Quest

by Richard Ben Sapir

“Captain, it is not unappreciated that your father is Lord Rawson.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Rawson.

  “Captain, do you think we are going to send some greengrocer’s son off into the world with a blank chit for millions of pounds and a fiat from Her Majesty to use his own judgment?”

  Rawson didn’t answer that. He knew he wouldn’t be withdrawn from Banai for some royal social function. It wasn’t done in this age, although the whole royal scene was a form of lunacy, joyously participated in by the nation. And he was, after all and in the beginning, an Englishman.

  “We also asked for someone who understands our history.”

  “If this is going to take some time, may I sit?” asked Rawson.

  “Please,” said Sir Anthony. Rawson chose an overstuffed chair by a mahogany lampstand.

  “All right, what are we looking for?”

  “You are going to regain the Tilbury Cellar, for England,” said Witt-Dawlings, his voice resonating like a trumpet call to knights about to battle for their God and king.

  Rawson took a small leather notepad from his pocket and with a pen wrote down the words. When he glanced up, he saw Sir Anthony’s face steam crimson, the eyes glowering darkly. Rawson wondered if he had done something wrong.

  “You have heard of the Tilbury?” said Sir Anthony coldly.

  “No,” said Rawson.

  “Perhaps you have heard of the Armada and Elizabeth the First.”

  “Oh, you mean Tilbury Field, where she gave the speech to her troops. Yes, I have,” said Captain Rawson.

  “And what have you heard?” said Sir Anthony.

  “Elizabeth’s army was encamped there. She had been languishing in Winchester, now Whitehall, for months while the kingdom was virtually dissolving in despair at the approach of the Spanish. One day she left Whitehall with only three lords escort and enough fight in her to start an empire. She went right to Tilbury Field, where she delivered the classic military speech. We still study it at Sandhurst. Wonderful speech—explained the rightness of her cause, the sureness of victory, and the accountability of all those involved. No one ever improved on that speech. Of course, one still does wonder how facing such odds she could assure victory, but that’s what you’re supposed to do in a military speech, yes?”

  Sir Anthony’s glower set into his face like stone. If he was not going to explain his disapproval, Rawson was certainly not going to go mining for it with his own ego as pick and shovel.

  “Especially interesting because of the religious strife,” said Rawson brightly. If Sir Anthony wanted someone who knew British history, Rawson would give him some. “So much suspicion of Catholic lords being disloyal, favoring the Spanish over Protestant Elizabeth, which of course didn’t turn out to be true in the main. But that didn’t bother the Protestant extremists, who were also a problem. There was a big fear of royal assassination from all sides, so you can imagine what courage it took to go into her countryside with only three lords as though heaven and earth were there to protect her.”

  “Then you haven’t heard of the Tilbury Cellar?” said Sir Anthony.

  “No,” said Rawson. “I can’t say I have.”

  Captain Rawson’s bright clear answer sat in the dark-curtained room like an insult, and that insult was all over the red face of Sir Anthony Witt-Dawlings. The room was quiet, no honks or engine grates of London traffic coming in, and Rawson assumed the room was secured for sound by the drapes themselves.

  Witt-Dawlings spoke with the slow icy cadence of bitter tolerance: “Elizabeth the First had fashioned there on Tilbury Field to commemorate England’s great victory a saltcellar with ‘jewels of such glorious nature as befit one’s gratitude to divine providence in protecting this island kingdom in its darkest hour.’”

  “I take it that’s a quote, Sir Anthony. I seem to retain quotes way beyond their usefulness, but I am hard-pressed to identify that one,” said Rawson.

  “Schoolbooks. In our generation before the war, we all read of the Tilbury.”

  “It was not in ours,” said Rawson.

  “I take it that like so much it passed with the war, a war we won.”

  “This cellar, I presume, plays an important part in something.”

  “It was stolen. We want it back. We want you to get it back for England. It is England’s, as surely as fields and country lanes and a cottage small beside a field of grain. It is Runnymede and Balaclava. It is England, Captain.”

  “When was it stolen?” asked Rawson, putting the pen to the pad and not looking up.

  “In 1945 in one of the most heinous and disreputable robberies in the history of England.”

  “Oh, the Cheltham. Thought they got everything back.”

  “We did not get back the Tilbury.”

  “I see. I guess I was wrong.”

  “We kept it from the world.”

  “No wonder you never got it back. Was there any reason not to announce it publicly? Then you would have had a chance of its discovery.”

  “We were war-weary. It was a tired England that emerged from the war we won.”

  “So you just said bosh it all and let it go?”

  “Yes.”

  “But now you wish to invest if need be the unlimited time of what I arrogantly assume is a highly qualified agent?”

  “Yes. The Tilbury was seen again in New York City and we almost had her back, except the Foreign Office bungled it horribly. We told them spare no price, spare no effort, and they lost it.”

  “And what do the American security people say, police, FBI?”

  “Didn’t say anything, thank God. They’re not to know. They were never to know, and no matter what shall never know. They are out of it, even if there weren’t a killing.”

  “What?”

  “The Foreign Office killed someone. Not sure of the details.”

  “Not an American national? Not within American borders?” asked Captain Rawson. He looked up.

  “I imagine he was an American national,” said Witt-Dawlings.

  “America is our major ally,” said Rawson.

  “Yes, well, that’s why we have to keep everything quiet.”

  “What could be worth a rupture in our relationship with America?”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be, you see. That’s why we asked for you, a man of impeccable credentials and experience in these things. Never should have trusted the Foreign Office chaps. Bunch of pensioners. Might as well be French.”

  Captain Rawson paused. He stifled a deep sigh and pressed Witt-Dawlings to explain further, as though he had not heard someone dismiss the killing of an American national within American borders as a minor inconvenience on the way to regaining some royal artifact.

  “During World War Two, when we were expecting an invasion by the Hun, the Tilbury and other treasures of our history were buried in deep bunkers outside London. Didn’t trust them to be shipped to Canada because of U-boats. Bombing was heavy, if you do remember that. Keep them safe in England. We needed our traditions most sorely during those days. Need them more now, if you ask me.”

  Captain Rawson nodded.

  “Fortunately, before the Tilbury was removed from Windsor, where it had sat in the same dungeon place for four centuries, modern jewelers took dimensions of the stones and I believe gem prints. They’re all in that folder.”

  Rawson checked the bound black packet. He saw numbers and sizes and didn’t understand a one of them. There were diamonds, a ruby, a sapphire, lesser stones, and upward of fifty pounds of gold, all making up a saltcellar. Inside, apparently as a frame of some sort for the whole works, was “a poorish bowl.” Undoubtedly the latter description was provided by Elizabeth I, who had ordered the cellar crafted.

  “Do you have a picture of this cellar?”

  “Absolutely not. Aren’t any.”

  “What about your schoolbooks?”

  “None. Just the phrases commemorating our deliverance.”

  “Without a picture?”
/>   “If you showed me a picture of it, I probably wouldn’t be able to help you. Why are you making such a fuss over a picture? I daresay if you circulated that picture from Cornwall to Glasgow no one would recognize it. Why are you so deucedly interested in a picture of it?”

  “Because someone who has seen it would recognize it.”

  “Well, we don’t have one. We have the gems described by, as you’ll see, different jewelers, none of whom was allowed to see the entire piece.”

  “You have gem prints but not the picture, and you wouldn’t allow any one jeweler to see the whole thing—may I ask why?”

  “Precautions.”

  “Against what, for God’s sake, man?” asked Rawson.

  “Dangers. We value this cellar; presumably, that’s why we have you here, Captain Rawson.”

  “If I am to find this cellar, I have got to have some rational answers to work with.”

  “Your Queen commands it. That should be answer enough.”

  “For a butler or a secretary, but not for someone who is supposed to invest his blood in finding this artifact. Why are there no pictures?”

  “Because Elizabeth never bothered, and we see no reason to change tradition. She kept this most valuable piece locked in Windsor, where it stayed for four centuries. It’s the least we can do to honor her.”

  Harry Rawson knew when to retreat. Undoubtedly, there were good reasons why Elizabeth I kept a fortune locked up in some dungeon instead of displayed. But he was certain he could not get a rational explanation from the likes of Witt-Dawlings, who thought of that cunning monarch as some sort of Brittanic saint and the peculiar Tilbury Cellar another unquestioned example of her holiness. Rawson knew that Elizabeth I did everything with blade-sharp reason, whereas Witt-Dawlings obviously believed that if she did something, it needed no reason.

  Besides, Captain Rawson already had the answer he needed as to why he was here. He was sure he had landed with Sir Anthony through some accident of command, not an impossibility, especially when the name of Her Majesty was involved.

  That afternoon in a plain-faced building in a modest section of London, which looked to the world like just another drab office, Captain Rawson checked with his former command control as to the accuracy of the transfer to service under Sir Anthony Witt-Dawlings.

  “Not only have you been transferred, old boy, but you shouldn’t even be talking to me anymore. Captain Rawson, you are with the Crown for the rest of your natural life.”

  V

  “We was quite put out by that, sir. Yes, that’s the old list. I remember her. Gems and all that. I’ll tell you what I told His Majesty. War was over, you know, Captain Rawson, just about. I was given this list not by my superior, but by His Majesty, George the Sixth himself. Well, there I was an inspector in the Yard, and we still had our hands full with this war, and I am brought personally to His Majesty, who was acting like you would think he was a local constable in charge of apprehending some criminal.”

  “This right after the Cheltham robbery?” asked Rawson.

  “The day of it. The very day. I wasn’t even allowed to stay at the scene. But that’s not the strangest part.”

  The old man with the ruddy face in the pillowed oak chair sat by the window of his cottage with the good South Downs sun on the harvested autumn barley fields outside, taking peaceful pleasure in his last days, and special joy that now he was duly authorized to air a royal duty almost a half century under wraps.

  It was also the sort of cottage Witt-Dawlings had rhapsodized about in quoting the poem that said there would always be an England.

  “But what specifically did he say about the cellar?” asked Rawson. “The Tilbury was a saltcellar. The Crown has many saltcellars. You can visit some at the Tower of London. The Crown has many jewels. It has the largest gem collection in the world. Why the Tilbury? Why would you have an audience with the king over just one piece from the Cheltham train robbery?”

  “Don’t rightly know, Captain. But himself was as close as me to you, sir, ’cepting I wasn’t sitting in his presence so to speak.”

  “And he talked about nothing else but the Tilbury?” asked Rawson. The solid dark wood chair he sat on was more charming to eyes than buttocks. Rawson missed the pillows of the Gulf and felt like some crusader must have, back from the oriental refinement of the Holy Land to the crude hard joys of England. The cottage had the rich crusty smell of many oak log fires.

  “They didn’t tell you why you were having an audience with the king?”

  “Nossir. It was the end of the war. You did things without asking questions. I was the investigating inspector of the Cheltham, and I’m brought to Buckingham Palace like I’m some field marshal, taken right into His Majesty’s presence.”

  “And?”

  “And he gives me a list like what you showed me.”

  “And?”

  “And I give His Person my regrets, but I must inform His Majesty the Tilbury Cellar undoubtedly no longer exists.”

  “Why?”

  “Thieves won’t sell the bloody thing whole. They’ll sell the gold. They’ll sell the gems—each stone separate. That’s how they do it with gems in big pieces like necklaces and such.”

  Rawson felt relief, like warm clean air out of the desert. This was the first logical, rational, the-world-as-Rawson-knew-it fact to surface in this Tilbury affair. Unfortunately, the fact was not so. Somehow the Tilbury toward which the Crown acted so strangely had remained whole, at least until recently in New York City.

  “Is there anything else His Majesty or anyone said about the Tilbury?” asked Rawson.

  “Yes. Strangest part, Captain. I’m scarce on the job so to speak, when I’m told forget everything I heard. A gentleman comes, takes back the list, and I don’t hear another word about it for more than forty years until I’m informed that a captain of the Royal Argyle Sutherlanders had official clearance on the matter of the Cheltham.”

  “I remember reading briefly about the robbery. It was the end of the war, and the soldiers on the train were tired. It happens after an intense effort that there has to be a letdown,” said Rawson.

  “You’re right, Captain. Called it the ‘loss of the spirit that brought us through.’ Thing was, right as soon as they call me off for no reason I read where the Tilbury has never left Windsor. You would think that a king would know that. What do you think? Do you think we could have lost her in some bureaucratic shuffle and such? Seems like an awful lot to lose, but don’t they lose more every day?”

  “Did anyone ever show you a picture of the Tilbury?”

  “No. I asked for one myself.”

  “Thank you,” said Rawson and left the cottage small in the still thriving agricultural belt of southern England. One man, at least, had seen the Tilbury, or at least something that matched the gems list.

  He was the employee of the Foreign Office who, panicked by Witt-Dawlings’s contradictory and hysterical orders, had done the stabbing in New York City.

  The Foreign Office had retired the poor chap fifteen years early to a flat in the city of Liverpool, a cindered wretched remnant of the refuse of England’s industrial age. Riots had left some areas worse off than the Blitz had left parts of London, and unemployment was so bad that this man on an early pension was considerably better off than the gangs of men who lounged around the bleak broken pavements. Industrial England, which had powered the need for empire, had died here, leaving corpses of cities throughout the north. No one would write a poem about this England, that it would always be. This England had the stink of the dead, waiting for the grace of years to clean its bones for archeologists who would only then begin digging up clues to England’s empire, why it rose and why it fell.

  The man’s name was Paul Hawkins. He was pale and thin, and his eyes were red. He was forty-two and looked twenty years older. He wore a striped cotton bathrobe and slippers and held on to a tumbler of whiskey as if it were a parachute ripcord. He lived in a modest flat, a bachelor. Only i
n the last generation had the British Foreign Office begun taking people from the lower-middle-class, to which Hawkins had now been returned.

  He couldn’t talk about the stabbing without crying.

  “I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t rely on anyone. I was ordered not to rely on anyone. I was ordered to pay any price to get it. And every price only convinced him to ask for more. It was horrid. I wasn’t trained for this. I was ordered under no circumstances to lose this cellar.”

  “They didn’t tell you more about the cellar?”

  “No. Just gave me a list of gems. Every price I offered he made higher, until I saw I had lost it. He was going to sell it somewhere else, he said, and I don’t know what happened. I started stabbing him with a penknife, and once I started I just had to keep going. I ran. I offered to confess everything, and they just shipped me back here. And you’re the first person I’ve talked to about it since, except of course the doctors. But they don’t count. Do they?”

  “You did see the cellar?” asked Rawson.

  “Yes.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “Oh, Lord. I can’t remember. All I can see is this man’s face. He was so surprised when I stabbed him. He looked at me as though he wanted to say ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’”

  “How tall was the cellar?” asked Rawson softly.

  Hawkins held his hand in front of him at the height of a toddler.

  “And where were the stones? The red one?”

  “It matched, you know. It matched the list. They all matched the list. Was I not supposed to tell you about the list? I’m so confused now.”

  “I have the list myself. Where was the ruby?” asked Rawson. He gave Hawkins a thin pen and put a clean white pad into his hands.

  “It was horrid,” said Hawkins.

  “Yes,” said Rawson. “Was the red stone in the middle or at the bottom, or where?”

  “It was in the bottom. No. In the middle. In the middle.”

  “And the sapphire?”

  “Wait. That was in the middle. No. They were both in the middle. There were lots of stones.”

  “Draw me a picture of it.”