“I can guarantee you it’ll be more fun when we track down this Vanessa Carlson woman and get to talk to Jessica Henshawe. As a matter of fact, you could do the interviews. Right up your street.”
“Be glad to.”
Thinking about the two women reminded Kingston that he hadn’t heard from Tyler or Cassie Holbrook. He’d promised to call back about the mystery woman who was so interested in the frieze.
Waiting at a traffic light, Andrew took another furtive glance in the mirror.
“Why do you keep looking in the mirror?” asked Kingston, finally curious.
“Just checking to see if we’re being followed, that’s all.”
Kingston just shook his head.
* * *
Back at his flat at five o’clock, he found a note on the coffee table from Mrs. Tripp.
Dear Doctor,
I left a little early today to take Tinker to the vet. I left a Cornish pasty in the fridge, thinking that you might not want to cook tonight after being gone all day.
I’ll see you next week.
* * *
Underneath was scrawled a large G, which stood for Gertrude—a revelation that Kingston had discovered only recently, though she’d charred for him for over five years. It mattered little because he’d never be able to call her Gertrude.
After inspecting Mrs. Tripp’s pasty—it looked authentic and appetizing, with a nice golden crust—and checking his mail, he poured himself a drink and sat on the sofa to call Tyler Holbrook. Their young daughter, whose name he recalled was Libby, answered, in the same polite manner as on his last call, saying that her daddy was not home but her mommy was and that she would go find her.
Kingston thanked her, telling her who he was.
“I remember you,” she said. “You’re the man with the nice voice.”
Cassie came on the line. “Dr. Kingston. Good to hear from you.” Kingston found the Southern drawl melodious and pleasing, much as many Americans find the English accent charming. “How’s that investigation of yours goin’?”
“Not making as much progress as I’d like, sorry to say.”
“Tyler’s back in Boston for a few days. Should I have him call you? I’ll be talking to him tonight. Pity you’re not closer to Banbury. I could have him bring you back a couple of lobsters, too.”
“That would be nice. Thanks for the thought. Actually, it’s you I wanted to talk to—to ask you a question about the frieze.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve solved the mystery of the letters on the envelope.”
“I wish I had. No, it’s about the woman who called you some time ago, inquiring about it. Your husband mentioned her. He thought it was around the beginning of the year.”
“Yes. I remember her well. She was very persistent, wanted to see it.”
“I take it you never actually met her?”
“I didn’t. She called initially asking about the house, saying that she was a freelance writer working on an article about historic houses in Oxfordshire and had found that ours was listed and could she see it. I told her that it was impossible because we were in the middle of restoring it and that there wasn’t much to see. I went on to say that we’d be happy to show it to her when we were finished— that’s when she asked about the frieze. I told her it had been taken down and sold.”
“Did she say how she’d heard about it?”
“No. I didn’t think to ask at the time. I assumed that it must have been from a history book or something of that sort.”
“Your husband said that her name was Baker, or a name sounding like that.”
“I think it was Blakely. Anne Blakely. I wouldn’t be sure, though. There was no reason for me to remember it.”
It was probably insignificant, Kingston thought. It could have easily been an alias.
“Did she leave a phone number or any way to contact her?” he asked.
“No. And I didn’t think to ask.”
“Was there anything else?”
“There was. She wanted to know if our contractor had removed the frieze or if it had been someone else, like a specialist. That’s when I started to get suspicious. It seemed an odd question for a writer.”
“Did you tell her about the secret compartment, finding the hidden envelope?”
“Odd you’d ask that, Doctor. It was as if she knew the frieze might have concealed something—she might have even mentioned ‘some papers.’ She didn’t say it in so many words, but I remember wondering at the time if she didn’t know more than she was letting on.” She paused, and Kingston could hear her daughter’s voice in the background. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Libby was asking if you were coming to see us.” She chuckled. “I’ve taken the liberty of telling her that you’re a private eye.”
“I’d best remember that, should I get to meet her.”
“In answer to your question, just to get rid of the woman, I told her that we did find some papers but they contained only historical notes related to the house and nothing else. She asked if she could get copies of them, saying that the information might be of great help to her work. I simply told her that I didn’t have them, because we were compiling a scrapbook of Winterborne, and they were with a company that was preserving them. By this time a little red light was flashing in my head warning me not to tell her anything more—to end the conversation.”
“And you did?”
“Yep.”
“Earlier, you said, ‘when she called initially.’ Did she call a second time?”
“She did. I was surprised. She said that she’d like to see Winterborne when it was completed and it was convenient, but meantime she was still anxious to learn as much as she could about the frieze. I told her that I’d told all I knew, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She wasn’t exactly rude—just determined. She said she was calling back because she’d like to talk to the people we’d sold it to so that she could take a picture of it, if it was okay with us. She also asked if I would give her the name and number of the company that had dismantled it. Why she would want to talk to them, I have no idea. I told her that if she left her phone number I would ask the buyer and have him call her.”
“She didn’t leave a number, I take it?”
“She didn’t.”
“I’m not surprised. Anything else you can remember about what she said, an accent?”
“Not really. No, wait. Her voice.”
“Her voice?”
“Yes. It was husky. Like she might be a smoker. That’s all.”
At least that was something, Kingston thought, making a mental note.
“I thought Tyler had told you about all this?” Cassie said.
“No, he said he’d get back to me.”
“He must have thought I’d called. Sorry. He’s usually so dependable in that sense.”
“Not to worry, he’s a busy man by the sound of it. I do have one last question, if that’s all right?”
“Sure.”
“The cubbyhole that held the letters. Do you recall which letter tile covered it?”
Another pause followed. “Gracious me, I can’t remember. Is it important?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You know who might know? Libby. She’s been making up mystery stories about it and helping her dad with the scrapbook. They’re having a great time with it. Hold on and I’ll ask her.”
In a minute she returned. “Libby is sure it was the letter ‘P’—as in ‘Precious.’ She remembered because she thought something precious should have been hidden behind it.”
“Smart girl.”
“She said her dad thought it was for ‘Proverbs.’”
“Proverbs? Why proverbs?”
“The quotation, it’s from the book of Proverbs. I thought you knew that.”
“I was told it was from Ecclesiastes.”
“No. We looked it up. The Kings James version.”
Kingston felt like a damned fool for not having verified it in the first place, r
ather than relying on the memory of the bloke in the pub. He thanked Cassie, saying that what she’d told him could turn out to be more valuable than she might realize and that he would let her know if he tracked down the mystery woman. He asked her to thank Libby, too, but thought it premature to tell her that her daughter’s remembering the letter of the tile could become a factor in helping solve the riddle of the Winterborne frieze.
Kingston topped up his drink and went to his study. He took out the Winterborne code from his file and a notepad from his desk drawer.
He wrote the alphabet on one line and, underneath, PROVEBS, the key phrase, with the single repeated letter R removed.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
PROVEBS
Then, after the S, he added the remaining letters of the alphabet, skipping any that were already in PROVEBS. He checked to make certain that all the letters of the alphabet appeared on the lower line, with none repeated. One simple slip and the ciphertext would not function. It appeared to be correct.
Next, he placed the Winterborne code below the two lines and started to transpose the matching letters of the code from the lower line, cipher alphabet, to the plain alphabet above.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
PROVEBSTUWXYZACDFGHIJKLMNQ
HEPYEVUAOTJGOTNPGVITUGINICHUM
ZCGIPYHUAUASJUYIGUVVEARGUOXH
The first letter of the Winterborne code was H. On the second-line cipher alphabet it was paired with S on the plain alphabet above. The second letter, E, became E, and P became A. As he wrote the letters SEA on his pad, his pulse quickened. The next letter would be critical. He took a deep breath, and when he saw that the next letter, Y, was paired with L, he exhaled loudly.
He was on to something.
Within seconds he had three words: a complete phrase. SEALED IN CHURCHYARD.
He’d done it. He’d broken the first part of the code.
He looked up at the ceiling, punching his fists in the air. He wanted to call Andrew—somebody—but restrained himself. He went back to finish decrypting. Another two minutes and it was done. He leaned back and studied the full message:
HEPYEVUAOTJGOTNPGVITUGINICHUM
SEALEDINCHURCHYARDTHIRTYTOSIX
ZCGIPYHUAUASJUYIGUVVEARGUOXH
MORTALSININGUILTRIDDENBRICKS
He read it again:
Sealed in churchyard thirty to six.
Mortal sin in guilt ridden bricks
As he stared at it, trying to make out what it meant, his euphoria abated. After all this, he’d been expecting the message to provide specific information or, at the very least, some kind of direction or clue telling how to proceed.
Instead, he was looking at a damned riddle.
TWENTY-FIVE
Saturday evening found Kingston and Andrew, limbs aching and fagged out, sitting on Andrew’s terrace at Bourne End, each with a gin and tonic. The sun was dipping across the river, burnishing ripples of gold on the slow-flowing jade water. Only the twitter of aerial-feeding martins and nightjars broke the stillness as they swooped and dived along the river at lightning speeds.
They’d both worked in the two-acre garden from early morning until six, with a short break for a boxed lunch that Andrew had ordered from a local café. Necessary watering had been completed first thing, a good soaking. The long lawn leading down to the river had been raked and mowed; gravel paths weeded, roses deadheaded, and beds given a fresh layer of mulch. Paintwork was touched up on the long arbor and planter boxes, colorful annuals had been planted to fill bare patches here and there, the terrace had been swept and hosed down, and sun umbrellas set up in seating areas. They’d also positioned a long table under an umbrella on the terrace for iced and hot tea, soft drinks, Pimm’s Cup, and a variety of biscuits and cakes.
When they’d first sat, Kingston had pulled out the decoded Winterborne message, determined to keep trying to find out what it meant. He’d shown it briefly to Andrew when he’d arrived so he was now familiar with it, too. “Damned thing’s infuriating,” said Kingston. “All this time and trouble to decrypt the code and what do we get? A blasted riddle.”
“I don’t get it either. If they wanted to make it almost impossible to solve, why bother with a code in the first place?”
Kingston nodded. “If we knew who ‘they’ are—or were—it might help in trying to read their minds.”
“Someone from the distant past—the 1700s, I suppose.”
“We know that, Andrew. Who exactly, though…”
“According to what Veitch said, one of the Morley family. Yes?”
“In all probability. But not necessarily.”
Andrew downed the last of his gin and tonic and placed his glass on the wicker side table. “The way I read what you’ve got there, back then someone buried something in a churchyard—around Sturminster, probably. The reference to ‘mortal sin’ and ‘guilt-ridden’ makes it pretty clear that whatever they buried under ‘bricks’ was something that they didn’t want to ’fess up to, or would be ruinous if discovered.”
“Yes. That’s all rather obvious. And it leads us to conclude that the ‘someone’ would be one of the two Morley brothers who, in their aberrant partnership, had created Sturminster only to regret it later.” Kingston realized that he was being uncharacteristically patronizing, so he switched to a friendlier tone. “But that doesn’t help solve the conundrum, does it, Andrew? It doesn’t tell us unequivocally who the ‘someone’ or the ‘something’ is.”
Andrew swatted a mosquito buzzing his ear. “If we were to think like them, it might.”
“Oh, come on. Think like them? How are we supposed to do that?”
A brief silence followed that seemed to suit them both.
“Any theories at all?” asked Andrew, his tone lacking enthusiasm.
“I don’t deal in theories. I gather facts. I keep gathering as many facts from as many people as I can, then I sift through them. I compare them to see if a statement—or what’s been sold as a truth—contradicts another one, either from the same person or someone else. You see, people with nothing to hide speak the truth without having to think. It’s those who are hiding something who must be extremely careful how they answer questions. It can be the tiniest mistake but, sooner or later, chances are one will slip out.”
“I must remember to buy you a briar pipe,” said Andrew with a straight face.
Ignoring Andrew’s sarcasm, Kingston swirled the ice in his glass and took a long sip of gin and tonic. “When I was helping the police in Hampshire, a suspect had stated that a man, a stranger to him, had come ‘up’ to London to see him. We knew that the man in question had indeed traveled to London from Brighton, but the suspect had no way of knowing where the man had started his journey. A two-letter slip eventually forced him to admit full knowledge of the man who was, in fact, an accomplice.”
“Very clever. This case of yours, though, it always seems to be at an impasse.”
“You needn’t remind me.” Kingston sighed. “Over the last weeks I’ve interviewed and talked to more than a dozen people with hardly anything to show for it. I’d really hoped that breaking the code would have changed all that. It’s damned dispiriting.”
“I know I said I’d help you, but I’m at a bit of a loss as to how.”
“I understand, but having second eyes and ears is a big plus, Andrew, believe me. My success rate on this one has been pretty miserable so far.”
Kingston rested his glass on the arm of the chair and stared out at the river, contemplating Andrew’s offer. “If I could only find this damned Decker or Carlson woman, we might be able to make some headway. I just know she’s somehow mixed up in all this.”
“What about your friend Amanda?”
“What about her?”
“I mean, how is she doing?”
“I’m not sure. The last time we talked she was about to be interviewed again by the police, this time at the station. I tried to make her feel better, reassuring her that it was a routine procedur
e, but she was clearly upset.”
“I’m not surprised, considering the pain and suffering she’s been through already.”
“I know.” Kingston sighed, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to tell her, but it’s about the poisoning. Wheatley told me so when I was up there. He has no suspects and he’s asking how a man who lived with his sister and rarely ventured out of the house managed to get poisoned.”
Andrew frowned. “You don’t think she did it, though?”
Kingston sipped his drink and lowered his glass and looked down into it, introspectively. “I don’t know, Andrew. I just don’t know what to think anymore.”
After a pensive moment, Andrew spoke again. “I’ve been thinking about this code business.”
“What about it?”
“It’s so complicated, so convoluted. You’re obviously proficient in that department, but even you are having limited success. How come Veitch didn’t have the same problem?”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“From what you told me, Veitch implied that the coded messages were involved in his exposé.”
“Correct.”
“So how did he decode them?”
“We don’t know for sure that he did.”
“Granted. But let’s assume for a moment that he managed to. He wasn’t a cryptology expert, was he?”
“Not from everything I’ve been able to determine. At least he wasn’t in any of the armed services or involved with any security organizations, because the same thought had occurred to me and I quizzed Amanda about it.”
“Then he must have had help. Another thing—we don’t know for sure if he’d also broken the ‘churchyard’ riddle.”
“With help, he could have broken the first code, which was rudimentary, but I wouldn’t be so sure about solving the ‘churchyard’ riddle,” said Kingston. “That’s another matter entirely.”
“It raises yet another question: How did he get his hands on the Winterborne code in the first place?”
EG05 - Garden of Secrets Past Page 21