Unholy Crusade

by Dennis Wheatley

  Then, when the storm subsided, Jamie would dismiss his fears on the ground that the erosion had been going on for many years and was very slow; the house was at least two hundred years old and its foundations showed no sign of weakening. Since it had stood there for so long, there could be no real urgency about moving and resigning themselves to a greatly reduced scale of living. As spring came again each year the matter passed from his mind.

  Yet at last there came the fatal night. In the roar of the storm even their nearest neighbours did not hear the cliff collapse. But in the morning the old house was gone. Jamie, Gurda, four of their children and all their possessions had disappeared into the ocean, leaving no trace that they had ever existed. Only Adam, by a fluke of Fate, survived. For the first time his world was shattered. At the age of fourteen he found himself alone, an orphan and nearly penniless.

  Adam’s escape was due to the fact that he occasionally spent a night with his mother’s sister, Aunt Flora Inglis. It being two days before Christmas, she had asked him over to receive his Christmas present and carry back those she had for his brothers and sisters.

  Aunt Flora was a widow, and housekeeper to Lord Ruffan at the Castle, six miles up the river. There, to the envy of her relatives, she dwelt in ease and plenty. His Lordship was an Englishman and the estate had been acquired by his grandfather in the 1890s. He came to Scotland only for the shooting and fishing; so, for the greater part of the year, Aunt Flora was mistress of all she surveyed. Even when His Lordship was in residence, as he was an elderly bachelor there was no mistress to irritate her by requiring that she should alter any of her set ways. But she was a dour, efficient woman and gave short shrift to any housemaid or kitchen hand who was pert or lazy, so Lord Ruffan considered her a treasure.

  When the terrible blow fell, Adam was for some days inconsolable; but, with the resilience of youth to changed circumstances, he soon began to take stock of his situation. Aunt Flora had written at once to Lord Ruffan, giving an account of the tragedy and asking permission to keep her nephew with her. His Lordship had replied after a few days giving his consent; so at least Adam had a home. But in other respects his prospects were bleak.

  Not a single possession of his or his family had survived, except the clothes he stood up in, and his parents’ small nest-egg was seriously eaten into by payment of their debts and equipping him with a new outfit. Then, after some days, Mr. McPherson, who owned the fishing-net factory, had sent for him and Aunt Flora. As kindly as he could the old gentleman explained that, during the past ten years his business had suffered a serious decline, owing to competition from other factories which had more modern machinery. So, much as he would have liked to recognise Jamie Gordon’s long service by making adequate provision for his orphan, he could not afford to do more than allow the boy two pounds a week until he was seventeen when, should the business continue to survive, he would take him into it.

  Adam did his best to appear grateful, but such a future had little appeal for him. He had not yet made up his mind what he wanted to do except, if possible, travel. He had heard enough about the hardships of his father’s early life to set him against making the sea his career, but he did feel that if he continued to do well at school he ought to be able to get a job that would enable him to see something of the world. With this in mind, he worked at his lessons harder than ever.

  The life he led favoured his efforts, as it was, for a boy of his age, an exceptionally lonely one. Aunt Flora had no friends whose youngsters might have become playmates for Adam. In consequence he was never tempted to abandon his homework in order to play games with other boys and his main pleasure was to browse among the books in the fine library of the Castle. History was his favourite reading and he spent many a long, dark evening curled up in front of the fire in his aunt’s sitting room, absorbed in accounts of battles and rebellions which, to most of his contemporaries, were only dates that had laboriously to be memorised.

  Lord Ruffan spent the spring of that year in Barbados and Jamaica, so he did not come up for the fishing. Adam was now and then allowed to go out with the ghillies and, early in March, took great delight in landing his first salmon from the Helmsdale. But a month later a much greater excitement was in store for him. One evening he was looking through some of the older books in the library when out of a calf-bound folio volume there fell a discoloured parchment.

  On examining it, he found it to be a letter from one Ian MacGilray—whose family had for many generations owned the Castle—to his wife. It had been written from Edinburgh in 1745, the year of Prince Charles Edward’s attempt to regain the throne of Britain for the Stuarts. Hurriedly, it described the battle of Culloden in which the Pretender’s forces had been defeated by those of the Hanoverian King. The Stuart cause was lost and MacGilray, with other survivors, was fleeing for his life, hoping somehow to get to France. It was now feared that King George’s brutal English and German troops would overrun the whole of Scotland, paying special attention to the homes of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s adherents and looting them of everything of value that could be carried off. Before leaving the Castle to join the Prince’s army, as a precaution against defeat, the MacGilray had hidden the family treasure, and there followed directions to his wife whence to recover it when the troubles were over.

  The language was obscure and only someone who knew the estate well would have been able to interpret it, but after considerable cogitation Adam decided that the place where the treasure had been hidden must be under one side of the arch that spanned a small bridge over a tributary of the Helmsdale. He did not expect for one moment that the treasure was still there; yet, all the same, he could hardly contain his impatience to go and see what traces he could find of the cache that had once held the plate of the MacGilrays, and perhaps even gold and jewels. The hours of school next day dragged interminably. At last he was home, had bolted his tea and was free to hurry the mile to the little bridge.

  The spot was a deserted one on the edge of a wood and the bridge carried only a rough track used occasionally by farm carts and shooting brakes. Scrambling down the bank of the burn, he crawled under the low arch and looked about him, only to be disappointed. There was no romantic cavity in either wall and, as he peered in the semi-darkness at the moss-covered stones, he could see no unevenness suggesting that the hole had been hastily bricked up again.

  It was not until two nights later that, thinking over the matter in bed, it occurred to him that several years had elapsed before the English had ceased to revenge themselves on the Jacobite nobility for the rebellion. During that time it would have remained unsafe to retrieve the treasure and the MacGilray’s wife might have died carrying the secret of its hiding-place with her to the grave.

  Going downstairs to the library in his night clothes he hastily consulted the records of the family. Ian MacGilray had escaped to France and his wife had joined him there. He had been tried in his absence for taking up arms against his lawful Sovereign and his Castle and estates had been confiscated. The couple had never returned to Scotland and it was not until forty years later that a distant kinsman, who had married the daughter of a rich sugar nabob, had retrieved the estates for the family by purchase.

  Again Adam had to disguise his excitement and impatience. It was not until Sunday afternoon that he could go to the little bridge. Kneeling on the narrow strip of dry earth, the sweat poured from him as he wielded a heavy hammer and a jemmy.

  To prise free the first stone was far from easy, but once that was done, he was soon able to make an opening about eighteen inches square in the perished mortar. When he had found that, instead of earth, there was a hollow space behind the stones, his excitement rose to fever-pitch. Yet, on thrusting his hand into the hole it met only emptiness. For a further ten minutes he hammered away and wrenched out more small blocks of stone. Then his exertions were rewarded. Peering into the dark cavity he could make out a section of one side of a small, round-lidded, iron-bound chest.

  Sitting back on hi
s haunches he drew a deep breath and wondered what to do. Had his mother and father been alive he would have run to them with his amazing news. But Aunt Flora was another matter; so were the factor and the other men about the place. He had soon learned that they were suspicious of boys, regarding them as potential mischief-makers, and the reactions of these grown-ups were decidedly unpredictable. Swiftly he decided to keep his secret to himself.

  It would not have been possible to get the chest out that day; so, reluctantly, he replaced the stones and returned to the Castle to clean himself up, eat his tea, then accompany his aunt to the Kirk for an evening service, of which he did not take in one word.

  The next Sunday afternoon it poured with rain, so Aunt Flora would not let him go out. Somehow, he got through the following week. Then it was Sunday again and a fine afternoon.

  To remove the stones was easy now, but when he attempted to pull the chest towards him the wood had become so rotten that it collapsed. Between the rusty iron bands at the nearer end there became visible a solid heap of precious objects: salvers, goblets and flagons of dull gold or silver, a jewel-hilted skirndhu, a necklace of small pearls and, from a burst bag, a trickle of gold pieces.

  Adam examined some of them with awe, then put them back and replaced the stones that hid them from view. Again he wondered how he could best benefit from his wonderful find. If he took even a few of the coins there was no possible way in which he could dispose of them; and he felt sure that if he told his aunt about the treasure it would promptly be removed. He might be given a few pounds to put in his savings account and that would be the last he would hear of it.

  During the next month he was able to spend three more Sunday afternoons under the little bridge, examining the treasure and packing it into small sacks. But he could still think of no way in which he could dispose of it to his own advantage.

  Moreover, he felt certain that even if he could think of some means to sell it he had no right to do so. Obviously it was the property of the MacGilrays, if any of the family still existed, or, failing them, of Lord Ruffan as the present owner of the estate. Eventually he made up his mind that he must surrender it and hope that he would be treated generously as its discoverer.

  Early in August, life at the Castle began to stir. Aunt Flora received a letter from His Lordship, with orders to prepare rooms for ten guests who would be arriving on the 11th for the opening shoot on the 12th. He would be coming up on the 7th, to ensure that all was in readiness for his house party. Late on the afternoon of the 8th, Adam saw Lord Ruffan for the first time. He was a big, heavy man of over sixty, with a bucolic but kindly face that betrayed his reputed fondness for vintage port. Adam, in his best suit, was duly presented by Aunt Elora and, carefully coached by her, said his piece about how grateful he was to His Lordship for having given him a home.

  Adam was already tall for his age, well set up and, with his crop of red-gold curls, a fine-looking youngster. Lord Ruffan regarded him for a moment out of slightly protuberant eyes, then patted him on the shoulder and said:

  ‘Glad to see you, young feller. Terrible thing about your family, but you’re welcome here. What do you intend to do in life?’

  It was just the sort of opening that Adam had been hoping for. Swallowing hard, he replied, ‘Weel, sir. I … I’ve been wondering of ye’d allow me to ask your advice aboot that?’

  ‘Adam!’ his aunt reprimanded him sharply. ‘’Tis no’ for you to trouble His Lordship wi’ such matters.’

  But Lord Ruffan waved aside her protest. ‘Easy on, Mrs. Inglis. I’d be glad to talk the boy’s future over with him. As I shall be dining alone tonight, he can come in afterwards and keep me company while I drink my port.’

  A few hours later Adam was reminded of a book that his mother had read to him shortly before her death. Its title was Little Lord Fauntleroy. The only likeness to the setting of the book was the richly-furnished dining room with its oil paintings of bygone Lords and Ladies on the walls, the big, mahogany table shining in the candlelight, the silver and cut-glass on it. Edward—known as Teddy—Chiswick, fifth Viscount Ruffan, bulky, red-nosed, semi-bald, lounging back in his elbow chair at the head of the table, did not in the least resemble the dignified Earl of Dorincourt; and Adam, years older than the little velvet-clad Fauntleroy, was no blood relation but came of common clay.

  Yet there he was, sitting at the long table in this great room with the powerful owner of the Castle: the great Lord whose casual word could spell happiness or misery for scores of dependants scattered for miles round.

  At a gesture from Ruffan, Adam had seated himself gingerly on the edge of a chair. To his surprise the red-faced master of the Castle poured him a glass of wine, smiled at him and said, ‘Now, boy, drink that while you tell me about yourself.’

  Adam gave a nervous smile and blurted out, ‘Et’s no me-self I wished to talk aboot, but I was agin saying so before the aunt.’ Then he produced the MacGilray’s letter, pushed it across the table and added, ‘I come on this in ye’er Lordship’s library.’

  Taking the document Ruffan read it through, laid it down and said, ‘This is quite a find. Most interesting. Don’t know much about such things myself, but it must be worth a few pounds.’ He gave a sudden wink and went on, ‘You’re a smart boy to have brought it to me. Out to make a bit, eh? All right, we’ll look on it as yours and I’ll buy it from you, then send it to the Royal Stuart Society.’

  ‘Aye, but that’s not all,’ Adam burst out excitedly, and he fished out from his trouser pocket a gold coin that he had taken from the hoard for such an occasion.

  ‘God’s boots!’ exclaimed His Lordship, his brown eyes opening wide between their puffy rolls of flesh. ‘You don’t mean … ?’

  ‘Aye,’ Adam nodded. ‘The treasure’s still there: cups and flagons made o’ gold, some wi’ jewels, lots o’ siller, necklaces, rings an’ the like—a whole chest of it.’

  ‘Damn it, boy, this can’t be true! You’re pulling me leg,’ declared Ruffan suspiciously.

  ‘Nay! What’ud I gain by that?’ Adam protested. ‘’Tis the truth. How else could I ha’ come by this piece o’ gold?’

  Teddy Ruffan suddenly sat forward, his eyes narrowed and alert, ‘And you’ve not told your aunt—nor anyone else?’

  ‘Nay, not a soul. I’d a feelin’ that ye’er Lordship might prefer it kept secret.’

  ‘And you were right. I give you full marks for that.’ For a long moment His Lordship stared at Adam in silence, endeavouring to assess his character and wondering whether he could be trusted. The youngster’s face was open and handsome, but far from foolish, and held a hint of shrewdness; so he said:

  ‘You’ve had the sense to hold your tongue about this. Can I rely on you to continue to keep it under your hat?’

  ‘Aye,’ Adam nodded vigorously. ‘Ye’er Lordship kens best what’s tae be done, an’ I’ll no’ breathe a word aboot the doin’.’

  ‘Good. Listen, then.’ Ruffan ran a pudgy hand over his thinning grey hair. ‘The stuff is treasure trove. If the MacGilrays who once owned this place had descendants I’d feel under an obligation to hand it over to them. But that branch is extinct; so as it’s on my property I consider I’ve a right to it. There are laws about treasure trove, though. The government takes the goods and the finder gets only a small percentage of their value. I’m not having that. We’ll go along to this place tomorrow morning and collect the goods. Then I’ll dispose of them privately—d’you see?’

  Adam ‘saw’ and readily agreed.

  ‘Now,’ said His Lordship. ‘Help yourself to another glass of port and tell me what you want out of life.’

  The generous wine loosened Adam’s tongue. He made no mention of his occasional visions, but spoke of his wish to see foreign countries and of the books he had read to improve his education. Ruffan was much impressed, particularly with Adam’s knowledge of early European history, about which he himself had only very sketchy ideas. An hour later he had decided that, the treasure
apart, the boy would well repay looking after; and Adam, having skilfully evaded his aunt, made his way to bed, slightly muzzy but enormously elated at the outcome of his disclosure.

  Next morning the beefy, bucolic-looking Englishman and the lithe, handsome Scottish lad made their way to the little bridge. While Ruffan sat on the bank of the burn, keeping watch in case anyone approached, Adam crawled back and forth bringing out the small sacks of treasure.

  Ruffan examined each item. As he had anticipated, most of the articles Adam had taken for gold were only silver-gilt, while the gems were of indifferent quality and poorly cut; but, even so, owing to their age, they were collector’s pieces and, he estimated, worth several thousand pounds.

  When the last piece had been put back into a sack, His Lordship, in a high good humour, winked at Adam and said, ‘Now, young feller, we’ve got to get the stuff back to the Castle without some Nosy Parker spotting us and becoming inquisitive. Early hours of the morning best time for that and to carry the lot I’ll need your help. Think you can keep awake till one o’clock, then get dressed and join me down in the library without anyone being the wiser?’

  ‘Aye.’ Adam beamed with delight at the thought of this adventure with his new friend. ‘I’ll be there. Ye’er Lordship can count on it.’

  The expedition went off without a hitch, and when the treasure had been packed away in the Castle safe the conspirators had a glass of wine together. While they were drinking, Ruffan said:

  ‘I’m not as rich as people think, not by a long sight. Since the war these accursed taxes have made it devilish difficult for me to keep up this place, my home in Somerset and my flat in London. My heir won’t be able to, that’s certain. But he’s a dreary fellow, so I’ll never cut down to benefit him. Still, that’s beside the point. As things are, this haul is a very welcome windfall and I want to show my appreciation of what you’ve done. Any ideas?’