by M C Beaton
Harry rose to his feet. “Carol and I are feeling a bit shaky after the funeral. Can we leave things for the moment?” And without waiting for a reply, we walked across the room and held the door open for them.
“Well!” exclaimed Agatha as they got in the car. “What did you make of that?”
“Very odd,” said Paul. “I mean, they want us to find the murderer and then they both stick their heels in at the very idea we might want to search the house. Never mind, I’ve got a key.”
“You have! How? Where from?”
“There are two doors out to the back. One from the kitchen, which has several locks and bolts, but there is one from a scullery. It’s a dusty old door and I don’t think it’s been used for years. But it had a key in the lock. I slid it out. I told the women working in the kitchen that I’d dropped my notebook when we were ghost-hunting, which gave me an excuse to search around. Once I’d got the key, I broke the speed limit to Moreton and got it copied. So let’s try tonight.”
“Pity we’ll need to crawl around with pencil torches.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Neither Carol nor Harry lives near here. Unless you were actually walking past the house, you wouldn’t be able to see any lights. We’ll switch them on and start our search. If anyone does happen to be, say, walking their dog in the middle of the night and gets suspicious, they’ll ring the bell at the front and we can beat a retreat from the back.”
Agatha was suddenly mesmerized by his arm nearest her on the wheel. He had slung his jacket in the back of the car before driving off. It was a tanned and muscular arm. She felt a strong sexual frisson and then she remembered Juanita. Forget him. Maybe somewhere out there was an unmarried man, charming and kind and intelligent, who would be prepared to throw in his lot with Agatha Raisin for life.
Agatha had not considered black de rigueur for a funeral but decided it was necessary for housebreaking. The evening was warm and humid but she did not have a black blouse and settled for a thin black sweater worn with black trousers and flat black shoes. Paul was to call for her at two o’clock. Just before he came, she decided that she might as well play the part properly, and putting her hand up the living-room chimney, she collected a handful of soot and blacked her face.
Paul, calling for her at exactly two o’clock, reeled back when he saw her and said faintly, “Trick or treat.”
“It’s no use us wearing black with our faces shining white,” said Agatha defiantly.
“Oh, go and wash it off. If anyone should be up and sees you in the car looking like that, they’ll be gossiping about it in the morning all over Carsely.”
But after Agatha had scrubbed off the soot and put on make-up and they were driving through Carsely, Mrs. Davenport looked down from her bedroom window and saw them. Her lips tightened in disapproval. Mr. Chatterton’s wife should know what he was up to with that harpy. They probably thought they were avoiding gossip by driving off to some hotel for their assignation. But the wife was in Madrid. I wonder if Mrs. Bloxby has Mrs. Chatterton’s home address, mused Mrs. Davenport.
As before, they parked outside the village and then walked towards Bag End and so to Ivy Cottage.
It stood, dark and sinister, in the moonlight. A light breeze sent the ivy rustling and whispering. Agatha looked at the house uneasily. “You don’t think it really is haunted?” she asked.
“Nonsense. Let’s go round the back.”
He unlatched a gate at the side of the house. The hinges sent out a creaking noise which sounded eerily loud in the silence of the night.
Agatha suddenly wished she were home in bed with her cats for company. She felt small and lonely and isolated. She wondered what Paul thought of her.
“Right,” said Paul, switching on a pencil torch. “Here’s the back, and the scullery door should be along here next to the kitchen one.” Agatha followed the dancing beam of the torch until it lighted on the scullery door.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Shhh!” He took a key out of his pocket and inserted it in the lock. “Very hard to turn,” he muttered. “I should have brought some oil.” He gave a wrench and the key turned with a rasping sound.
Paul moved quietly into the scullery followed by Agatha, who closed the door behind them.
“I think the first thing we do is look for a cellar,” he said. “Good place to start.”
They walked through the kitchen and into a stone-flagged passage which led to the front of the house. “This might be it,” said Paul, stopping before a low door. “Thank goodness the key’s in the lock.”
He opened the door and shone the torch around inside until he located a light switch. The dim light of a forty-watt bulb lit up a flight of steep stone steps.
“Down we go,” said Paul cheerfully.
Agatha followed him slowly, always listening for the wail of an approaching police siren.
Paul found another light switch at the bottom of the steps. Agatha joined him and they stood shoulder to shoulder surveying the cellar. It was crammed with old trunks and boxes. “It’ll take us years to get through this lot,” mourned Agatha.
“We’re looking for a hidden passage, remember?”
Agatha sighed. “I’ll search along two walls and you take the other two.”
“I wonder…”
“What?” demanded Agatha impatiently, anxious for the search to be over.
“If someone got in from outside, it might have been by way of a tunnel from the garden.”
“But there’s a huge acreage out there!”
“I mean, there might be some sort of trapdoor on the floor.”
“If there was, Mrs. Witherspoon would have found it.”
“Not necessarily,” said Paul. “A lot of this junk must have come with the house. Look at the name on this trunk, ‘Joseph Henderson.’” He bent down and rummaged in a box. “There are schoolbooks here dated 1902! I think she just left all this stuff untouched.”
“But you would think Harry and Carol would have come down here when they were children.”
“Might have forbidden them to do so.” Paul moved over to another section of the cellar, searching in boxes. “No, here we have Harry’s schoolbooks and some dolls which must have belonged to Carol.”
“The floor’s dusty,” said Agatha, suddenly interested. “Look around and see if any of the boxes have been moved.” She backed into an old rocking horse and let out a squeak of alarm as the horse dipped backwards and forwards as if it still had a child on its back.
An hour passed as they searched and searched. “Hopeless,” said Agatha, sitting down on a trunk. Her arms ached from moving piles of stuff around. Paul came and sat down next to her. “We’ve moved everything and looked underneath,” he sighed.
“Except that wooden chest over there,” said Agatha. “Too heavy. I couldn’t budge it.”
“What’s in it?”
“I didn’t look.”
“Agatha!”
“Well, I’m tired and I’m frightened we’ll get caught.”
“Wait till I look in the chest. Where is it?”
“Under that pile of old curtains. I put everything back the way it was.”
Agatha fumbled in her pocket and took out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Paul, who was heading in the direction of the chest, turned round. “No cigarettes, Agatha. The smell of smoke will linger.”
Agatha sulkily put her cigarettes back in her pocket and stifled a yawn.
Paul heaved aside the curtains, which sent up a cloud of dust, making him sneeze. He opened the lid of the large chest. “More curtains,” he said, lifting them out.
“Anything underneath?” asked Agatha.
“Nothing. Wait a bit. There are scratch marks on the edge of the wood at the bottom.”
“So what?” demanded Agatha, craving a cigarette.
Paul fished in his pocket and drew out a knife. His head disappeared inside the chest. “The bo
ttom comes up. You can prise it up,” he said.
Agatha, suddenly excited, went to join him.
Paul struggled and strained and lifted out the bottom of the chest. “Look at that,” he said, straightening up.
Revealed was a trapdoor in the floor, and on top of the trapdoor was what looked like a new ring fastened to it.
He heaved on the ring. The trapdoor eased up and then fell against the side of the chest with a crash. Paul swore and they both waited in silence. “It’s all right,” said Paul with a shaky laugh. “I doubt if anything can be heard from this cellar. I’m going down. Look at those wooden steps, some of them look new, as if recently repaired.”
He made his way down, shining his torch, and Agatha followed him. They found themselves in a stone passage. The air was dry and musty and the ceiling so low, they had to half-crouch to walk along it.
“What if the air is so bad that we’ll die?” said Agatha, hanging on to the end of his sweater as she followed him.
“I forgot the canary,” he joked. “The air’s okay. In fact, it’s getting a little bit fresher. Maybe we’re near the end.”
They went along in silence. “Dead end,” said Paul. “But more steps. I’ll go up first. There’s bound to be another trapdoor.”
He mounted the steps. Agatha waited anxiously. She heard him grunt as he strained to lift something. Then there was a thud. “Come on up,” whispered Paul. “We’ve come out somewhere.”
Agatha began to climb and then squawked as twigs and leaves fell down on her. “Sorry,” called Paul. “I’m trying to move stuff away. It was covering the trapdoor.”
Agatha emerged into the gloom of a thicket. “If we crouch down, we can get out of here without tearing our clothes,” said Paul. “There’s a sort of tunnel through the bushes.”
Agatha followed the beam of his torch. Outside the thicket, they found themselves quite a way away from the house in a remote part of the garden which looked as if it had never been tended. Thick grass and bushes grew all around.
“Now we know how someone got in,” said Paul.
“Let’s get out of here.” Agatha looked around uneasily. “I’m beginning to get the creeps.”
“All right. Down the ladder with you and I’ll replace the trapdoor and try to get as much of the camouflage back on the outside of the lid before I do. Don’t want anyone to know we’ve been here.”
Agatha waited at the bottom of the stairs until Paul closed the trapdoor and joined her with the torch.
With Paul leading the way, Agatha followed him at a half-crouch to avoid bumping her head on the roof. But half along the passage, he came to an abrupt stop. “What is it?” hissed Agatha.
“There’s an alcove here, a niche. Sort of thing you get in railway tunnels for the workmen to back into when a train is coming.” He shone the torch in. “Nothing here.” He shone the torch upwards. “I think this is a sort of chimney, like an old ventilator. But it’s now got blocked at the top. If you stand on my clasped hands, Agatha, and I heave you up, you could feel around and see if anything’s been hidden up there.”
“Oh, all right,” muttered Agatha. “But I won’t be safe until I get out of here.”
Paul heaved her up. Agatha thrust up her hands and dislodged dry leaves and rubble. A stone hit Paul on the face and he lost his hold on Agatha just as her hand located a piece of iron sticking out of the inside on the alcove. She hung on desperately, but the iron spike or whatever it was began to give. She tumbled down onto Paul and they both fell onto the floor as more stones and leaves clattered down on them.
“You’re a heavy woman,” grumbled Paul, pushing her off him. “I’ve dropped the torch and the damn thing has gone out. Help me feel around for it.”
On their hands and knees they groped around, until Paul cried, “I’ve got it,” and at the same time, Agatha said, “There’s a packet or something or other here. Must have fallen down. Shine the torch.”
“I’ll see if it’s still working. Good, it is. What have you got there?”
The thin beam of the torch shone on a dusty leather wrapped package. “Must have fallen out of somewhere,” said Agatha. “Let’s take it with us. I don’t want to spend any more time in this house. Not the jewels, anyway. Feels like some sort of book.”
She felt relieved when they were finally up the stairs to the cellar and then up and out of the cellar and out of the house. They hurried to the car.
“I hope no one saw us,” panted Agatha when she finally sank into the car seat. “Now, what do we do? We should tell the police about that passage. That’s how someone got into the house to frighten her.”
“We can’t tell them,” said Paul. “They’d want to know how we found it. Let’s get back to your place and have a look at what we’ve found.”
Once back in Agatha’s cottage, she placed the leather package reverently on the kitchen table. Paul carefully unwrapped it, revealing a leather-bound book. He opened it. “It’s a diary!” he said. “It’s Lamont’s diary.”
“Does it say anything about his treasure?” asked Agatha.
“Let’s see. It’s a detailed account of the preparations for the Battle of Worcester and an inventory of provisions and arms.” He turned the pages. “Then there’s a description of the battle.”
“Skip to the end,” said Agatha excitedly. “He’d hide the treasure when he knew the battle was lost.”
“Don’t rush me!”
Paul turned the pages to the end of the book with what seemed to Agatha maddening slowness.
“Here we are,” said Paul. “He must have written this last bit when he took refuge with Simon Lovesey. ‘Such Gold and Jewels as I had with me, I buried in Timmin’s Field, north of Worcester, before making my Circuitous Way to Hebberdon to seek Refuge. I have not told Mine Host this although he pressures me for Information in an odd way. I shall hide this record until I am sure that his Sympathy with Our Cause is safe.’”
Paul closed the book, his eyes shining with excitement. “So now we know where the treasure is.”
“Let’s go and look for it tomorrow,” cried Agatha. “If we find anything, we can see if Lamont’s got any remaining descendents alive.”
“Timmin’s Field,” mused Paul. “Timmin was probably a farmer.”
“I’ve got an ordnance survey map of the Worcester area,” said Agatha. She hurried off and came back with the map. But although they searched the names of all the farms to the north of Worcester, they could not find the name Timmin.
“The farm could have been sold to other people ages ago,” said Paul. “We need some seventeenth-century maps.”
“We’ll go to the records’ office in Worcester tomorrow,” said Agatha. “We’d better get some sleep.”
She saw him to the door. “You’re a Trojan, Agatha,” said Paul, smiling down at her. “This is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me!”
He flung his arms round her and bent and kissed her on the lips.
Agatha blinked up at him in a dazed way.
“Good night,” he said gently. “See you at ten in the morning. Get a good sleep.”
Agatha carefully shut the door behind him and then danced up the stairs to bed, her heart racing. He would divorce Juanita and marry her! James Lacey would see the announcement of their wedding and she hoped like hell he suffered!
Murder was forgotten as the excited pair set out for Worcester in the morning. The sun shone down on the Vale of Evesham, stretching all the way to the Malvern Hills. Agatha was driving. She was in control. She had a handsome man beside her who had kissed her last night and she was off on a treasure hunt.
The first cloud appeared on the horizon of her mind when she parked outside the records’ office and Paul said cautiously, “ Worcester ’s a very big place. Must have been relatively small by comparison in the seventeenth century.”
“Don’t be a downer,” said Agatha. “Timmin’s Field, here we come.”
Inside the records’ office, they asked fo
r maps of Worcester for the period covering the mid-seventeenth century.
“Rats!” said Agatha as they both bent over it. “ Worcester is small.”
“Let’s see. North,” said Paul. “Look north.”
His long finger moved to the north of the city. “There it is!” he cried. “Timmin’s Field. Timmin must have been a tenant farmer. It’s part of the Burnhaddomm estate.”
“Let’s go,” said Agatha, beside herself with excitement. “We should buy a metal detector first. We-”
“Agatha,” said Paul, “I think we should look at a present-day map of Worcester. That field might be covered over by now.”
“Oh, I’ve brought the map with me.” Agatha fished it out of her capacious handbag.
They opened it up and compared it with the seventeenth-century one.
“It’s been built over. It’s a shopping mall. And houses for miles around as well.”
“We’ll go and look anyway,” said Agatha, determined. “Timmin’s Field might be a car-park now or something that could be dug up.”
“But Worcester continued to spread out since 1651,” said Paul. “I think we should look at eighteenth-and nineteenth-century maps first.”
“Why?”
“Think, Agatha. Any building on that field means the ground would be dug up. Deep digging to make cellars for houses. The treasure would be found, and believe me, whoever found it would keep quiet about it.”
They got the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century maps and pored over them. “Look here,” said Paul. “The nineteenth-century one. Rows and rows of houses right over where Timmin’s Field was, and even a church.”
“That can’t be right. They wouldn’t bulldoze a church!”
Paul got to his feet and returned with a map of Worcester dated 1945. “There’s your answer,” he said. “That area was bombed during the war. Let’s return all these maps.”
Outside, Agatha said stubbornly, “I still want to see it.”
“As you wish, but it’s hopeless. You drive, I’ll direct you.”