CONSTABLE OVER THE STILE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 20)

by Nicholas Rhea

  CONSTABLE

  OVER THE

  STILE

  A perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors

  NICHOLAS RHEA

  Constable Nick Mystery Book 20

  Revised edition 2021

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  First published in Great Britain in 1998

  © Nicholas Rhea 1998, 2018, 2021

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Nicholas Rhea to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78931-775-6

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

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  1

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  There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,

  He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile.

  Nursery Rhymes, ed. J.O. HALLIWELL, 1842

  There must be dozens of different types of stile in this country. They range from simple step-ladder constructions which enable us to navigate walls and fences to the more elaborate kind which involve turnstiles, finely balanced rails or swing gates. In general, their purpose is to permit mankind to traverse the countryside by crossing walls and fences while denying the same access to farm animals. A simple V-shaped stile of stone or wood pillars will allow a person to pass through but will frustrate something as large as a cow, a horse or even a hiker with a rucksack; other stiles are designed to make things difficult for smaller creatures such as sheep and dogs and one such example is the zig-zag stile with its free swinging gate. Persuading a dog to bend in the middle so that it can pass through this stile is never easy; in fact, encouraging a dog to climb over any kind of stile is not a simple matter, hence the old definition which says that a kind person is someone who will always help a lame dog over a stile.

  Persuading his flea-ridden lurcher, Alfred, to cross a particularly difficult stile on a footpath near Aidensfield was one such problem faced by Claude Jeremiah Greengrass on a mild and sunny August day.

  That action had surprising results which eventually led to my official involvement as the constable of Aidensfield.

  There is little doubt that Alfred was very good at leaping over fences and gates, or pushing through hedges and barriers of various types, thorny or otherwise, but a flight of rather too-small stone slabs, rising like miniature steps while protruding from each side of a high stone wall, did baffle the dog. He refused to even attempt the climb. As Claude had some pressing business at the far side of the wall, it meant he had either to abandon Alfred in the hope he would wait for his return or go home, or he would have to somehow lift Alfred onto the top of the wall from where he could leap down. At the side which confronted man and dog, the wall was too high for the dog to jump onto the top and, in any case, the approach was a steep grass slope with the wall stretching along the top. I reckoned that even a pole vaulter would have had trouble leaping over that particular wall — which explained the purpose of the curious stile.

  I was to learn that Claude attempted to hoist Alfred onto his shoulder as he climbed the stile, the idea being to deposit the dog on the top as Claude completed his ascent. But the dog did not understand the technicalities of such a complex procedure and when Claude was midway up the stile, Alfred leapt away from him, his final kick for freedom catching Claude smartly on his head. Consequently, as Alfred leapt into the downward sloping field, Claude tumbled from the wall and reached out in the hope he could grab something which would prevent his unplanned, undignified and rather swift return to ground level.

  He grabbed at one of the coping stones, but it came away from the wall. As Claude tumbled and rolled into the field, therefore, the stone fell heavily to the ground behind him. Fortunately, it missed Claude but it did crack open a ground drain which apparently ran alongside the base of the wall. Somewhat shaken, Claude picked himself up, winded, bruised but not injured, cursed Alfred in the colourful language of a poacher and then noticed that the heavy fallen coping stone was deeply embedded in the drain. Appreciating the need for rural drains to be kept clear of obstructions and showing he did have some sense of responsibility, Claude went to remove the stone with the intention of replacing it on the wall and then to cover the hole with one of the other large chunks of surplus stone which were plentiful in the vicinity. But, as he lifted the offending stone, he found it had crashed not into a drain but a pot of silver coins.

  What Claude had thought to be a field drain was, in fact, a large earthenware container which had been buried with its top only a few inches below ground level. It was almost directly beneath the wall and it was full of silver coins. Not really believing his luck, Claude scooped out a handful and found they were half-crowns. This was not ancient Roman or medieval money, but current coin of the realm. And there were, seemingly, hundreds of them . . .

  The value of a half-crown was two shillings and sixpence (2s. 6d.), a crown being five shillings (5s. Od.). There were eight half-crowns to £1 sterling and, at that time, £1 was around a day’s wage for a working man. Half-a-crown an hour (12.5p in modern money) was the going rate for some rural workers.

  Claude had no idea how many coins this cache contained, but a quick estimate achieved by counting ten and estimating the remainder by a rough comparison, suggested there might be several hundred . . . he knew that 800 half-crowns would be £100! A small fortune for Claude — almost three months’ income in fact.

  Whatever the urgency of his mission at the other side of the wall, it was forgotten in those moments of absolute euphoria. For a few minutes, Claude was content to squat on the ground and scoop handfuls of coins from the hole in the ground; he allowed them to trickle through his fingers while Alfred sniffed at them to determine what was so intriguing to his lord and master. Then, having satisfied himself that no human being had witnessed his discovery, Claude used his hands to scoop up the entire cache and spread the money about his person in the many capacious poacher’s pockets of his old overcoat. The cash fell into his pockets with what Claude regarded as heavenly music; it was the sound of immense riches all in cash. When he had emptied the earthenware container, he decided he would take that too. With great care, he eased it from the ground and found it was in five broken parts, all fairly large pieces. When complete, the pot would stand about ten inches high and be about the same width at the widest part; the neck was narrow and so was the base. It was the sort of kitchen utensil some farmers�
�� wives would use to store pickled onions or preserved eggs. In spite of the damage, Claude felt the pot could be repaired. Being a man who bought and sold what he described as antiques, he reckoned the pot might bring a few shillings, even if it was damaged.

  Having extracted every piece of pottery from the large hole in the ground, Claude refilled the cavity with small loose stones, kicked some loose earth over the top and finished the job with a large stone covering the lot. By the time he had finished, no one could have guessed that this slight disturbance in the ground had recently contained anything, most certainly not a cache of silver coins.

  Having satisfied himself that he had collected every single coin — all half-crowns dating from 1836, in the reign of William IV — Claude whistled for Alfred, abandoned his original mission and, rather furtively, hurried home with heavily laden pockets and his pieces of pottery.

  One can only speculate upon his actions when he returned home with his treasure. I imagined him sitting at his table like Scrooge, running his fingers through a pile of silver coins while he wondered what on earth to do with them. Finding a hoard of this kind is one thing — dealing with it effectively is another. Claude, however, was bright enough to realize that if he began to pay his bills and buy his drinks with nothing else but William IV half-crowns, then someone would begin to ask questions about the source of his money. And if people began to discuss Claude’s sudden wealth and his apparently endless supply of half-crowns, then folk memories of the hidden cache might be revived — and someone might come forward to claim the money. After all, it was quite clear the money had not been lost — quite clearly, it had been deliberately concealed in that hiding place. The snag was that Claude had no idea when it had been concealed, but the fact it had been positioned so close to the foot of the stile meant the site could easily be retraced and the money recovered.

  Certainly, the coins were of a considerable age — they were more than a century old and all minted in the same year, that fact being rather strange — but they could have been buried very recently. I am sure Claude’s mind began to work along the lines that if his discovery was made public, either locally or on a wider basis, then someone would come forward to claim the cash, either by saying it had been stolen from them or that they had hidden the cash for reasons best known to themselves. The appearance of a possible owner was something Claude did not want — he believed in the old adage of ‘finders keepers’.

  I do know that he kept his secret for several days, neither spending any of the money nor talking about it to anyone. He placed all the coins in a hessian sack and concealed them under a floorboard in his sitting-room; the broken pot was left in one of his outbuildings with no attempt to repair it. For a while, therefore, the money was something of a problem and even a worry for Claude, and I have no doubt he scanned the local papers and listened to gossip for news that someone had tried to recover the cash, only to be welcomed by a hole full of stones and earth. But there was no outcry, no publicity, nothing.

  By one of those flukes of circumstance, it was around that time there was a spate of road building. Motorways and new major roads were being constructed throughout the country, large housing developments were appearing, too. One outcome of all this was a lot of earth-moving activity which in turn led to the regular discovery of ancient ruins — Roman settlements, stone-age camps, the foundations of medieval buildings — and buried treasure.

  Bronze-age bracelets, a gold torque, an 800-year-old statuette, silver spoons, silver plate, a hoard of old pennies, Roman coins, gold coins and silver coins — in fact, thousands of pounds’ worth of treasure was being unearthed on a surprisingly regular basis and this received widespread publicity in the newspapers. In many cases, the finders — often farmers and farm workers — found themselves with a fortune. And Claude Jeremiah Greengrass read most of these accounts.

  He read one story about a gold coin worth £1,700 being found in a field; he read about a hoard of thirty-five silver coins worth £7,000 being unearthed on a building site, and sweated over a report about a farm worker whose plough turned up £50,000 worth of silver coins. And in all cases, these discoveries had been subject to the law of treasure trove. Claude quickly understood that if something comprising gold or silver was found in circumstances which suggested it had been deliberately hidden, then the law of treasure trove had to be obeyed. The find must be reported to the police who would notify the coroner, then an inquest would be held to determine whether or not the hoard had been deliberately concealed. If it had, then it must be handed to the state, through the British Museum, and the finder would be paid the full market value of the discovery. In most cases, that would exceed the face value of the found coins.

  If the treasure had not been deliberately concealed, for example a solitary coin found beside a public footpath, or a gold ring found buried in a garden, then such items had probably been lost and not deliberately hidden.

  In such cases, they might belong to the finder, or perhaps to the owner of the land in question or to the loser if he or she could be traced. But Claude learned from these reports, if the finder of treasure did not report it to the authorities, then the entire hoard could be confiscated and the finder would get nothing, except an appearance in court for concealing the discovery of treasure trove. Honesty, he learned, was by far the best policy in the case of gold or silver treasure. In any case, the finder could earn more from the British Museum that he could by concealing his discovery. Armed with this information, therefore, Claude approached me. I was patrolling the quiet main street of Aidensfield when he emerged from the pub with Alfred in tow. I stopped when he hailed me.

  ‘Ah, Constable,’ he beamed, his eyes blinking rapidly as he confronted me. ‘Just the man I want to see.’

  ‘That’s a change!’ I retorted. ‘It’s usually me who wants to see you . . .’

  ‘Aye, well, this is different, you see,’ and his old eyes flickered and darted about as he decided how much he should or would tell me.

  ‘I’m listening,’ I said, waiting.

  ‘Well, I’ve been reading a lot about treasure trove, you know. In the papers, that is. Folks have been finding fortunes in fields and on building sites.’

  ‘They have indeed.’ I had read most of the items. ‘Lucky for some!’

  ‘So if somebody finds silver coins, they should report it to you?’ he put to me.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘And I will report it to the coroner who will hold an inquest . . .’

  ‘I thought they were for dead folks?’ he frowned.

  ‘An inquest is an enquiry.’ I explained the history and reason for inquests to him, ending with, ‘So it’s far, far better for someone who has found a hoard of silver or gold to report it. There’s a fortune waiting in most cases — while those who conceal their discoveries risk losing the lot and getting nothing.’

  ‘Aye, well, that’s what I thought, Constable.’ He paused, his eyes blinking away as he looked first at the ground and then up in the air and then from side to side. ‘Well, you see, I’ve found some coins. In an old pot. Over by Carr End Wood.’

  ‘Ah, I see!’ I waited for him to reveal the rest of the yarn. He then told me of his experience on the stile and how he had come to find the pot of coins.

  ‘So they’re all half-crowns?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, but old ones. 1836. That’s the date on ’em. That’s going back a bit, Constable.’

  ‘How many are there?’ was my next question.

  ‘Six hundred and forty,’ he beamed, his eyelids moving up and down like miniature shutters. ‘That’s eighty pounds, Constable. Face value, that is. Face value, not what they might really be worth.’

  ‘Whose reign is that?’ I asked.

  ‘It says Gulielmus IIII D.G. on the front,’ he said. ‘Sounds like somebody foreign to me.’

  ‘That’s William IV,’ I told him. ‘It’s Latin. D.G. means Deo Gratias.’

  ‘So they’re English?’ he said. ‘I thought they were mebbe
Welsh or Scottish or summat, with that funny name.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’d better collect them sometime, or you could bring them to me. I’ll give you a receipt and will set the procedures in motion to fix an inquest, then you can find out just how much they really are worth.’

  ‘You can come for ’em now if you want.’ He was suddenly very enthusiastic about the whole idea and so I decided to accompany him to his ranch. On the way, however, we had to pass Cowslip Cottage, the home of a retired gentleman called Alec Hughes. Alec was our local coin expert. On several previous occasions, I had sought his advice about coins found buried around the village, particularly when it came to identifying very old ones or attempting to establish their source.

  ‘Claude,’ I said as he reached Alec’s gate. ‘I want to ask Alec about your coins. Come with me, and tell him about them.’

  Almost bursting with pleasure and anticipation, he followed me to the door. Alec responded to our knock and invited us into his cosy dining room; the table was covered with a thick velvet cloth across which were spread a selection of dirty silver coins.

  ‘Philip and Mary shillings,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to get one sample of each one. But what can I do for you, Mr Rhea and Mr Greengrass?’

  ‘Claude has found some half-crowns,’ I introduced the matter. ‘He’ll tell you about them.’

  Once more, Claude gave a highly embroidered account of his discovery, concluding with a description of the half-crowns.

  ‘Most unusual, Mr Greengrass,’ said Alec. ‘Most unusual, to find so many all of one date . . . now, let me see . . .’ He pulled a catalogue of British coins from a shelf and turned to the reign of William IV. Half way down the page was a black and white photograph of a half-crown, showing the obverse and reverse.