetorically. ‘With the Treasure, surely. And I have to say that we are rather better qualified than the authorities to find that.’
‘I suppose,’ Matt admitted.
‘Indeed,’ Venture decided, punctuating the word with a raised finger, ‘our best course of action is to follow the trail that Arnold Stribling has left. Follow it, and hope it will lead us to the Treasure of St John before anyone else finds it. With luck we’ll find Arnold as well, but if not it gives us something to bargain with.’
He fixed Robin with a piercing blue stare that made Matt shiver even though he wasn’t on the receiving end. ‘We can’t let anyone else find this so-called Treasure,’ Venture said quietly. ‘Not even Harper. Not without us being there.’
‘So why delay?’ Matt demanded, upset at having his suggestion so quickly pushed aside. ‘We need to load the discs he gave us, see what’s on them, and sort it out. Find Dad, or – like you say – something to bargain with.’ He had been going to tell them about the intruder at Dad’s. About how there had been someone watching the house who had attacked him. Matt had not imagined it, Harper’s story had convinced him of that. But Venture’s dismissal of outside help, of going to the police, made Matt wary again. Why mention it just to be told he’d imagined things?
‘It may not be that simple,’ Robin was saying.
‘Your father has spent a considerable amount of time looking for this Treasure,’ Aunt Jane said. She seemed to understand Matt’s annoyance and impatience, and he imagined she was sharing it. ‘We can’t expect to find it quickly or easily,’ she said.
‘Then we should get started, surely. What’s the problem?’
Venture tapped his finger tips rapidly against the top of the desk. ‘Door,’ he said to Robin. ‘Windows. I want to be certain there’s no hint of a draught.’
The girl nodded without comment. She walked briskly over to the door and closed it. Then she checked that the windows were shut and sat down again. Matt watched her, feeling uneasy and confused.
‘The problem is,’ Venture said once Robin was again seated, ‘that either Harper was lying to us, or your father lied to him. Either way, it’s a warning that all is not what it seems.’
‘How do you know?’ Matt asked. ‘What makes you think he was lying?’
It was Aunt Jane who answered. ‘Because your father never went to Robin’s christening,’ she said. ‘And he never even knew …’ She broke off. ‘Harper wouldn’t make that up. So Arnie told him that for a reason.’
‘So that he’d repeat it to us,’ Robin said. ‘It’s a message of some sort.’
‘Indeed it is,’ Venture agreed. ‘He always did like cryptic messages and coded clues.’
‘So what’s it mean?’ Matt asked.
‘Maybe nothing,’ Venture replied. ‘Maybe it’s simply a warning. To be on our guard. That there’s something wrong.’
‘Like we didn’t know that already,’ Matt retorted. But his mind was working furiously, looking for some clue – anything they’d listen to and act upon. ‘Perhaps it’s something to do with the message he left me,’ he murmured, though he couldn’t see what the connection might be.
He thought he’d said it quietly, too quietly for anyone else to pick up. But Robin had heard: ‘What message, Matt?’
‘He left me a message, on a website,’ Matt explained. ‘Like when I was a kid, he’d leave me clues. Like a treasure hunt,’ he added, and immediately laughed at the irony of that. ‘Anyway, the message just said he was in trouble and to go to Aunt Jane’s, that she could help. And …’ He hesitated.
‘You never said anything about this,’ Aunt Jane said. ‘You should have told me.’
Matt shrugged. ‘I didn’t know what to tell you. I wasn’t really sure I’d understood, or what I could do. I didn’t want to worry you, you know what Dad’s like.’
‘And?’ Venture prompted.
‘And I think he was telling me to come and see you,’ Matt said to Venture. ‘Telling me you could help.’
‘Just as he told Harper,’ Robin said. ‘He’s making sure we get involved.’
‘But involved in what?’ Matt wondered.
‘We may be embarking on a dangerous journey, against forces we do not yet know or understand,’ Venture said. ‘And we must tread carefully.’ He got up and went over to the window. He stood with his back to them, looking out across the lawn, watching the wind stirring the trees and playing with the fallen leaves. ‘I gather you’re pretty good with computers,’ he said without turning.
It took Matt a moment to work out that Venture meant him. ‘Er, yes. I s’pose.’
Venture turned, and Matt was surprised to see that he was grinning. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Then here’s how we proceed,’ he announced. ‘Matt will transfer the data from Harper’s discs to the main computer in the library. That’s a network server so we can access that data from any screen in the house.’ He paused for a moment, looking at Robin. ‘Silicon chips,’ he said quietly.
‘Silicon is sand,’ she replied.
Venture nodded. ‘Never mind. We’ll have to risk that. Everything’s made of something after all.’ This made no sense to Matt, but before he could ask what the man meant, Venture was talking again – fast and enthusiastic. ‘Once we have access to the data, Robin and I can take a look at how far Arnold got and see where his research takes us. Harper assumes he was close to a breakthrough and the timing of his abduction bears that out.’
‘How do you know?’ Aunt Jane asked. Matt was surprised how businesslike she sounded now.
Venture shrugged. ‘Why kidnap someone who’s nowhere near finding what you want? No, they’d wait as late as they dared. The less they have to discover under coercion, the better for the abductor.’
‘So there is a time constraint,’ Robin said.
‘We need more background,’ Venture decided. ‘And backup. Jane, I think you should call Mr Smith and ask him if he can spare us an hour or two.’
She nodded, her face grave.
‘Who’s he?’ Matt wanted to know.
Aunt Jane looked to Venture, who took his time choosing his words. ‘Mephistopheles Smith,’ he said at last, ‘is a friend and former colleague of mine. He has a lot of influence in circles I choose not to move in. We go back a long way.’
There were six DVDs to be copied. Matt created a folder for each inside a top-level folder called St John. The files on the DVDs were themselves divided into folders, and Matt was both pleased and saddened to recognise his father’s mixture of shorthand and abbreviation in folder and file names. He wasn’t surprised that Harper had felt the need to provide an additional crib sheet explaining what each file was.
It took a while to copy the data as the DVDs held far more than an ordinary CD-ROM – which was presumably why Harper had used them. So he’d need fewer discs. Matt spent the time between switching discs and browsing the Internet. He did a search on the Treasure of St John and found there was very little about it. He saved what links he did find in another folder. There might be something useful that Dad had missed.
Lunch time came and went before he was done. Aunt Jane brought him a plate of sandwiches and a glass of Coke. It was mid-afternoon
by the time he had finished setting up the folders, copying the files, and crosschecking them against Harper’s printed listing.
There were notes against each of the files on the list – some of which were handwritten in a neat, feminine hand that was certainly not Dad’s and Matt was willing to bet wasn’t Harper’s either. Matt typed these into the properties window for each file. That would save Venture from having to check back on the list. He kept the files in date order, in case there was a progression of thinking through the research. Some of the files were only two days old he saw – Harper had given them everything he had, obviously keeping them right up to date on the hunt.
The afternoon was turning to evening by the time he finished. Matt ejected the final disc from the DVD drive and replaced it in its case. He found Venture and Robin in Venture’s study. Venture was at his desk, reading an old leather-bound book. Several more volumes were open in front of him, and in one hand he held a fountain-pen that seemed to be scratching notes on a pad without any attention from Venture as he read.
Robin was lying on her stomach on the floor. Her legs were bent up at the knees, her chin supported in her hands as she stared down at a large piece of parchment. Papers and books and maps and scrolls were spread out round her. She didn’t seem to be taking notes.
‘Ah, Matt,’ Venture said without looking up from his book. ‘Are you all finished?’
‘Yeah. It’s all on the computer now. In a folder called St John. You should be able to see it from here.’
Venture glanced at the screen on his desk. He laid down his pen for long enough to move the mouse and type quickly into the keyboard. ‘Thank you.’
‘Anything else I can do?’ Matt wondered.
‘Thank you, no.’
Matt nodded, disappointed. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unsure what to do. Probably he should go.
‘Dad,’ Robin said. It sounded like a mild rebuke.
‘That is, yes,’ Venture corrected himself. ‘I’m sorry, I’m used to having Robin and your aunt helping me out. I know you want to help too. There is something you can do.’
‘Anything.’
‘There’s something I need. I wonder if you could fetch it for me?’
‘Dad.’ This time she sounded disappointed. Which was pretty much how Matt felt about being sent to run errands.
Venture’s directions sounded straightforward enough. But once Matt reached the top of the stairs and turned left, he began to wonder if he would ever find what he was looking for. A small stone statue, about a foot high, Venture had told him. It was a carving, apparently, of Sir Robert de Lisle rescued from the Priory of Beauval in France after the buildings were destroyed by the invading Germans in 1939. Venture seemed to recall there was an inscription, or part of an inscription on the base.
It seemed unlikely to Matt that it would help. But he was keen to show he could be of use. Get a simple task like this wrong and Venture would never trust him with something that did actually matter. He wondered how Venture came to have the statue, but the question fled from his mind as he opened the door to the room where the statue was supposed to be, and found himself looking into a linen cupboard.
There was no space for a statue, even a small one, amongst the folded sheets and blankets. Matt closed the door again and went back to the stairs. Fourth along on the right, Venture had said. He counted again, and it brought him back to the linen cupboard. He must have meant fourth room, not fourth door, Matt decided, and went to the next door along. Unless some of the rooms had more than one door, in which case …
He opened the door anyway. There should be a cupboard to the left of the window. It was difficult to tell if there was or not. The curtains were drawn, and the room was a mass of shadows. Matt felt for the light switch, and as he pressed it found himself staring into a room full of crates and packing cases. There were shelves and cupboards, tables and filing cabinets amongst the crates. Books were piled precariously in islands amongst the other odds and ends. There was what looked like a gargoyle staring out from a large chunk of weathered stone leaning against one wall.
And there was indeed a cupboard to the left of the window. It was actually quite a way to the left of the window, but it must be the one Venture had meant. If this was the right room.
Matt made his way carefully across to it. Dust seemed to swirl up around him, stirred into life by the faint breeze as he passed. And the cupboard was locked.
He knelt in front of it and tugged in vain at the handle. His fingers were black with dust and the knees of his trousers had gone grey. He stood up, tempted to kick the cupboard. But as he stood he saw the glint of metal on the shelf above it. A small key. Matt tried it in the lock, and was relieved to find it turned easily. The door was stiff and he still had to tug hard at it to get the cupboard open.
But there was no statue inside. At first he thought the cupboard was empty. Annoyed, he reached inside and felt round. His fingers found a wooden box. Maybe the statue was inside a box. Certainly it was heavy enough, Matt thought as he pulled it out and set it down on an empty patch of floor.
The box was plain, dark wood. It was about ten centimetres long and rectangular. The lid opened easily. But there was no statue inside. It looked almost like a CD case – but with just two upright slots. There was a disc inside the box, in one of the two slots. But it was chunkier than a CD, and made of heavy metal.
Matt lifted it out carefully. It was brass, or possibly bronze. Dad had told Matt that you could tell when something was really old, no matter how well preserved it was – you just knew. Matt knew that the disc was old. It was about the same diameter as a CD or DVD, but convex on both sides like a discus. The metal was cold to the touch, and Matt could feel the texture of the embossed symbols raised on the surface of the disc – concentric circles of small carvings. Some looked like pictures, other were little more than raised dots or lines.
There was a stick figure of a man in the centre of one side and a pattern of wavy lines in the centre of the other. Matt felt the raised symbols with the tip of his index finger. Like Braille, he thought. But whatever it might actually be, it wasn’t a stone statue of Robert de Lisle. So he carefully replaced the disc, and put the box back in the cupboard.
He finally found the statue in a cupboard to the left of the window in the next room along the corridor. It was weathered and chipped. There was indeed the remains of an inscription along the base, but part of it had snapped off, and it was in antique French so it meant nothing to Matt. He didn’t think it would mean anything to Venture either, but he took the statue to him anyway.
Venture gestured for Matt to leave it on the desk. He didn’t look up from his book. Robin was still kicking her legs and now looking through a book, turning brittle yellowed pages far quicker than Matt could believe she was reading it. She raised a hand in a languid wave without looking.
‘Thank you,’ Venture said as Matt reached the door.
‘No problem.’
‘In the library,’ Venture went on, still without looking up from his book, ‘there is an account of the Siege of Malta. You’ll find it in the catalogue on the computer.’
‘You want me to get it?’
Venture put down the book and looked at Matt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I want you to read it. See if it’s of any use.’
‘The Siege of Malta.’
‘That’s right.’
‘1565,’ Robin said from the floor.
‘And what am I looking for?’
‘Well,’ Venture said, ‘if we knew that …’ He was smiling. ‘The Knights Hospitallers were expelled from Rhodes in 1522 and in 1530 the Emperor Charles V gave them the island of Malta. In May 1565, fewer than six hundred knights held off an Ottoman force of over thirty thousand. One of those knights was Henri Sivel.’ He returned his attention to the book. ‘It may be nothing, or it may be another link in the chain.’
Robin had rolled on to her back and was looking up at Matt, hands behind her head. ‘It is impo
rtant,’ she said. ‘Sivel went secretly to Constantinople after it fell to the Turks in 1543. Perhaps to try to retrieve the Treasure as he had vowed. If he succeeded …’
‘Then the Treasure would have been in Malta,’ Matt said, to show he wasn’t daft as much as anything. ‘I’ll take a look.’
The book was, mercifully, in English. It was a translation of an older journal and account which might have been in French or Latin. The language was archaic and difficult, but not impossible.
Though it didn’t seem to be a lot of use. Matt had the book open on the large, round table in the library. As the evening drew in he found he was leaning closer and closer to make out the faded writing. The library was well-lit, but however he angled himself and the book he seemed to be reading in his own shadow.
Aunt Jane came to see how he was doing, and seeing the problem she brought him one of the candelabra that Matt had seen the previous evening. Mephistopheles Smith was coming to visit Venture tomorrow morning, she told Matt. He nodded and thanked her and went back to tracing his finger down a list of the 592 knights who had defended Malta. The paper seemed even more yellow than before in the flickering light of the candles.
She watched him for a few moments, then Aunt Jane told Matt she’d get some tea ready and see him at home soon. He nodded, only half aware of what she had said. He had found Henri Sivel – a mention, no more. A name on a list. But he was there all right.
But that was where it seemed to end. There was no other mention of Sivel. No mention of a treasure. Even the Siege, Matt was disappointed to learn, wasn’t quiet what he had expected. Yes, there had only been those 592 knights. But they had the help of a few thousand locals defending their island. And while the Ottoman force was indeed close to 40,000 strong, that was less than half the number the Sultan had sent to take Rhodes. The Knights Hospitallers were in the twilight of their time even though, Matt knew from his Internet reading, they remained in charge on Malta for another two hundred years and more. They had fought off the attack, kept the enemy at bay until reinforcements arrived from Sicily. But their days were numbered. And reading the tired, almost clinical account of events, Matt sensed that they had themselves known that.
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