A floor above, a uniformed security officer momentarily glanced about.
“What was that?” he said to his colleague.
“What?” asked the other.
“Didn’t you feel it?”
“I felt nothing. What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. It almost . . . but that’s impossible,” he added, shaking his head.
“What’s impossible?”
“It almost . . . for a moment I thought I felt an earthquake.”
“Now I know you’re going loony, mate!”
“You’re probably right—don’t even know what one feels like. But for just the briefest instant the ground seemed to tremble.”
“Probably just the tube rumbling by.”
“Why have I never felt it before, then?”
It was silent a moment.
“Maybe I imagined it,” he added at length. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
Seven
In his bed in Cumbria, Andrew Trentham lay awake. Blair was still on his mind.
What time was it? he wondered. It must be one or two in the morning.
He had arrived at the estate sometime after eleven. He had spoken briefly with his mother and father, but with some maneuvering had managed to avoid the subject of Blair. He would tell them about her tomorrow. He wasn’t up to it tonight.
Besides, what could he tell them? He was still confused about it himself.
What had happened? he asked himself for the fiftieth time.
Where had the relationship taken such a wrong turn?
He thought back to the night they had first met three years before. He had been smitten overnight. How could he help it . . . with that hint of a Swedish accent that betrayed her upbringing in Stockholm, where her father had served with the British Foreign Service . . . the long, lively blond hair and deep blue eyes that made her look more Scandinavian than English . . . the serious smile and the rare laugh?
Blair was beautiful, no doubt about that. Blair was intriguing, captivating.
But had Blair ever really loved him?
Maybe he had just deceived himself all along. He knew she saw other men from time to time, but he had assumed that the loyalty of his affections would win out in the end. Had it been wishful thinking from the beginning?
During the long drive north, he had tried to convince himself that he would go back to London next week and patch it up with her. They would talk and resolve whatever was on Blair’s mind. Then he would give her the ring.
But as he lay in the silence of the night replaying today’s conversation in his mind, Andrew realized he had been naive. Blair was not coming back. There was no mistaking the tone in her voice. As much as he might not want to recognize the fact, she didn’t want to make it up with him. The relationship was over.
The realization hurt. Not merely that he had lost her, but that he had been so oblivious that it was coming. How could he have been so blind as to be rehearsing words of proposal when his intended fiancée was getting ready to dump him!
He felt like a fool. Here he was a grown man, a member of Parliament, and a popular one at that. The moment the election date was announced, he would probably take a commanding lead in the polls to be returned to his seat in the House of Commons. And yet he felt like a jilted schoolboy.
In the black quiet of night, even the fact that he had a career that would be the envy of any man in Britain didn’t seem to matter. All he could think about was the loss of someone he had cared for.
Slowly Andrew Trentham dozed off into a fitful sleep, wondering vaguely to himself what his future held.
Eight
In London, another hour passed.
A janitor walked down the stairs into the southwest basement of Westminster Palace beneath the Royal Gallery.
A peculiar sound met his ear. He paused to listen. Whatever it was, he had never heard it before. It sounded almost like underground machinery. He turned and hurried back upstairs to alert security.
Five minutes later, two uniformed officers entered the basement. They cocked their heads and listened, then shrugged. Whatever it was, the sound had disappeared.
“I don’t hear anything,” said the man in charge. “But we probably ought to notify the Yard.”
Nine
I’ve nearly got this floor stone dislodged,” said a man’s voice. “—we’re almost through. Give me a hand.”
At the end of the tunnel they had just completed, the coordinator of the underground team of burglars motioned to the two other men. They squeezed in beside him and with a final effort shoved the ancient tile up and to one side. It slammed down upon its neighbors, sending a dull and stony echo into the blackness. The next instant, with hands busy helping and pushing, the first of them scrambled up into the once-again silent vault, then leaned back down to help up his three comrades.
Beams from four flashlights panned about as the intruders stood and looked around the chamber into which they had just broken. It contained surprisingly modern-looking equipment and racks of linen and priests’ robes.
“Where are we, Malloy?”
“In the laundry beneath the Chapter House,” answered the man called Malloy. “We’re next to the main floor. It won’t be long now.”
He proceeded to examine the walls and corners and recesses of the room, eventually satisfying himself of his bearings. “This way,” he said. “Through one more wall and we’re there.”
They followed with their equipment, and soon the final few yards of boring had begun. Thirty minutes later, the four stood in the south transept of the main floor of Westminster Abbey, in what was called Poet’s Corner.
“Keep quiet,” whispered Malloy. “Black Watch guards are stationed outside near all the entrances.”
“Where is the Stone?”
“Unless they’ve already moved it and the chair to the sanctuary, it should be just behind the Chapel of Edward the Confessor, where it was before. This way.”
Three figures hurried off, following the speaker. The fourth, however, stood as if in a daze, an uncharacteristic wave of historic nostalgia sweeping over her.
“Fiona, stop gazing about like a tourist,” said one of the men.
“But I’ve never been here before. There’s so much . . . history. . . .”
The young woman continued to gaze about. Now Malloy turned.
“Not our history, Fiona,” he said. “It’s England’s history. But not ours. This is an English monument, Fiona. Now come, this is no time for sightseeing. This is a time to make our ancestors proud.”
Almost reluctantly, she complied. In another few moments they were behind the historic chapel and standing before the coronation chair, under which rested the ancient and sacred Celtic stone.
“All right, lads and lassie,” said Malloy, “time for us to get to work so we can get out of here. The night is passing quickly. The tourists have had their two weeks gawking at it. Now it’s our turn.”
“I still don’t see why we didn’t just hide inside until the Abbey was closed for the night,” whispered one of the men as they set to work.
“That’s what the four students did fifty years ago,” replied their leader. “Since then they’ve tightened up security. If we tried that and then broke out through the door, we’d never make it past Parliament Square—especially trying to carry the Stone. We want to get in and out undetected. By the time this night’s over, we’ll have the Stone, the chair will still be in place, and our entry tunnel will be sealed. They won’t have a clue what happened. We’ll be down the Thames and those guards out front will still be standing freezing in their kilts.”
It took the better part of forty minutes to remove the coronation chair and dislodge the weighty chunk of sandstone from its resting place. At last they had it on the floor, securely wrapped in a thick blanket, and laced about with heavy carrying straps. With each of the four lifting the corners by the two sets of straps, the weight was easily managed.
Slowly they
left the Chapel, this time through the North Ambulatory and around past the front of the chancel.
“What’s that little red light up there?” whispered Fiona.
The other three looked up.
“It’s a motion detector!” exclaimed one.
“Keep your voice down,” whispered Malloy angrily. “Everyone stop where you are.”
For several tense seconds he stared up at the tiny red spot, which was now flashing on and off rapidly. “How could we have been so careless?” he muttered.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“It’s a silent alarm,” he replied. “It’s probably already sounding at Scotland Yard. I just hope we didn’t set one off when we came in.”
“I didn’t see anything till we came around this way.”
“We might have been lucky. No matter—we’ve tripped this one now, so we’re not doing any good standing here. Let’s go—we’ve got to move fast.”
Hurriedly they resumed their escape, retracing their steps to Poet’s Corner, where they had gained entry. Malloy and Fiona stepped down. Carefully, the remaining two eased their cargo through the opening after them. Malloy dragged it out of their way. They followed, replacing the grate above them. In another ten minutes, after much laborious pushing and shoving, the Stone and its four thieves stood again in the laundry, where their supplies and equipment still lay.
They set down their blanketed load to take a breather, then began moving toward the darkened tunnel from which they had come earlier.
“Get in . . . careful with the Stone,” said Malloy. “I’ll mix up the mortar and try to get this floor stone back in place after us. You three start back through the tunnel with the Stone. I’ll catch up with you. Even if one of us should happen to get caught, we’ve got to make sure the Stone is safe.”
Ten
Inspector Shepley of Scotland Yard glanced about the basement room under the Royal Gallery at the south end of the Palace of Westminster, to which he had been summoned. A half dozen of the Palace’s night security guards stood waiting, as if expecting him to see or hear or otherwise detect something suspicious.
All was silent and still.
“You say it felt like a momentary earthquake?” said Shepley, turning toward one of the men.
“I know it sounds a bit daft, sir. But I thought I felt the ground shake, just for a second.”
“And then?”
“Nothing more, sir. Been quiet ever since.”
“Probably a barge running into the embankment . . . or the tube.”
“The tube doesn’t run this time of night, sir.”
“Hmm, yes—you’re right. You checked everything else—all the entries, nothing on the security monitors, no alarms . . . the roof radar?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Shepley turned and headed back toward the stairs.
“Well, we’ll do a perimeter check,” he said, “and get the information from the monitors for all the doors and windows. Better to be safe, you know. In the meantime, station one of your men down here. If he hears anything else, or if he feels something, get in touch with me, and we’ll install a seismic monitor and get to the bottom of this.”
He led the way upstairs and toward the security headquarters for the Palace. Halfway there, however, the inspector’s mobile phone rang inside his coat.
Shepley pulled it out and answered it. The message was brief. He turned and headed for the outer exit.
“Sorry, men, you’re on your own here!” he said. “Whatever problems you’ve got will have to wait. It appears that someone’s just broken into Westminster Abbey!”
Eleven
As the river boat approached the rendezvous point, its skipper heard the unmistakable sounds of alarms going off in the city. And too nearby for comfort.
“What’s going on, Cruim?” he whispered anxiously into the radio.
“Don’t know,” said the lookout onshore.
“Have you heard from the others?”
“Ten minutes ago they were in the chamber suiting up. All but Malloy. He was behind them.”
“Well, they’d better be there or I’m not waiting around. Look, you’ve done your job for now. Wander over and see if you can tell what the commotion’s about.”
“If I get nabbed with this transmitter on me—”
“If you start to get nabbed, ditch it. Just get over there and find out if this has anything to do with us.”
At almost the same moment, sounds came from under the boat. Ferguson heard a splash, then a head appeared out of the water.
“Get us out of here, Ferguson,” it said.
“All of you attached? Where’s Fiona?”
“She’s here. We’re all here,” said Malloy. “—we’re ready. But take it slow.”
“You got it?”
“We’ve got it. But it’s heavy. We don’t want to lose it, or drown ourselves. Just get us past Charing Cross, then we’ll load in.”
“All right—get back out of sight.”
Ferguson throttled gently forward, then turned the wheel slightly and made for the center of the river.
Twelve
The main floor of Westminster Abbey rarely saw so much activity at the height of the tourist season as on this February morning between half past three and four in the morning. Two dozen uniformed policemen and plainclothes detectives from Scotland Yard moved about, looking for any sign of vandalism or intrusion.
Nothing was found disturbed, nor was a trace of life to be found, although admittedly there might easily be a thousand places for someone to hide.
“Search every corner,” called out Inspector Shepley, “and all the outer chapels. Whatever’s going on, we’ve got to make sure no one’s trying to sabotage the coronation.”
It might have taken an hour or more to find anything out of the ordinary had not one of the officers been a Scotsman who had been hoping for an opportunity to see the Stone of Scone during its two-week public display prior to the coronation and now moved as quickly as professionalism would allow in the direction of the Coronation Chair. A minute later his voice was heard throughout the Abbey.
“Back here, Inspector,” he cried. “The Stone is gone!”
Running footsteps brought everyone to the scene. There could be no doubt now as to the purpose of the break-in.
“Spread out!” ordered Shepley. “I want every inch of this place searched with a fine-toothed comb. They might still be here. If not, they couldn’t possibly have made off with the Stone without being noticed. I want it found!”
Six or seven minutes later Shepley was summoned. He hurried along the stone floor to the Poet’s Corner.
“Look, sir,” said one of the detectives, “right beside Sir Henry Irving and Sir Laurence Olivier . . . this last grate looks like it’s been tampered with.”
Shepley knelt down. The metal grate covering a subfloor ventilation shaft did indeed appear to have been recently moved.
“It couldn’t be possible. . . .” he mumbled to himself, already mentally assessing the size of the grate in relation to the Stone. The grate appeared about twenty-six inches wide—clearly sufficient for a human body to squeeze through, and probably wider than the Stone as well.
“And if you’ll permit me, sir,” the detective went on, “where the shaft extends under the wall, just there under the three Brontë sisters, there appears what looks to be a crack, sir.”
A half dozen flashlights instantly probed the spot.
The next instant, Shepley had the grate lifted for the second time that night and clanging upon the stone floor. He probed with his light into the tight, dark tunnel which was revealed beneath it.
“Get in there, someone—see where it goes.”
Two or three men scrambled and squeezed down into the floor to carry out his order. Moments later they had disappeared. Those clustered about the opening waited. Two minutes later, one of the men crawled back through.
“It’s a tunnel all the way to the basement laundry, Ins
pector.”
“Any sign of the Stone?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Let’s have a look. Come on, men.”
On hands and knees, a dozen of Scotland Yard’s finest now made their way until they emerged, standing once again, in the silent and little-known laundry of Westminster Abbey.
“Over here, Inspector,” called one of the first three, who had been examining the room as they came. “I think I may have found something.”
Shepley hurried to the scene and knelt down where he was pointing. Beams from a dozen or more flashlights illuminated the square of flagstone with a suspicious bead of strange coloration around its perimeter. Shepley probed its edge with a finger.
“The mortar’s still soft,” he said, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. “And a rather crude job of it. Whoever’s responsible must have been trying to seal this stone from underneath. What’s below here?” he said, turning to one of the Abbey guards who had followed.
“Nothing, sir,” the man replied. “This is the bottom level. Though they say there’s crypts all through the area.”
Shepley looked around to some of his men.
“Get it up,” he said. “Pry it loose however you can.”
Several knives and a screwdriver were produced. One of the edges was lifted slightly, then fingers and hands stooped to grab hold. The stone was lifted back and set aside. Flashlights immediately probed the tunnel below. It was clearly fresh, and larger than that through which they had crawled from the Abbey to the laundry. One of Shepley’s men climbed down, finding firm earth about five feet below the level of the floor. He directed his light into the passage leading away.
“What can you see?” Shepley called down.
“It’s a tunnel, all right . . . some leftover supplies, a small bag of dry mortar, the container they brought the water to mix it in.”
“Which way does it lead?” said Shepley.
“Seems to be east.”
“Toward the Parliament buildings!” exclaimed Shepley. “That’s what they heard over there.”
Legend of the Celtic Stone Page 3