The Chaplin Conspiracy

by Stewart Ferris

  ***

  ‘I can help you,’ cried Rocco.

  ‘Bullcrap,’ replied Winnifred, stuffing her torch into her pocket so she could drag Rocco’s bound body through the hole she had created in the brick wall, bumping him insensitively over the loose rubble that lay at her feet. ‘Anyway, you sound like a German.’

  ‘You know there’s no treasure in this crypt,’ he continued, ignoring her observation. He was aware of a change of timbre in his voice. The space was wider, the ceiling higher, the temperature cooler. ‘I knew that already.’

  ‘You knew that because you heard me cursing when I broke in,’ said Winnifred. She pulled out her torch and shone it at the walls. Justina climbed through to join them, and now twin beams of torchlight swung wildly around the space. The crypt was, as Rocco had predicted, empty. A sarcophagus chiselled from an unfeasibly large rock sat in the centre of the floor. Its broken lid lay in chunks all around. Coffin-sized recesses lined the sides of the room, designed to hold bodies but serving only as repositories of dust. Above was a vaulted roof of jagged stones. Ancient limestone blocks framed a doorway at the far end, now jammed with modern-looking brickwork similar to the wall through which Winnifred had just broken.

  ‘I’ve studied this village in ways no one else has. I’m a scientist. My name’s Rocco Strauss. Yes, I am German. I work at the European Space Agency. I’ve got a doctorate in sciencey shit.’

  Winnifred stood with her hands on her hips. ‘Fancy university education, huh?’ she said. ‘This is tunnelling work. No amount of science is going to help down here. Now just shut your face while I decide—’

  ‘Wait,’ said Justina, pulling on Winnifred’s sleeve. ‘Let’s hear him.’

  Rocco didn’t wait for Winnifred to respond. He went straight into his speech. ‘I know why you’ve taken over the chateau. There are more tunnels under that place, but I don’t think you know where to go next. I do. I know exactly where to look. I have access to satellites that can do the kind of shit you wouldn’t believe. We’ve been developing the technology to find bunkers and underground missile bases, that kind of thing. The Americans wanted access to it to find Bin Laden – show them the extent of the Bora Bora caves – but these new satellites can also be used for cool stuff like orbital archaeology. It’s not what we’re supposed to use it for, because the money came from the military, but when you’re in the control room on your own in the middle of the night with access to the coolest gadgets in the galaxy, well, you have to have some fun. Satellite archaeology is in its infancy, but I’ve run scans from orbit of this village. Highly illegal and could have cost me my job, but who gives a shit? So I’ve studied the heat signatures of this hill, I’ve seen the radioactivity readings and the rock analysis. The hilltop is like a Swiss cheese. Everyone looking for Saunière’s treasure knows that. But I’ve seen inside the cheese. I know where the holes are. People tunnelled horizontally from the sides of the hill. They dug straight down under their barns, or sideways from underground rivers and sewers. The passages appear at every angle imaginable. Most of them are dead ends, abandoned probably decades ago.

  Some of them connect. Others just miss their neighbour’s tunnel by a few centimetres. People carried on digging well into this century, especially around the church. No one reached this crypt, but that doesn’t matter because it’s not the right crypt.’

  Justina struggled to digest the mass of information she had just heard. Filtering the most salient point, she realised Rocco had revealed something of vital significance. ‘What did you mean when you said this crypt wasn’t the right one?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s another. And some of the tunnels are pointing towards it.’

  ‘How can there be another crypt?’ asked Justina.

  ‘This church isn’t the original one.’

  ‘Of course it is. This village only has about twenty houses. How can there be another church? We’d have seen it.’

  ‘Right,’ agreed Winnifred.

  ‘I don’t think they existed at the same time,’ Rocco explained.

  ‘Go on,’ Justina said, leaning against the sarcophagus, enraptured by Rocco’s revelations.

  ‘The church above our heads – Saunière’s church – only dates back about a thousand years. The village is far older, and originally there was a different church. It was located at the highest point of the hill. It’s now a car park. One tunneller had the sense to head towards it, but he died shortly before he got his tunnel all the way there. Such a pity. Other tunnels also point vaguely in that direction, but they all fall short. The problem is the necessity to tunnel in secret. People had to start from their living room or their garage and dig down and then across the village. No one was allowed to start at the car park and dig straight down via the shortest route, so no one got there. I’ve seen the scans from the satellites. I know there’s another crypt, and I know it’s not been disturbed since Saunière’s day. More importantly, I know how to find it.’

  ‘Is he shitting us?’ asked Winnifred.

  ‘I would never consider doing such a thing to you,’ Rocco replied. ‘However, I would be prepared to help you move certain objects into this crypt, and to help you seal up the wall again in order that such objects will not be found for many years.’

  ‘Objects?’ asked Winnifred.

  ‘Those poor people you murdered,’ sighed Justina. ‘Come on. Untie him with that terrifying knife of yours and make sure he understands that you know how to use it. We’ve got work to do.’

  ***

  Ratty wished he had a photographic memory. The Swiss bank account number he had seen might be a repository of the wealth he needed to hire a dozen lawyers to bat for him against the planners at Shropshire Council, with enough to spare to restore the fire damage to his home and fix up everything else on his estate that was on its last legs. Maybe he’d even have change for a sizeable gin and tonic at the end. But his namesake had put the piece of paper swiftly away before there was time to memorise the sequence of numbers. He needed to stay close to Rat Scabies. Like it or not, he was going to have to team up with this drummer.

  But could the Saunière mystery really be solved so quickly and simply? Just a short flight to Zurich, quote some numbers in each bank in turn until one of them throws open its doors, and walk out with a sack of loot? Things never usually went this well for Ratty. His excitement abated and he considered the matter more objectively. Scabies already knew this could be a bank account number. There was no reason for him to share this information. Ratty could offer no added value to any mission to claim the money. And that meant there was only one conclusion: Scabies had already attempted to do so.

  ‘How much was in the account?’ Ratty found himself asking reluctantly.

  ‘Ah, I wondered how long it would take you to realise I’d already tried that for myself,’ replied Scabies. ‘Had a nice little jolly to Switzerland last month, as it happens. Very interesting result. I was told that the account was closed.’

  ‘So there was nothing in it?’

  ‘Fuck all. Someone had already emptied it.’

  ‘What rotten luck. Just beat you to it, did they?’

  ‘You could say that. They were actually a few years ahead of me.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘The account was shut in 1931.’

  ‘1931? Then there was never any hope for us.’

  ‘The bankers wouldn’t say who it was,’ said Scabies. ‘But, if what you’ve told me is true, it had to have been Saunière himself.’

  ‘So he withdrew all of his lolly in 1931. Crikey.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t have wealth stashed in other places, of course,’ said Scabies. ‘He could have had other accounts, or he might have kept some of his gold stashed away in the tunnels and crypts beneath Rennes.’

  ‘Which might explain why he showed his face there in 1932,’ said Ratty. ‘It’s as if he was trying to gather as much money together as possible, building up to one big purchase. But what? A house? An
island?’

  ‘Or medical care. Or someone’s silence. Or his life.’

  ‘It would be beneficial if we knew where and when the fellow gasped his final wotnots,’ said Ratty. ‘That might help us understand what he was doing. But even if he continued to use his real name in Paris for a few months, it doesn’t guarantee he was still using it in the thirties. Someone would have found a record of his demise if he’d stayed in France with that name, so either he changed the name at some point or he’s not buried in his homeland.’

  ‘He was sixty-four in 1917 when he officially copped it,’ said Scabies. ‘So by 1932 he’d have been knocking on eighty-odd. I wouldn’t expect a big bloke like Saunière to make it much past eighty. So, although he survived the majority of the Chaplin era, on the bright side at least he probably never had to endure anything George Formby was about to impose upon the world.’

  ‘So what now?’ asked Ratty. ‘Do we have any more leads, or are we at a dead end?’

  ‘Your information about the Chaplin film has helped me understand more of the evidence. It’s put it in a new context, and it’s pretty cool, but you’re right. We can’t get any further without knowing more about Saunière’s movements in his missing years. But it means we can start researching in an area where no one has looked before. No one has studied the documents of the twenties and thirties in relation to Saunière. It’s virgin territory. You and me could make some serious progress on this, but you’ve got to keep it under your hat. We can’t let word spread about what we know. You and me have to agree a partnership. We share what we learn. We split what we find. And we watch each other’s backs. Right?’ Scabies spat into the palm of his hand and held it out for Ratty to shake.

  The aristocrat looked at the grey spittle proffered before him and considered his options. A deal with Rat Scabies was the honourable course, he realised. His visit had revealed a great deal about Saunière, and had proved that Scabies really was at the cutting edge of research into the subject. But that saliva. He grimaced and wondered if it was the custom in Brentford for all agreements to be made with such a disregard for hygiene. Best to get it over with, he concluded, dribbling into his own hand and clasping Scabies’ with a firm grip. Like it or not, he was now in partnership with a rock star. He would have preferred Ruby as his right hand girl, but he was old enough to know that sometimes life threw you in unexpected directions. This sentiment was interrupted when Scabies ran downstairs to answer a persistent banging at the door.

  ‘Probably an obsessed fan, or one of my stalkers!’ he shouted from the hallway. Ratty detected a hint of pride in the statement. ‘No,’ continued Scabies, having opened his door. ‘It’s for you.’

  Ratty jogged down the steps and joined him at the porch. ‘Ruby and Patient chappy! What a delightful wotsit!’

  ‘We have to leave,’ ordered Ruby.

  ‘But you’ve only just arrived, old veggie sausage.’

  ‘Come and have a drink with us,’ added Scabies.

  ‘No,’ said Ruby, ‘something’s happened and we need to leave.’

  ‘Leave what? The house? The street? Brentford?’ asked Ratty.

  ‘The country,’ replied the Patient. ‘The fire brigade returned to investigate the cause of the fire at Stiperstones. They found a body. The police have issued arrest warrants for all of us.’

  ‘Quite a dark horse, aren’t you?’ said Scabies, patting Ratty on the back. ‘I thought you said you’d never done anyone in?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t. I’m sure it’s a simple misunderstanding that a quick and friendly chat with the local constabulary will sort out. Constable Stuart is an old friend of the family.’

  ‘No, Ratty,’ replied Ruby. ‘Stuart’s gone. He’s been replaced and there’s a rumour that the new inspector is in league with the planning department and would like nothing more than to see you arrested and disgraced so that there would be no effective opposition to the road building plan.’

  ‘Even so,’ sighed Ratty, ‘it hardly seems the gentlemanly thing to run and hide when we’re all so obviously innocent. I think …’ He paused for a moment. ‘No, I definitely don’t recall murdering anyone at home.’

  ‘They haven’t been able to identify the body yet,’ explained the Patient. ‘It’s been badly burned in the fire. They said only scorched bones remained.’

  ‘How thoroughly inconvenient for the poor fellow,’ said Ratty. ‘How did you get here if we’re all under arrest?’

  ‘Your mother tipped us off,’ said Ruby. ‘She’s giving them hell at the police station, partly because I think she enjoys that sort of thing, but mainly to give us time to get out of the country. Once they’ve run proper tests on the bones I know they’ll discover the skeleton has been there for years. It’s the only explanation. No one will be too surprised to find something like that in such an old house, and then they won’t have anything on us. But in the meantime you’ll have been locked up or at least be out on bail with no prospect of foreign travel, and that means no chance of following the Saunière trail to the imaginary crock of gold that you foolishly think is waiting for you.’

  ‘So I can’t go home,’ said Ratty, sounding moderately choked up at unwittingly becoming a fugitive. ‘I don’t suppose you brought my passport with you?’

  ‘None of us did,’ replied Ruby. ‘There wasn’t time. It doesn’t make any difference because the ports will be looking out for us.’

  ‘But Ruby, why would you want to flee when you know you’re innocent?’ asked Ratty.

  ‘Because,’ she sighed, ‘even though your quest is an utter waste of time, I think, on balance, it will be far more fun to explore the south of France with you than to sit in a police station answering moronic questions.’

  ‘And you’re sure mother will be all right?’

  ‘She’s in her element, Ratty. Probably never been happier.’

  ‘I know a geezer with a boat,’ said Scabies. ‘Well, it’s not really his boat … but he’s a geezer and he knows of a boat, if you know what I mean.’

  Ratty shook his head.

  ‘Do you want to get to France or not?’ asked the drummer. ‘Come on. I’ll drive us to Hayling.’

  ‘Will you come to France with us, Mr Scabies?’ Ratty found himself asking.

  ‘Of course. Wouldn’t want to miss this adventure.’

  ‘What about your gig?’

  ‘My band needs me. My fans need me. But you need me more. So fuck them all.’

  ***

  Mediaeval depictions of a hellish underworld with their imps and their flames and their tortured souls came nowhere close to the subterranean nightmare that Rocco endured for the rest of the day. Poetry and paintings could only stimulate the ears and the eyes, but a true Hades was something that pervaded the nose and churned the stomach. The gut-wrenching stench of death and its associated bodily excretions overwhelmed him, seeping into his pores and lining the insides of his nostrils. One by one, he dragged the bodies into the dungeon, through the tunnel and into the crypt where he attempted to lay them out with as much respect as his aching and nauseous muscles could muster.

  Justina and Winnifred were not idle during this time. Aside from guarding the exit to the tunnel at the castle to ensure their prisoner did not harbour thoughts of escape, they took turns at scrubbing all traces of their victims from the floor and the furniture. Winnifred also gave some thought to the matter of the collection of cars in which the deceased family had arrived and which were now haphazardly parked in front of the chateau, in full view of the street. She peeled off her rubber gloves and grabbed the pile of keys that they had liberated from the pockets of the deceased.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Justina.

  ‘I was thinking about the cars out front. It’s weird.’

  ‘I know, but what can we do?’

  ‘Drive them out of the village. Maybe leave them in the parking lot down the hill.’

  ‘Are you crazy? Leaving them in a public space will attract attention. At leas
t here they’re on private land.’

  ‘So what are we gonna do?’ asked Winnifred, throwing the keys back onto the table. ‘Tell everyone we bought the chateau with the cars included?’

  ‘The family is moving to the States, right? That’s the story. It doesn’t make sense for them to ship out their cars.’

  ‘Mmm. Guess you’re right,’ grumbled Winnifred. ‘We should go check on Rocco.’

  ‘What for? I can hear him coming and going,’ replied Justina. ‘You really want to submerge yourself in that unholy aroma down there? Let him finish filling the crypt. I’m trying to figure out how we can use him without him double-crossing us. I don’t trust him an inch.’

  Rocco grunted loudly as he smashed a fallen brick against the sealed exit at the rear of the crypt. He had allowed himself several attempts at destroying this seal using the rubble at his feet after the laying out of each body. That way his movements from the crypt back to the chateau appeared regular and reliable. He wasn’t sure if the sound of his efforts could be heard from the other end of the tunnel, so he ensured that each impact was at least partially masked by what he thought was the kind of noise he might be expected to make if he had trouble lifting the bodies into the nooks at the sides of the crypt.

  He was making progress, but it was insufficient. The eighth body was now laid out, and his escape plan had dislodged three bricks. At this rate the hole would still be too small for him to climb through by the time he had laid the final body to rest. He needed a way to accelerate his progress. There was also the matter of what was behind the bricks. He wasn’t sure. It looked like wood panelling or plasterboard and, so long as there was nothing built up against it on the church side, he was confident he could kick his way through that layer. But he would never get there unless he found either the time or the tools to speed up the demolition process. He considered using the small torch Justina had provided, but it was flimsy and anyway he could do nothing without its light. He needed the crowbar, or some other piece of solid metal, and that meant taking a huge risk when he returned to the chateau to drag away the next victim.