“Anyway,” the reverend continued, “only people authorized by the family are permitted to enter a mausoleum. There are no exceptions. To enter a mausoleum without permission is considered trespassing—not to mention bad taste.”
This was it. Colophon was headed for jail. How could she explain this to her mother?
“Again,” Julian interrupted, “I must accept full responsibility. I am the adult. The girl was only following me.”
Reverend Mackey looked over at Colophon. “Is that true?”
She looked down at her shoes. “No,” she replied in a low voice. “I can’t let Julian accept the blame. It was my idea.”
“I see,” said Reverend Mackey. “Well, I guess my hands are tied on this matter.”
“So you’re calling the police?” asked Colophon.
“No.”
“No?” repeated Julian.
“No.”
“But I thought only authorized—”
“That is correct,” said Reverend Mackey. “Only those who are authorized may enter the mausoleum. However, as odd and coincidental as it may seem, it appears that descendants of Miles Letterford are specifically authorized to access that particular mausoleum.”
Colophon and Julian stared at the reverend in disbelief.
“Authorized? But how?” she asked.
“Authorized by the man who built and paid for the mausoleum,” replied Reverend Mackey. “Miles Letterford himself.”
Of course! Colophon thought.
“And so,” continued Reverend Mackey, “although the hour you choose to access the mausoleum was, shall we say . . . unusual, you were quite authorized to do so. And so, with that, I think I will be getting back to the match I was watching when I was interrupted.”
Julian and Colophon stood up.
“I do want to apologize for any inconvenience we have caused,” said Julian.
“Think nothing of it,” replied Reverend Mackey. “Part of the job, I suppose.”
Reverend Mackey walked around the desk and shook Julian’s hand. He then turned to Colophon and extended his hand.
“It has been a pleasure, young Miss Letterford.”
Charlie Thompson had been the caretaker of the graveyard at Holy Trinity for fifteen years, and he took his job very seriously. Over the years, he had run off hundreds of teenagers, drunk university students, and other assorted miscreants. He once found a cow dressed as a matador grazing among the graves. As such, the evening’s events were not particularly unusual. Even so, Charlie realized that there was something different about the young girl and her disheveled cousin.
They were not teenagers walking through the graveyard on a dare.
They were not inebriated university students.
And they most certainly did not fit into the general miscreant category.
No, this was different.
Charlie pulled out his wallet and retrieved a small card from it. A phone number was printed on the card—nothing else. He stared at the number for a moment and then stuffed it back into his wallet.
It wouldn’t be right, he thought.
He paced along the stone path outside the door to the church. But would it be wrong?
It was just a little extra money.
Nothing wrong with that at all.
Besides, it wasn’t like anyone was going to get hurt.
After pacing for several minutes, he stopped. He had made up his mind. He retrieved the card from his wallet and dialed the number.
The phone rang twice.
“Yes?” a voice answered.
“Yes . . . uh . . . sir, this is Charlie Thompson. I work at the church in Stratford. I don’t know if you remember me?”
“I remember you,” the voice replied.
“Well, sir, you said you would make it worth my while to call you if anything strange happened—you know, not the usual strange—something strange strange.”
“And something of the sort has happened?”
“I should say so,” replied Charlie.
“Then, my friend, I will make it worth your while to share that information with me.”
Charlie explained the events of the evening in considerable detail, if not in complete chronological order.
“And what were the names of the vandals who broke into the mausoleum?” the voice asked.
“I didn’t quite catch their first names, sir, but the last name stuck with me—Letterford. Not a name you hear much, you know?”
There was no response. Charlie looked at his cell phone to make sure the call was still active. “Sir? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” the voice finally replied, “I am still here. You have done well, my friend. I assure you that Mrs. Thompson will be able to enjoy a splendid vacation in Bournemouth this summer.”
“Thank you, sir,” Charlie replied. “But there’s one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Well, sir, it’s just that I could’ve sworn I heard a door slam before I entered the mausoleum. I know that doesn’t make any sense—there’s no door in that mausoleum ’cepting the one I opened.”
“Of course there wasn’t another door,” the voice said calmly. “You know how these old structures are—particularly at night. They make the strangest sounds.”
“Well,” Charlie muttered, “I suppose you’re right. It’s been a long day. Anyway, the missus will sure appreciate the vacation.”
“I am sure she will,” replied the voice. “I am sure she will.”
The line clicked, and the call was over.
There—that wasn’t so bad, was it? Charlie thought.
New York City
Trigue James closed his cell phone and sat back to contemplate the news he had just received.
The Letterfords had made it to Stratford.
James was impressed. Treemont’s intuition had been correct—someone from the family had shown up at the church snooping around. Treemont had instructed James to have someone keep an eye on the church—“just in case,” he had said. It had seemed like a waste of time, and James had been extremely doubtful that anything would happen. After all, Treemont had never explained exactly why someone would show up at the church or what they would be looking for, and James had never asked. It wasn’t wise to ask too many questions in his line of work.
Still, James could not help but wonder. The connection between the church and Treemont’s efforts to take over the publishing company were not clear.
Curious.
But, James realized, that was a curiosity to be explored some other day. Right now he had to determine exactly what they had found at the church, if anything. He opened his laptop and started booking his flight to London. He would call Treemont on the way to the airport.
M40 Motorway
Wednesday, December 17, late evening
“I know where we’re supposed to go next!” Colophon blurted out as soon as she got into the car to return to London.
“But of course you do,” replied Julian. “I’m starting to get used to it. Well, don’t leave me waiting.”
“The moon. The moon is the clue!”
“Duh,” replied Julian. “I got that far. After all, that’s what the clue says—‘from the moon, knowledge.’”
“No. I know which moon,” corrected Colophon.
“There is more than one?”
“Actually, there are many,” replied Colophon, “but only one in our house.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just knew that I had seen the silver globe in Miles Letterford’s portrait before, but I couldn’t figure out where. Now I know. It’s part of the tellurion in our library. The silver globe in the painting is the moon in the tellurion in the Letterford library!”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Swifter Than the Wandering Moon
The Grand Library
London
Thursday, December 18
9:00 a.m.
Julian and Colophon stood in front of the tellurion in t
he library in London. Mounted above the fireplace, it appeared—at first glance—to be some sort of odd, misshapen clock. A large concave brass plate sat in the middle of the spectacular contraption and represented the sun. The earth—represented by a copper globe (which had oxidized over time into a soft green color) engraved with the latin term terra—was connected to the brass plate representing the sun by a sturdy brass rod. The moon—a small silver globe engraved with the latin term luna—was attached to the earth by means of another brass rod. The brass rods were, in turn, connected to the earth and moon in such a manner as to allow each sphere to rotate as it would in its natural orbit around the sun.
“I thought the tellurion was in Manchester,” said Colophon. “Isn’t this just a copy?”
“Actually,” replied Julian, “this is the original. It’s one of the few items from Miles’s library that was not transported to America. Apparently it’s bolted to the stone mantel in such a way that it cannot be removed without ripping out the entire works—which, if you think about it, is a bit of good luck for us, since we’re in London and not Manchester.”
“I don’t think luck has anything to do with it,” said Colophon. I think Miles Letterford wanted that machine to stay right where it is.”
Julian nodded in agreement. “That would make sense. And the moon is certainly an appropriate clue—very Shakespearean. The moon was practically a character in a couple of his plays.”
“Are you going to quote Shakespeare again?”
Julian smiled. “I am considering it.”
“OK,” replied Colophon, “let’s get it over with.”
Julian turned to her and took a short bow. “Thank you—here goes:
“‘We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wandering moon.’”
“Nice,” replied Colophon. “Are you done?”
“Yes—and for the record, I spent half the night trying to memorize it.”
Julian turned back toward the tellurion. “Actually, I was hoping there would be something in one of Shakespeare’s works that might help us—some clue. I came up with nothing but that quote. Unfortunately, we’re still left with the same question that has dogged us throughout this search—what next?”
Colophon pointed to a large brass box with a series of dials at the base of the tellurion. “I think we’re supposed to enter a date and see what happens.”
“OK, that makes sense,” replied Julian. “But what date? Miles Letterford’s birthday? The date the company was founded? The date of his firstborn child? There are so many possibilities!”
“Well,” said Colophon, “all the clues we’ve discovered so far have in some way looped back on one another.”
“How so?”
“Think about it—the painting in Manchester led us to the Shakespeare Monument in Stratford. The poem on the monument led us to a hidden copy of the monument under the church. The clue on that monument led us back to the painting, which led us to here.”
Julian nodded. “True, but where are we looping back to this time? I hope you aren’t suggesting that we need to go back to the church? I have a yearly limit on near-death experiences, and I’m maxed out for this year.”
“That won’t be necessary,” replied Colophon.
Julian paused and looked up at the tellurion and then at Colophon. “There’s no need to go back because you already know what we’re looking for, don’t you?”
Colophon grinned proudly. “Yes, as a matter of fact I believe I do.”
“And you were planning to keep me waiting for how long?”
“Oh, very well,” said Colophon. “The date we’re looking for is obviously the date of Shakespeare’s death—April 23, 1616. I knew the year he died from his grave, but not the day or month. I looked up the full date online last night. That has to be the answer!”
“Ahh,” said Julian, “so we loop back to the church itself? But why the date of his death and not his birth? April twenty-third was also the day he was born in 1564. Remember, he was baptized in the same church in which he is buried.”
The grin never left Colophon’s face. Julian realized immediately that she had already thought through this possibility.
“Because the clues were the monument and the mausoleum,” she noted.
“Of course,” said Julian. “And those clues relate to his death, not his birth.”
“Exactly!” she replied.
He pulled over a small stool and put it in front of the tellurion. “Madam,” he said, bending forward with a flourish of his arm, “you should have the honor.”
Colophon stepped up onto the stool and carefully turned the knobs on the tellurion.
The knob for the day, she set at twenty-three.
For the month—April.
There were two knobs for the year. The first she set to the number sixteen. The second she likewise set to the number sixteen.
She gave the key on the side of the box three turns to the right and then released it.
The key slowly started to unwind.
Colophon stepped off the stool and went back to Julian’s side.
Nothing happened at first.
Then three loud clicks.
CLICK CLICK CLICK
Julian backed away from the tellurion. “You know, I’m really not a fan of things that go ‘click’ since our incident in the graveyard.”
CLICK . . . Click . . . click.
Colophon took three steps back. “Good point,” she replied.
click . . . click
Suddenly, the silver globe started rotating counter- clockwise around the copper globe. Then—with a jerk—it stopped.
Another moment or so passed.
CLICK . . .
Finally, the copper globe—the earth—started to move smoothly around the brass plate representing the sun. The silver orb representing the moon started moving once again around the earth.
Julian and Colophon waited several minutes as the earth slowly encircled the sun. When the earth had made one full rotation, it stopped, as did the moon.
And then nothing.
Colophon and Julian looked at each other, perplexed.
Then three soft clicks:
click, click, click.
They looked back up at the tellurion.
click, click, click.
“I can’t tell where the clicking sound is coming from,” Colophon said, “but it doesn’t seem to be the same place as before.”
click, click, whirrrrrrrrrr . . . click.
She stepped back up on the stool.
“Be careful,” he said.
“The noise,” she replied. “It’s coming from the moon.”
Julian moved closer to the tellurion.
click, click.
Suddenly, the top of the small silver orb opened and rotated forward.
“C’mon, c’mon, I can’t see with you standing there,” exclaimed Julian. “What’s in it?”
Colophon grinned, looked down at Julian, and held aloft a small gold object for him to see. “I believe,” she said, “that it is a key.”
Colophon placed the gold object on the kitchen table. Julian pulled a small magnifying glass from inside his coat and bent over to examine it. It was definitely a key, approximately two inches long and gold or gold plated. Stamped into the end of the key was the outline of a fish, and inside the fish was stamped the word BARTWICK.
“Bartwick?” she asked as she looked over his shoulder. “What is a Bartwick? Is that another clue?”
Julian sat back in his chair. He pulled his glasses off and started cleaning them with a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Well?” asked Colophon.
He put his glasses back on and looked at her. “Do you know what this mark is?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” she said.
Julian pumped his fist in the air. “Finally,” he exclaimed, “I know something that my twelve-year-old second cousin does not!”
He held up the key. “After graduating
from college with a degree in sixteenth-century Lithuanian literature, I discovered, to my surprise, that there weren’t a lot of job opportunities in that particular field. I managed, however, to secure a job as a researcher for a London auction house. Among the items I researched were gold boxes, silverware, and other small but valuable trinkets. I saw this type of mark all the time—it’s a maker’s mark. It was placed on this key by the goldsmith who made it.”
“A goldsmith?”
“Yes, someone who worked with gold, and perhaps silver and other metals as well. The mark was required by the goldsmith’s guild so that people would know who made the object and to testify to its quality.”
“So Bartwick is not a thing? It’s a who?”
“Yes, a who. Bartwick—or more precisely Percy Bartwick—was a well-known goldsmith back in the time of Miles Letterford.”
“So, how does that help us?”
“Well, suppose you had something very valuable back in the early seventeenth century. Where would you keep it?”
“The bank?”
“There were no banks back then. So where else?”
“I’m guessing the goldsmith?”
“Exactly,” replied Julian. “Security was extremely important for a goldsmith, as you might imagine. After all, they worked with gold. Because of this, goldsmiths would keep valuable objects for customers—for a fee of course.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Colophon, “that there’s any chance that this particular goldsmith is still in business after four hundred years?”
“Oh, most certainly not. I am confident that Bartwick the goldsmith died centuries ago.”
Colophon sighed dejectedly. “So we have hit another wall.”
Julian peered over his glasses at her and grinned.
“Care for a walk about London this afternoon?” he asked.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
To Listen After News
London
Thursday, December 18
Secrets of Shakespeare's Grave Page 13