by Amy Myers
‘Were you both in the army?’
‘Yes and no. We were in the SAS, the Special Air Service, which was formed in the desert campaign in 1942, but began to spread its wings later in the war. In early 1944 we were with the Partisans behind enemy lines in Italy, and later in Yugoslavia, as it was then called. We were living rough in the mountains a lot of the time which meant there was a lot of time for talking in between ops.’
‘About King Arthur?’ Peter asked to Georgia’s irritation. They needed to keep Jago on the subject of Lance Venyon.
Jago laughed. ‘The subject came up, I admit. I had my theories about Arthur even then, and no doubt spouted them enthusiastically. Lance was a good listener; he made fun of me as does Mark, contesting every statement. I don’t object to that, it’s a good testing ground for my own beliefs. Anyway, Lance must have been more interested than he pretended, because he became a King Arthur fan himself.’
Georgia inwardly groaned. This wasn’t looking good. The last thing she had expected was that curiosity about Lance Venyon would lead her straight back into Arthur territory.
‘I had been planning to go back to university to do my master’s and doctorate on European history,’ Jago continued, ‘but the war changed everything. I fell in love with Europe, stayed there, took my degrees at the Sorbonne instead, and ended up lecturing in European history in France for many years.’
‘What was Lance like as a person?’ Peter asked.
‘Chalk to my cheese,’ Jago replied promptly. ‘I would think, but he would do. Not that he hadn’t a brain. He had, every bit as good as mine, but I was the academic, he was the practical applicator. He was, as one would now say, a people person.’
‘His daughter described him as an adventurer,’ Georgia put in, ‘and his grandson as a party animal.’
‘Did they? I’m afraid I lost touch with Elaine and her mother after Lance’s death. They moved away from Wymdown to the West Country, and I remained in France with Jennifer. We were married in 1956, and Mark came along two years later. It’s only recently that I’ve met Elaine again. Now tell me, you write true-crime books, don’t you? So why the interest in Lance?’
Georgia seized the opportunity. ‘Elaine was told by her mother that he might have been murdered. We wondered if you shared that belief or whether in your opinion it was even possible?’
Jago was clearly startled. ‘I find that very hard to believe. Of course I was working in France, but I saw Lance frequently. He came to Paris quite often. I suppose murder might in theory be a possibility, but it is highly unlikely. He often sailed alone, and I never heard any suggestion that anyone was with him that day. In any case, pushing someone off a boat is surely a most inexact way to murder anyone. Suppose they climbed back on board?’
‘Murder first, then push over,’ Peter said practically. ‘I was told Lance’s body wasn’t found for some while.’
‘About eighteen months, I recall. And before you ask, I think it was identified through what remained of the clothes and a ring. Most distressing for Mary, even though she asked Jennifer to come with her as support. I remember talking to Mary at the funeral. Jennifer and I came over from France for it. She told me that despite its condition she knew the body was Lance’s. Or was it later she said that? I’m really not sure. Old men’s minds wander, Mr Marsh. You will discover that.’
‘I’m doing so already,’ Peter said feelingly. ‘Would anyone have had cause to murder him? I gather Lance wasn’t the most faithful of husbands.’
‘His lady friends might have lined up to do it,’ Jago replied. ‘That sounds callous, but then Lance could be too, especially where women were concerned.’
‘Any in particular?’
Jago considered this. ‘There was a woman in the village he used to go sailing with. Pretty little thing. Broke her heart and she moved away. She was one of those long-distance sailors, around the world in eighty days and all done with one hand. Venetia something, her name was.’
‘Venetia Wain?’ Georgia asked with interest. She’d not only heard of her but read her books.
‘That’s it. And of course there was Madeleine who lived in France. Now she was a temperamental lady, although I don’t see that extending to pushing someone off a boat. There were other ladies passing through his life too. Poor Mary. Jennifer was most disapproving whenever Lance went too far and boasted about his amours in her presence.’
‘What was his line of work after the war?’ Georgia persevered. ‘Could that have provided a motive for killing him?’
Jago reflected. ‘I would think that more probable. You could be bang on the nail with that angle, if he was murdered, which I still can’t get my mind round. As for his line of work . . .’ He paused, to Georgia’s slight irritation. A slight sense of theatre here?
‘His grandson thought he was in the art world,’ she said firmly, ‘but not a painter.’
‘Colin was right. However,’ Jago looked apologetic, ‘this is a long story. You are sure you wish to hear it?’
‘Yes,’ said Peter firmly.
‘Good,’ Jago chuckled. ‘It’s bad luck for Mark he chose today to visit. I’m afraid where Lance is concerned it is just possible I might have to drag his majesty in. So, let us see how it goes. After the war Lance returned to England, but he hankered for the life of action again, he later told me.’
‘The army?’
‘No. I never quite knew how it came about, but when I next caught up with him he was on the Allied Commission to hunt down art works gone missing after the war. You wouldn’t believe the chaos that the end of the war brought with it. Here one has an image of VE Day and smiling faces, but the wider picture has vanished. Men were coming home long after the war, especially from Asia and the Far East, struggling to cope with severed relationships and to pick up old careers or begin new ones. In France and the other occupied countries displaced men dribbled back from forced-labour and concentration camps, trudging hundreds of miles only to find no home or family left. In this human tragedy, art took a back seat for a while, but as life gradually settled down there was a thieves’ paradise of stolen, faked and forged works of art. The Allied Commission began to find that it wasn’t just looted art that they had to deal with. Their investigations revealed a whole industry of faking, notably of course Han van Meegeren, who produced such magnificent Vermeers that even after his exposure some experts refused to accept their origin.’
‘Was Lance still involved in this line up to his death?’ Georgia asked. This was a fertile area, if he had indeed been murdered.
‘Yes. He loved it. It gave a taste of danger, but had a worthwhile purpose. He was a great talker was Lance. People trusted him.’
‘With reason?’
‘Indeed. To Lance it was the game, the chase, not the money involved. Nevertheless he liked the good life, so I’ve no doubt he was well paid. Obviously he was no longer employed by the Commission by then, but he had plenty of other lucrative avenues open. His yacht alone was proof of that. He was deeply interested in works of art for their own sake, whereas –’ his eye wandered to the books at his side – ‘it is history that interested me. Thus we were chalk and cheese, as I said.’
‘So this job could well have given someone reason to want to kill him,’ Peter said, echoing Georgia’s thoughts.
‘I agree. There was big money at stake, big for the 1950s at least. There were gangs who operated in stolen and faked art all over Western Europe with links to the Eastern bloc. They would certainly not have allowed Lance to stand in their way if he was foolish enough to cross them.’
‘Were you still close to him at the time of his death?’ Georgia asked.
‘Certainly I was. As you know, I owned Badon House for a few years and so I paid the odd visit to England too, but it was mostly in Paris that I met Lance. Not long before he died he told me there were exciting developments in our joint passion. I was to await more news shortly. I never received it.’
‘King Arthur?’ Georgia asked with
dread, just as Peter chimed in hopefully with: ‘Could that have had anything to do with his death?’
‘In the hypothetical case of murder, it’s entirely possible. The prize was immense. It was the remains of Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew.’
Jago looked from one to the other and grinned. He had obviously read her thoughts correctly, for he added: ‘I can see you are thinking that this is some Piltdown Man scam. An archaeological booby trap for the unwary.’
‘Something like that,’ Georgia admitted. This jump from fine art back into fantasy was quite a leap. The fact that Peter’s antennae were clearly waving furiously did not escape her.
‘You can be forgiven for thinking so,’ Jago admitted. ‘However, Gawain’s bones were not all that was at stake, though they were my own chief interest. For others, including Lance, there was something far more enticing.’
‘And that was?’ Peter asked, when Jago paused.
‘King Arthur’s golden goblet.’
Georgia’s first reaction was to laugh, but she managed to repress it. A golden goblet? This had to be a joke. Unfortunately, as she could see, Peter was taking this as seriously as Jago and therefore she should at least pay lip service.
‘You mean,’ she said solemnly, ‘the Holy Grail itself.’ Not again!
‘No. Very definitely not,’ Jago answered to her relief. ‘We are talking the historical Arthur here, not the medieval creation. I refer to the goblet he held to the lips of the dying Sir Gawain, the cup that Lance and I were – are, in my case – so sure was buried with his body.’
Georgia rapidly ran through all she could remember of the stories of King Arthur, but nothing rang a bell, and she could see that even Peter was at a loss. Jago had probably intended this, because he chuckled.
‘You’re wondering whether I’m raving mad, or merely an enthusiast on a hiding to nothing. I am neither.’
Mark chose that moment to enter the room with a laden tray, and had obviously overheard the last part of the conversation.
‘I seem to have arrived at the right time,’ he said, putting it down on the coffee table and dispensing tea and rather nice-looking macaroons. ‘You’ll need to fortify yourselves against the onslaught of the round table.’
‘This,’ his father said firmly, ‘is merely a story about Sir Gawain and King Arthur.’
‘Do you hear a bee buzzing, Georgia?’ Mark asked with resignation.
‘A bee?’ She was slow on the uptake, because Mark grinned.
‘He refers to the one in my bonnet, I’m afraid,’ Jago chuckled, although Georgia sensed tension in the air. ‘My own pet theory. I imagine we all have one in some area or another. Henry VII killed the Princes in the Tower, Queen Elizabeth I was a man, and so on. We cherish our bees, and feed them from time to time, patiently waiting for confirmation that we are right. I have long held such a bee, and it amused Lance greatly to feed it whenever he could although, as I have explained, he partly shared it.’
‘Where does the bee stem from?’ Peter asked.
‘Dover,’ Jago answered.
Georgia remembered Luke’s mention of Dover at the wedding, and, hardly to her surprise, Peter already knew about it.
‘You mean the story in Malory’s Morte D’Arthur that Gawain was buried in the church within the Dover Castle precincts?’ he said eagerly.
‘Quite,’ Mark confirmed drily. ‘A fact so well established that not a word can be found in print or script to confirm it, save in the fanciful ramblings of a gentleman confined to prison for rape and violence. Fortunately he had an exceptionally good prison library to hand. Come off it, Dad. Face the truth. It’s a pretty story, that’s all.’
‘I’ll explain, shall I?’ Jago said pleasantly, waving this aside. ‘It is Lance’s role that interests you, of course, Peter, so I’ll begin there. He saw his job as a crusade to keep the art world pure: Lance Venyon versus Forgers of the World, rather as it had been in the SAS, the small band of brothers fighting the many. Every fake or forgery unmasked was a victory for his cause. That’s why when he told me about some hitherto unknown oils by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his King Arthur series, I took it seriously. Rossetti’s pen-and-ink drawings and planned frescos on King Arthur are well known, but oil paintings are fewer. In the 1950s the Pre-Raphaelites were less highly regarded than they are now, which made it unlikely that the ones Lance had heard about were fakes, although it was still possible. Lance was sure of their provenance, however. In those days the tests for detection were not so developed as they are today, and a lot depended on provenance, expert opinion and the power of talk. Lance understood that well, which gave him an advantage in tracking art works down. He also knew every trick in the trade about faking provenance. He had to, in his job.’
‘You never told me about all this,’ Mark said, frowning.
‘Didn’t I?’ Jago looked surprised. ‘I suppose because Arthur isn’t a subject dear to your heart.’
‘Art and fakes are,’ Mark replied. ‘It’s my job, after all.’ He turned to Peter and Georgia. ‘I’m in insurance and look after the art side. What happened to these paintings, Dad?’
‘I offered to buy them, sight unseen, but they disappeared before I could do so. Lance told me the Benizi Brothers were involved, and I knew that that meant my chances were nil. They were serious as well as shady operators.’
‘Doesn’t that suggest that the paintings were fakes?’ Georgia couldn’t see where this was leading. It seemed a long way from golden goblets.
‘Possibly but more likely the contrary. For some years rumours had been spreading through the Arthurian world, by which I mean not only historians and Camelot devotees but those who seek historical artefacts in the hope of proving Arthur’s existence. The rumours concerned not only the existence of this golden goblet, as if that weren’t enough, but scripts confirming the story. Naturally Lance and I were excited, since this could confirm my theory and probably pinpoint the place where the bones of Sir Gawain could be found.’
‘Here we go,’ Mark muttered. ‘Buzzing-bee time.’
‘Fact, Mark, fact,’ Jago said patiently. ‘Even you can’t deny that there was a tradition long before Malory’s time that King Arthur had connections with Dover Castle. There is still a hall named after him, and until relatively modern times a gateway. The present hall dates only from the thirteenth century, but Dugdale’s Monasticon quotes a source stating that King Arthur himself had built a hall in ad 469 and set aside a chamber for Guinevere. Be reasonable, Mark.’ Jago turned to his son. ‘Even if one does not accept as fact that Arthur himself had a historical connection with Dover, it most certainly suggests that the name of Arthur was not suddenly invented to throw glory on the monarch of the day. Even Lance agreed this was a tenable thesis.’
‘It’s a long way from that to where you’re going,’ Mark said sharply. He now seemed to be deliberately needling his father, Georgia thought. Was there a subtext here she wasn’t catching?
‘Mark’s opinion is about to come into its own,’ Jago graciously conceded. ‘We shall shortly come to the legend, which does not mean that it contains no fact. Malory’s Morte D’Arthur relates that Mordred, Arthur’s enemy, seized the opportunity when Arthur was overseas to crown himself king at Canterbury and help himself to Guinevere too. When he heard the news, Arthur came rushing back across the Channel with his forces, including Sir Gawain, to save the day for England, not to mention his wife. Mordred marched to Dover cliff to stop him landing and a battle took place. Gawain was injured, a former wound reopened, and after the battle he was found in a ship near to death.
‘When Arthur reached him, Gawain asked him to oversee his burial. Arthur buried him in the chapel of Dover Castle, which would have been the early Christian church preceding the present St Mary-in-the-Castle. In vengeance Arthur pursued Mordred’s retreating forces and a fierce battle took place on Barendoune, now Barham Downs. Arthur won, Mordred was defeated, and a return match agreed which was to take place in the West Country. The battl
e was duly fought, and Arthur and Mordred slain. Arthur was taken to Glastonbury where he was buried. Or,’ Jago added, ‘if you believe the Wymdown tradition, he sleeps in a cave on the North Downs, where he will come again in the hour of England’s need.’
‘How much of this do you believe?’ Georgia asked cautiously.
‘I believe some truth lies in it, and Lance agreed with me, when the rumours about the goblet began to circulate. It was believed to be the cup with which Gawain was given the last rites, and which was later held to his lips by King Arthur.’
‘On what evidence?’ Peter asked.
‘There were rumours of old scripts that confirmed it, and that John Ruskin, the nineteenth-century art critic and antiquarian, knew of the goblet. Then came one of the paintings mentioned. Rossetti had depicted King Arthur actually holding the goblet to Gawain’s lips as he lay dying in the ship. With the evidence of Sir Gawain’s skull—’
‘If you believe that—’ Mark began.
‘I do,’ Jago said firmly. ‘Just as I believe that Arthur himself existed, whether he be one person or an amalgam of various leaders over a longer period. Caxton, the fifteenth-century printer of the Morte D’Arthur, states that the skull of Sir Gawain was still shown to visitors to the church with the marks of the wound that had killed him clearly visible. Henry VIII’s antiquarian John Leland recorded in the following century that he saw the bones of Sir Gawain. At some point later, however, they disappeared. Fact, fact, fact.’
Jago glanced from Peter to Georgia, who hoped her disbelief wasn’t written clearly on her face as on her brain.
‘I grant you,’ Jago continued, apparently not a whit deterred, ‘that it cannot be proved that the skull was that of Sir Gawain and not any old skull introduced by an unscrupulous chaplain at St Mary-in-the-Castle to fundraise for his church. That was the attitude Lance pretended to take, since he liked to tease me, but he confessed that if he genuinely thought there was nothing in the story he wouldn’t even be discussing it with me. Lance was particularly fond of another Dover legend about the Lady of Farthingloe, a manor belonging to Dover Priory, who was greatly in love with Gawain and he with her. In this legend Gawain was killed on the battlefield and in searching for him the poor lady discovered his head and took it to the priory canons, from whose ranks the chaplains at St Mary’s were chosen. Hence the appearance of only the skull at St Mary-in-the-Castle.’