by Bill Kitson
‘Wow, I bet this wasn’t cheap,’ I exclaimed. I told the others about the significance of the mouse.
‘It’s been here a long time,’ Brian said as he straightened up from his task. ‘Way before I was born, I think. It’s always been that colour. Isn’t oak usually lighter than that?’
‘Yes, which is why I think you’re right. This must be getting on for a hundred years old, I’d say. Anyway, I think we can rule out looking for a hiding place behind here,’ I tapped one of the panels. ‘You’d have to cut through them to make room, and that would be sacrilege.’
Even discounting the walls, our task was a mammoth one. Given that the item we were looking for, even if it existed, which was still very much in doubt would likely be very small, there was a multitude of potential hiding places within the room. The study contained no less than three desks. Two were of the roll-top variety popular throughout Victorian times and into the early part of the twentieth century. The third, which occupied pride of place in front of the French windows, was a magnificent flat-topped piece of furniture with an oblong inlay of leather on the writing surface. Seated behind this, I could imagine the owner staring out across the grounds towards the forest beyond. Not the worst view in the world, I reflected wryly.
In addition, there were two long, low storage cupboards, positioned to one side of the other desks. All three desks had chairs in front of them. As we were likely to be spending a fair amount of time in the room, these would come in very handy. If we tired of our work, there were also two comfortable-looking armchairs and what looked like a folding card table stacked behind one of the cupboards.
Eve followed up on my earlier question by asking Brian, ‘Your grandmother must have talked about her husband, surely, even to a small boy? Especially if she wanted her grandson to be proud of his ancestors. Did she give you any indication as to his nature, perhaps?’
‘The problem was that by the time I was old enough to take heed, she wasn’t actually saying anything that made much sense, to be honest. That’s probably why I can’t recall it all that accurately. I know it’s frustrating, but all I can remember is one instance when she told me something about a woman and a bell. It didn’t make sense because she wouldn’t explain why she was telling me, but now I come to think about it she got quite agitated when she realized I wasn’t paying attention. She told me it was very important, but I have no idea why.’
Although I was listening to the conversation, my attention had been drawn to a portrait hanging on one of the side walls. The subject was a man I guessed to be in his mid to late twenties. He was dressed in military uniform and the insignia on it denoted his rank to be that of major. The abundant moustache and mutton-chop sideburns suggested that the portrait had been painted during the early part of the century.
Brian noticed my interest in the portrait and confirmed that my suspicion as to the subject’s identity was correct. That’s my grandfather; Major Everett Latimer. Grandma had the painting commissioned immediately after the war ended to celebrate his safe return from France. That is one thing I do remember her telling me.’ Brian grinned. ‘In fact, sometimes she’d tell me it twice or three times during the same conversation.’
‘I don’t suppose the clue could be hidden behind the painting; or inside it even?’ Barbara suggested.
‘It’s as good a place to start as any, I suppose,’ he agreed. ‘Adam, will you help me lift it down?’
What was immediately obvious was that the painting hadn’t received the attention of a duster for a very long time. This in itself was no bad thing, as it was a minor indication that nobody else had been looking at the portrait as a potential place of concealment for a treasure map.
Although we inspected it closely, we could see no evidence that the back of the painting had been tampered with to allow for the clue to be secreted within. ‘I suppose it was too much to hope for that we would strike lucky with our first guess,’ Eve said. ‘Perhaps the painting was a little too obvious.’
She was right, and with little or no knowledge of Everett Latimer’s character, or how his mind worked, we were ignorant of the extent of his deviousness or the lengths he had gone to in order to protect his secret.
Brian and I carefully replaced his grandfather on the wall and we turned our attention to the rest of the room. We divided the search up, with Brian assuming responsibility for the desk in front of the window. Eve and I took a roll-top desk apiece, whilst Barbara searched the store cupboards.
Brian finished well before the rest of us, even though his search had been just as thorough as ours. He had even removed each of the drawers and inspected the underside of them and crawled into the kneehole space to inspect the skeleton of the desk. ‘That was easy,’ he remarked as he replaced the last of the drawers. ‘It’s strange, though, having said I don’t remember anything my grandmother said to me, as I was going through the desk, something else came to mind.’
‘What was that?’ Barbara asked.
‘The first thing I noticed was how neatly everything had been stored inside. Nothing had been put away in a hurry, or carelessly. That brought to mind a telling-off Grandma gave me when I left my bedroom in a mess. “You must learn to be more like your father and your grandfather. They would never leave their bedroom in such a state.” Then she made me repeat ten times, “A place for everything and everything in its place” whatever that means.’
‘It certainly rubbed off,’ Barbara told him, ‘I’ve never met anyone as obsessively neat as you.’
‘I know this is probably going to get me lynched,’ Eve said after we’d all finished, with no success to report, ‘but I think it would be sensible if we swapped places and that way, we might pick up on something the other person missed.’
Her suggestion was greeted with dismayed silence. It made perfect sense; but it meant a lot more work. ‘We need coffee before we start again,’ Barbara insisted.
Before we adjourned to the kitchen, Brian placed four more logs on the fire. ‘At least we’ll be warm as we search.’ He repeated the operation in the dining hall. Slowly, it seemed, he was coming to terms with living in Rowandale Hall, the place he had sworn never to return to, and slowly, almost literally, the house was warming to him. That may seem a little fanciful, but that’s the way it felt at the time.
In the kitchen, Brian said, ‘Although coffee is a good idea, I think we also need sandwiches–lots and lots of sandwiches.’
‘You always need sandwiches, except when you need a full meal. I’ve never met anyone with an appetite like yours,’ Barbara told him. ‘It’s a wonder you’re not built like a house side. I don’t know where you put it, the amount of food you eat. I’ll tell you something, I’m going to need a huge housekeeping allowance simply to pay for your food.’
An hour later, suitably refreshed, we resumed our search of the study, but by mid-afternoon we had met with no success. Having changed places twice, we were confident if the clue did exist, it was not hidden in that room, unless it had been stashed under the carpet, and I wasn’t about to suggest taking that up.
‘What time is it?’ Brian asked.
I saw Eve and Barbara look around the room before I glanced at my watch. I told him the time but something in what had just occurred niggled at the back of my mind. I struggled with the errant memory, but the harder I tried, the more elusive it became.
‘I vote we adjourn,’ Barbara told us. ‘I’m sick of the sight of this room. I want to take a shower before I start preparing food. What time do you want dinner this evening?’
There it was again, something about the mention of time, but still the penny refused to drop.
Later, we foregathered in the kitchen, where Barbara had already begun preparing the meal. ‘Do you need any help?’ Eve asked.
‘No thanks, everything’s sorted.’
Brian had just entered the room from the steps leading down to the cellar. He was carrying two more bottles of claret. ‘What time will the meal be ready, Babs? I need to let t
hese stand.’
He didn’t get a reply, because everyone was staring at me. I’d gasped aloud as he spoke, not at his words, but at the interpretation I’d put on them. The penny had finally dropped.
‘Something wrong, Adam?’ he asked.
‘How did your grandfather know when it was time for dinner?’
They all stared at me as if I’d taken leave of my senses. ‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’
‘You said last night that your father told you your grandfather locked himself away in the study and only came out when it was time for dinner, right?’
Brian nodded; still puzzled as to where this was leading.
‘How would he know when it was time for dinner? I suppose he might have had a wrist watch, or even a pocket watch, or possibly someone called him, but from what little I’ve been able to gather, he wasn’t the sort of man you’d want to disturb if he’d said he wanted to be left alone. Assuming all that, how would he tell the time? There is no clock in the study.’
One idea was rapidly superseded by another. ‘You also told us your grandmother said the clue would be found “when the time is right”, and perhaps that phrase was a clue in itself. Can you remember there ever having been a clock inside that room?’
Brian didn’t need time to consider the question; his answer was immediate. ‘Yes, there was. The grandfather clock that is now in the dining hall used to be in the study. My father shifted it years ago. It had stopped working and he intended to get someone in to fix it, but when he moved it, the clock somehow started working again, so he didn’t bother. I remember him saying how lucky it was because that meant he didn’t have to spend money we could ill afford.’
‘I think the clue might have been hidden inside that clock, don’t you?’
Dinner preparations were temporarily suspended as we went to check. We watched with increasing tension as Brian opened the door to the long case and felt cautiously inside; taking care to avoid the pendulum which was swinging to and fro with metronomic precision. He struck a match and peered into the most remote recesses before turning to deliver the bad news. ‘There’s nothing in there, except what the clockmaker intended there to be. If this was where the clue was hidden, it’s already been removed.’
I suppose I felt the disappointment more keenly than the others. It had been my idea, and I’d been so certain that the hint in Brian’s grandmother’s words would lead us first to the missing clue, and then to the location of the treasure itself. My enthusiasm was such that it had infected the others, and they too now believed in the existence of a stash of gold coins somewhere within the Rowandale estate. Our sense of deflation lasted until dinner was almost over.
The conversation during the meal had been low-key; now it was flagging, reflecting our lowered spirits. I think tiredness had combined with disappointment to leave us all at a low ebb. Brian lowered his cutlery and broke one of the long silences by telling me, ‘I think I owe you an apology, Adam. I misled you last night. Not intentionally, but I suppose when we were talking I wasn’t taking the business of the coins seriously. I didn’t get Grandma’s word right. When I quoted her, I told you she’d said “When the time is right” but that wasn’t correct. Blame my bad memory if you want. I’ve only just remembered her actual words. She told me I’d find the truth out “if I have a little time, a lot of patience, and some piety”. Perhaps I dismissed it as her eccentricity, or perhaps I thought it was too bizarre to have any real meaning.’
‘I don’t see it making a lot of difference, Brian.’
‘It could do,’ Eve interrupted. ‘Going back to the way you worked out the grandfather clock idea, what if “a little time” refers to a small clock, not a large one?’
‘Eve’s right,’ Barbara added, ‘And what if “patience” also had some significance; and “piety” too?’
‘I suppose “patience” could refer to a game of cards,’ Brian suggested. ‘Isn’t there a card table behind one of the cupboards?’
‘We could take a look, I suppose.’ I still wasn’t sure.
‘After we finish dinner.’ Brian wasn’t going to be rushed.
Barbara shook her head sadly. ‘See what I mean, Eve? Always thinking of his stomach first.’
At the risk of getting indigestion, we went through to the study immediately we’d finished eating and removed the card table from its resting place to examine it. There was nothing unusual to be seen on the top. We even examined the area where the green baize was secured to the wooden frame but there was no sign that anything had been secreted below the material. However, when we turned the table over to inspect the underside we immediately noticed a set of grooves that had been made in the wood, marking all four sides. We stood in a group, each of us standing in front of one of the sides, and read out the letters that had been carved on the mahogany.
‘I’ve got K–I–N,’ Brian told us.
‘Mine says T–H–E–C,’ Barbara added.
It was Eve’s turn next, ‘H–U–R–C,’ were her letters.
I completed the message with, ‘H–L–O–O.’
The anagram didn’t take much solving. ‘What does, “Look in the church”, mean? I know it tallies with the piety bit your Grandma mentioned, Brian,’ Barbara frowned. ‘But what church was he referring to? The nearest church is St Mary’s at Elmfield. I should know, I had to walk there every Sunday morning. I hated that walk.’
‘Why?’ Eve asked.
‘It was all right until I got to the graveyard. We’d have to walk the full length of it to get to the church, past all the graves. That used to frighten the life out of me. All those tombstones with dead people underneath them. I used to think that at any moment they would appear out of the ground, grab me, and carry me off to a horrid place where small children were eaten alive.’
‘Phew!’ Brian exclaimed. ‘I never realized what a weird and vivid imagination you had. You never told me any of this.’
‘No, I thought you’d laugh at me and call me a sissy.’
‘Good point, I probably would have done. Was that why you used to hold my hand?’
‘Yes, I knew I was safe because I was sure you would never let anything bad happen to me.’
He smiled at her, a warm, glowing expression. The discovery, and the confirmation it gave of the possible existence of the treasure had fired his enthusiasm–and, it seemed, stimulated his recalcitrant memory. ‘St Mary’s isn’t the nearest church, though. Not if I’ve got Grandpa’s meaning right. There’s one no more than twenty yards away.’
He saw our puzzled expressions and added, ‘I’m assuming I’ve got the meaning correct. If so, it means the old man was far more cunning and devious than we anticipated. Follow me.’
He led us out of the study and into the spacious entrance hall where visitors to Rowandale would be greeted by the butler and then presented to the house-owner and his lady. Brian directed us towards the broad staircase leading to the first floor and gestured to the wall. ‘There it is.’ He indicated the beautifully veneered mahogany wall clock alongside the staircase. ‘There’s your church.’
We walked up to it and inspected the face. The maker’s name was clearly visible in bold characters, “Church, Norfolk” it read.
Brian opened the door and felt inside the body of the clock. After what seemed an age, with tension mounting, he eventually pulled out a small envelope. The single word “Rupert” was just legible on the front of it, the ink faded by time. ‘This was obviously intended for my father. Grandfather couldn’t have anticipated that he would have dismissed the tale of the treasure as a fairy story dreamed up by a lonely widow who had lost her marbles.’
‘Open it up, please, Brian?’ Barbara pleaded. ‘Put us out of our misery.’
He did as she instructed and drew out a scrap of paper. I saw him frown as he deciphered the handwriting. ‘I don’t understand,’ he muttered. ‘All it says here is, “Ask the Fair Maid of Perth”, whatever that means.’
Barbara and Eve looked equally mysti
fied. ‘Another bloody cryptic clue,’ Eve said despairingly.
I shook my head in mock sorrow. ‘And I thought you lot were well educated. Didn’t they teach you anything at school or did you sleep through all the lessons? Have none of you any idea what he meant by that? Don’t you know who the Fair Maid of Perth is?’
‘Adam, stop showing off and tell us,’ Eve demanded.
‘The Fair Maid of Perth is one of the Waverley novels, written by Sir Walter Scott. I suggest we adjourn to the library and search for the book. It’s one of a set of twenty-five tomes, it shouldn’t be difficult to spot. Eve can lead the way; she’s used to hunting through libraries.’
Eve poked her tongue out at me, and to emphasize her message, gave me a two-fingered salute into the bargain. Although the library at Rowandale Hall was by no means as large as the one at Mulgrave Castle, in this instance we knew exactly what we were looking for. When we located it, we opened the book carefully and found a sheaf of notepaper that had been secreted at the end of the text; the pages secured with red ribbon threaded through the pre-punched holes and tied in a bow.
I held it out. ‘Brian, this belongs to you. I think you should be the one to read it.’
‘I agree, but not here,’ Barbara said. ‘Can we go somewhere a bit warmer, please?’
We settled by the fireplace in the dining hall. Brian added several more logs to the fire and placed coal around them to get the blaze going faster. We sat back to listen as Brian read aloud his grandfather’s memoir, confident that the location of the hoard of purloined gold was about to be revealed. However, we had reckoned without the devious and security-conscious mind of Everett Latimer.
Chapter Twenty
‘Kamerun, 1915
Our patrol had run into trouble. I and my companion were the only two survivors of the ambush. We had been walking for several hours, stalking our prey. Although we had killed our attackers, an hour later we had seen the lone figure of a German officer. Revenge for the deaths of our four comrades burned as fiercely as the African sun.