AHMM, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "No one troubles me for them, sweepie, and only I know where they are.” By the way he glanced down at his shirt I had a good notion, too, but didn't like to mention this. “Here's the chimney, sweepie,” Mr. Hardcastle said firmly, obviously thinking this was quite enough talk about keys, “and don't you go telling me my ghost's just a column of fog. I tell you, Anne Boleyn's hiding up there."

  "She wears a big skirt,” Ned piped up solemnly. “It would get stuck."

  "The lad's right, George,” his wife assured him. “That proves it's not her but an evil spirit of hell come to torment us."

  I decided it was time for Ned to put his tuggy cloth over the chimney so we could get started.

  "Tell me, Mr. Hardcastle,” I asked casually, as Ned did so. “What does Queen Anne Boleyn look like—transparent?"

  "From all accounts, she shimmers and hovers."

  I tut-tutted. “Poor lady. Does she always have her head when she walks?"

  He hesitated. “Bits of it, I'm told. I haven't seen her myself."

  Bits of it? This interested me even more, but Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle were looking meaningfully at the chimney, anxious not to talk about ghosts, but to get rid of the one they had. I poked my head up the chimney, murmuring ooh and ah and humming like any physician while I summed up the problem. Then I got my machine working and did the cleaning.

  "There's been something very nasty here all right,” I pronounced diplomatically, when the process was over. Again I spoke the truth. There had been some very nasty smelly soot, which comes of unpleasant rubbish being put on the fire. “You'll have no more trouble, Mr. Hardcastle,” I assured him. “Keep a small fire going to scare the lady away. Smoke her out like wasps and bees."

  "I'm grateful to you, sweepie. Here's your sixpence.” A silver piece was duly handed over to me, and Mrs. Hardcastle beamed with relief that she need fear no more.

  I coughed politely. “No further attack on the jewels is expected then? Extra guards, are there? I might have got rid of your little problem here, but suppose Anne Boleyn is walking to warn you of an attack on her jewels?"

  I thought this most cunning of me, but Mr. Hardcastle merely looked surprised. “Don't you fret about Her Majesty's Crown Jewels, sweepie. There's no safer place than the Tower of London. Every door is locked up at ten o'clock prompt, and the old portcullis in the Byward Tower is ready to come down if those Frenchies decide to invade or make a bid to storm the Jewel House. Not that that's likely."

  "No extra guards, then?"

  "Perhaps, sweepie,” he said with heavy irony, “you'd like to see for yourself just how safe those jewels are. Just to check I'm doing my job."

  "Why, that's mighty kind of you,” I accepted amiably. “Ned would enjoy that, too, wouldn't you, Ned?"

  "Yes, guv.” Ned looked wistfully at the hospitable Mrs. Hardcastle in the hope of another pie, but he knows his duty, does Ned.

  Mr. Hardcastle looked taken aback, but reluctantly agreed we could join the first visit of the day, now assembling outside the Jewel House entrance, so down we all went. Perhaps he thought I was planning a robbery of the jewels myself, for he stayed close at my side. He explained what we were doing there to the Yeoman of the Guard, whose job it was to take visitors round on behalf of the official Lady Exhibitor of the Jewels.

  The yeoman was a jolly-looking fellow called Arthur, and Ned and I took to him immediately. I explained to Ned that this splendidly robed gentleman in scarlet and gold with an equally splendid black hat was unofficially called a Beefeater, but Ned's eyes fixed on the formidable pike he held.

  "Is that for killing the beef?” he asked.

  I didn't know the answer to this, so I hastily began to talk to Arthur's wife Lily, a small wiry bundle of energy, who told me they had both lived at the tower for many years, and were well used to ghosts.

  Arthur firstly assured the assembled company that we need not fear them for they only walked by night, although few here looked as though they feared anything very much. There were several foreign visitors, judging by their voices and strange clothes, a woman and four men, and a gentleman called Mr. Mortmain, who was the influential Secretary to the Constable of the Tower himself. Secretary or not, he looked as slimy as Black Daniel at the Paddy Goose Pub. As Mr. Hardcastle explained our presence, Mr. Mortmain turned away, averting his eyes from our black faces and holding his nose from our smell. A gentleman indeed.

  Lily didn't seem to mind our smell. As she was one of the tower cleaners, she was used to dirt, she said. She might be advancing in years, but she was determined not to give up her job, and came on every single group visit she could in case one of the visitors dropped rubbish that needed clearing up.

  "What would Her Majesty say if I stopped working before her?” she pointed out. “The young folks of today don't know one end of a broom from the other. Her Majesty and I work together, see; she owns the tower and I clean it. We're a team."

  "Did you see Anne Boleyn's ghost last night?” I asked her. If this sensible lady had seen her, I had some hard thinking to do, especially as I ran my eye over the group once more.

  She eyed me. “I saw her, Mr. Wasp.” She had been polite enough to enquire my name. “Just going home I was, when she passed me glowing in the dark. I ran home to tell Arthur there might be trouble, but by the time he got here it was too late. She'd gone, and the poor soldier was lying dead."

  Before I could enquire further, Beefeater Arthur led the group through the gates and into the dark chamber where the jewels were kept. We all gathered together by the iron barrier in front of the jewels: men, women, children—and sweeps. We ain't popular in confined spaces, but everyone was so eager to see the jewels that no one protested. The only lighting was from lamps attached to the barrier and facing the jewels, though there was a curtain dividing us from them at present.

  And then Arthur pulled back the curtain. We all gasped in wonder. Those golden crowns and other objects gleamed and shone, and the jewels glittered, as if alive behind the iron bars. They shone so bright, it was almost unnatural and I thought how easily fear might spread and turn the normal into something weird and strange. It was almost possible to believe in bears squeezing under doors to kill innocent sentries. I stared at Her Majesty's jewels; there was gold everywhere: crowns, diadems, staffs, sceptres, orbs, crosses, all decorated with precious stone like diamonds, emeralds, and pearls. But most of all, Ned's and my eyes fixed on Queen Victoria's state crown. Why I don't know. It had been made for her coronation, Arthur told us; and there it was, purple velvet, silver, diamonds, sapphires—and one huge uncut but shiny ruby that to my mind put all the other jewels in the shade.

  We gazed at it, as Arthur talked of what each glorious golden object was, but our interest was in this crown. And we weren't the only ones. Others’ eyes were fixed on it, too, as though it alone held some compelling secret.

  "Guv,” Ned whispered at my side, pointing to it. “What's that red boiled egg doing in it?"

  "That's no boiled egg, young man,” my new friend Lily told him. “That's a ruby. Don't you know your Bible? Her Majesty's price is far above rubies."

  "Can't she afford anything better then?” Ned was puzzled.

  "That ruby,” Arthur boomed, seeing everyone's interest fixed on it now, “belonged to the Black Prince, the son of Edward III. He did a lot fighting in France against the French."

  "Why did he have a red egg?” Ned's voice piped up.

  "It was a present from a king."

  "The French king?"

  "No. The French didn't like him, because he kept on winning battles against them on their own land. So did Henry V, years later at Agincourt, and he was wearing that ruby in his helmet too. Gave them real good hiding, did Henry. So the ruby has become a sort of symbol for the French; they'd like to have it because it would be like winning those battles after all this time. Revenge, lad, revenge."

  I thought there were even more pressing reasons than that for French interest in this ruby now. I'd heard tal
es in the London docks of how there are many in France want to see the old royal family back on the throne and away with these Bonapartes. What better trick, it occurred to me, than to steal the Queen of England's crown with the Black Prince's ruby in it and bring about bad feeling between our two countries. Napoleon would think its theft a trick by the British to discredit him, and Britain would assume he'd stolen it.

  "Would they try to steal this crown then?” Ned asked, round eyed.

  There was an eerie silence, broken at last by Arthur's booming laughter.

  "There's only been one attempt to steal the crown jewels,” he guffawed. “That was hundreds of years ago in the 1600s, when Colonel Blood and his men tried to steal them from the Martin Tower. They were all caught, and the regalia mostly recovered. The remarkable result was that though the keeper was badly injured, Blood's fortune was made. He was summoned by the king and given an income for life. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the world for you. That's life,” he finished jovially.

  As we all trooped out, I heard a far-from-jovial Arthur draw Mr. Hardcastle aside. “George, keep good watch tonight. I'm not happy, and that's a fact."

  George Hardcastle pooh-poohed this notion, assuring Arthur that no one had access to his keys, so Lily put in a word too. “That Anne Boleyn might be back, George,” she said.

  "Sweepie's taken care of the ghost,” George told her smugly.

  "Ah, but you can't swear you've caught Anne Boleyn, can you?” Lily asked me sharply.

  "No,” I answered with relief, hoping this might convince even Mr. Hardcastle.

  I saw him looking most unhappy at the thought of that ghost still being around and realised that Ned and I had a chance of serving our queen that evening. “If we might stay here tonight,” I offered, “I'd be glad to stay to see that queen doesn't get in here by mistake.” And seeing their faces, I added quickly, “Outside of course. Not here with the jewels."

  "It's highly irregular,” Mr. Hardcastle answered doubtfully.

  "So are ghosts,” Lily pointed out tartly, and with this in mind he agreed. Ned might sleep on the Martin Tower entrance floor, and I could keep watch over the Jewel House entrance from the steps of the Martin Tower. The Jewel House could not be entered but by the gates. Two new sentries would be outside the Jewel House, I was told, and I promised to keep good watch for any ghostly bears slithering under the Jewel House gates, as well as for Anne Boleyn trying to walk through them.

  For the rest of that day I tried to think things through, as Ned and I wandered round to see the other parts of the old tower and marvelled at its history. At last an idea came to me, and convinced it was right, I passed it on to Arthur, as an East End sweep's word would carry little weight with the Colonel of the Regiment responsible for the military guard, let alone the constable himself.

  "Just a precaution,” I told Arthur gravely.

  "And a good one, Mr. Wasp,” he agreed heartily.

  George Hardcastle was uneasy enough to join me on my watch over the sentries. Fearing there might be dirty work afoot tonight, I sent Ned up to Mrs. Hardcastle, cross though he was at missing the chance of seeing Anne Boleyn. As we stood at the top of the first flight of steps to the Martin Tower, I was glad of George's company, for all I could make out in the darkness were those two stalwart sentries so close. We looked out like kings ourselves upon the old fortress spread out below us. The barracks, with most of the tower regiment within it, was but a stone's throw away. Before us across the way from the Jewel House was the Map Office and beyond that to the right I could just make out part of the White Tower built by William the Conqueror to keep his enemies away. Would that it still could! In an hour or so the Ceremony of the Keys would take place, and all exits to the tower would be locked. No one could pass in or out until dawn after that, so if the ghost was going to walk she had to do it soon.

  Even the tower cannons would have no defence against a ghost. I shivered, wondering at where my thoughts were leading me, for suddenly I was full of fear. It was a ghost, emerging from the gap between the Map House and the White Tower and floating towards the Jewel House, shimmering across the ground; it was the glow from a white-clad woman, and other shapes after her, also glowing. Tricks of the light, I told myself, but I knew these were no tricks. I saw no head to her at first, but momentarily it was there, pale and faint. It disappeared once again, and I felt my legs wobble as it reappeared glowing and tucked beneath Her Majesty's arm. As the ghost neared the Jewel House, however, she vanished.

  So did the sentries. With a yell they disappeared into the darkness, just as George and I forced ourselves to hurry down the second flight of steps and rush towards the ghosts. There they were, Anne Boleyn shimmering at the Jewel House gates, and one, two, three others. Had she brought her murdering husband Henry VIII with her, together with all his other wives? My reason seemed to have deserted me along with the sentries.

  A screech came from George Hardcastle, who had fallen on his knees requesting help from heaven, since the military had departed so completely.

  Now the screech was mine, as I reached the first ghost and found it all too solid. It pushed both me and George to the ground, and when we picked ourselves painfully up, the ghosts had gone. They were inside the outer gates set in the facade to the Jewel House, and so were probably already in the chamber itself helping themselves to the jewels.

  The ghosts had thoughtfully unlocked the gates for us so George and I were set to rush in after them, but then—as I had arranged with Arthur—all the Queen's regimental guard thundered to the rescue. And a welcome sight they were, even if the first two or three did think we were the villains. That was quickly sorted out and I could stand aside. It was time for George to be the hero now.

  Only one of the robbers—for of course that's what the ghosts were—was not caught inside. He came out, still glowing in parts, rushing through the passageway and towards the only exit still open, through the Byward Tower and out across the moat. But there was no escape there, for the signal had been given for the old portcullis to be lowered, and groaning and rumbling, it was already nearing the ground. The great old tower defences performed their duty as the iron spikes reached down to the earth beneath them or for anyone rash enough to try to slither under them.

  Thus the last of the thieves was caught. French royalists, as we'd suspected; all men, one dressed as Anne Boleyn, the others as her ghostly swains. It had been their plan to walk by night for several evenings in a row, so that fear and panic might spread in order to gain them precious minutes for their evil deeds. But on the previous evening, the sentry had been made of stern stuff and chased after them, hence his death, poor man. At least I had helped restore his reputation, but as for his life, I could work no miracles on that.

  There was no going home that night. The best brains of Scotland Yard, the colonels and generals of the military, the Constable of the Tower, and George, as deputy Keeper of the Jewels, were gathered together. Were it not for the fact that Arthur swore that I had suggested he tipped them off, it would have gone badly with Ned and me. Even so, they checked our cleaning machine to ensure we had nothing irregular inside.

  And why was that?

  Because though the doors to the jewel case were still firmly locked, Queen Victoria's state crown, with the Black Prince's ruby, was missing.

  * * * *

  Well, there was a hue and cry inside the tower all that night to find out where the thieves had hidden that crown. I thought they might even be dragging the old torture rack out to interrogate the thieves, so great was the alarm. Every nook and cranny in every building of the Tower of London was searched, everyone roused from their beds for their homes to be torn apart, every suit of armour carefully examined. When that produced nothing, it was agreed the moat would have to be searched on the morrow as the thief must have thrown the crown over the wall. The trouble was that would mean the news would be public, and even Her Majesty Queen Victoria herself might come scurrying over to see how this calamity could have h
appened.

  Mr. Hardcastle was interrogated most thoroughly as to whether his keys had been stolen, in particular that to the jewels themselves, but I was witness that he had his keys with him all the time. I saw them round his neck as I heaved him to his feet at the Jewel House gate.

  At last in the morning, Ned and I were let go. We had a business to run, after all.

  "You'll have some breakfast before you go?” Mrs. Hardcastle asked Ned, who answered for both of us.

  "Yes please, missis."

  The fire in their sitting room was not yet lit. I watched it, half expecting a phantom to appear, but it did not. I had proved there were no ghosts, only human bodies with phosphorous paste and black shawls to hide it when they pleased. Something bothered me, though. Why, if these human ghosts had stolen the crown, did they bother to lock the jewels up again afterwards? And of course there was still the unanswered question: How did the thieves obtain the keys in the first place, both those to the gates and to the jewels?

  We were about to leave, greatly distressed at the loss of the crown. Ned was almost crying to think that that lovely red boiled egg had vanished. Then a great shout went up from outside. It was Arthur, banging on the Martin Tower door and yelling his head off. George Hardcastle rushed down, with me hobbling behind on my bowed legs as fast as I could.

  Arthur couldn't even speak, so excited was he, and we followed him into the Jewel House chamber, where he just pointed.

  The crown was back! And the door to the cage was still locked.

  Well, the sentries swore that no one had passed that morning, not since the gates had been locked up after the policemen and military had finished their searches. So how could this have happened? Everyone thought it truly was a phantom this time, and the authorities were so happy the crown was back they didn't enquire too closely into how this came to pass. The crown jeweller came hurrying over to verify the jewels, including the ruby, were all genuine, so no one worried much about how this could have happened.