The boy turned to his friends. “Suppose the arrow is pointing not down, but out. Would that be about where Ned’s sitting?”
Braithwaite was studying the piece of lath and its carving. “Hmm, about the length of a horse, eight horseshoes, and one more horse’s length. What, er, d’you think, Mr. Mackay?”
The solicitor focused on the stick with his glasses. “You could have something there, sir. At least we’ve got a horse to test your theory with!”
Taking the gig to one side, Will unharnessed Delia. Lifting one of her back hooves, he measured it with a yew twig, which he snapped off, then backed Delia up, until her tail was touching the yew trunk.
“Jon, take this twig. ’Tis a shoe’s width. Mark off eight lengths from where my mare’s front hoof is now.”
The seaman did as Will bade. When he had marked off eight lengths, he stuck the twig in the ground. “Right here, Will.” The dairyman brought his horse forward and stood Delia, with her tail hanging down, exactly over the twig.
The black Labrador looked up and licked Delia’s muzzle, which was directly above him, then looked over to where Ben stood, passing a thought to his master. “Told you I’d sniff it out, didn’t I!”
Eileen chuckled. “That good dog o’ yours, Ben, he looks as if he’s gotten more sense than the lot of us put t’gether!”
Jon and Will started digging on the spot.
Eileen harnessed Delia back into the gig shafts. “Come on, Winnie, we’ll go back to Hillside Farm an’ get lunch ready for the diggin’ gang.”
Ben and Amy helped Mrs. Winn up into the gig. She waved to them as Delia trotted away and called hopefully, “Bring whatever you find straight up to the farm.”
The old mariner and the dairyman dug a square hole, straight down about two feet. Clank! Will’s spade struck something as he was shoring the side of the earth straight. “We were diggin’ slightly astray, Jon. I think the dog was sittin’ in the wrong spot!”
Ned sniffed. “Dearie me, showed you the place, didn’t I?”
Ben heard the thought and agreed with his dog. “Aye, can’t expect a poor old canine to be accurate to the inch, can we? Pay no heed, Ned. I thought you did splendidly!”
They dug down again, directly over the place where Will’s spade had struck an object. After several minutes of hard digging a sandstone building block was uncovered. Between them the two men lifted it out. Alex cleaned it up with his hand until the letters E.D.W. appeared visible. Ben ran his finger over the letters. “Same as on your map, Will! And the same as that name in the back of Winnie’s family Bible! Edmond De Winn, the one who had one son and seven daughters!”
Further speculation from Ben was cut short. The old seaman bent and began tugging with both hands at an object embedded beneath where the stone had lain. “Here’s something, mates, an old chest!”
Will helped him pull the chest out. It was iron-bound, rotting, and fused hard to the soil around it. Once they got it out, a few smart jabs with Jon’s spade soon caved it in, and it broke open. Braithwaite fell on his knees and lifted out the contents. Wrapped in sheepskin and heavily coated with solidified tallow, it was still fairly obvious from its shape that the thing was a cross.
High-noon sunlight streamed into the farmhouse kitchen. Will’s ma shaded her eyes against it, peering out across the yard. “Here they come, Winnie. Put the kettle on to boil again, Eileen.”
Little Willum toddled out, holding Winnie’s hand. “Daddeeeee!”
The dairyman swung his son up onto his broad shoulders. “I hope you ain’t ate all our lunch, Willum, I’m starvin’!”
But food was out of the question once Eileen spotted the bundle.
“You found it, good men!”
Amy took little Willum from his father. “What about me?”
Will’s ma wiped flour from both hands upon her apron. “An’ you, too, m’dear, good work. Now, let’s see what you got, my meat an’ potato pie’ll be ready directly.”
Ben placed the bundle on the table. “D’you think we’ll need more hot water to melt the tallow, Jon?”
Taking out his ever-useful clasp knife, the ex-ship’s carpenter set to work, slicing through the greased string around the tallowed hide. “With any luck it’ll just peel off.”
Mr. Braithwaite was permitted to undo it. Finding an edge of the skin, he drew it back, exposing gold. In less than a minute he had stripped sheepskin and tallow away completely.
It was a crucifix, complete with a tiny monstrance chamber for displaying the host. The top and ends of both arms had pigeon-egg rubies set into the metal, identical to the ones on the chalice. At its base a marvelously graven gold bird supported the cross on semi-spread wings, its talons gripping a half-orb of solid gold. The old scholar’s hands trembled as he held the object. He gazed at the embossed figure of Christ upon it, surmounted by the letters INRI. “Crucifixus anticus! Wrought by the same Byzantine hand that fashioned the chalice. Do you realize, we are the first ones to behold it since the seventeenth century!”
Jon and Ben were inspecting the tallow-bound sheepskin minutely when Will’s ma wrinkled her nose in disdain. “What’re you messin’ with that ole sheep ’ide for?”
The strange boy replied without looking up. “For the next clue, but it doesn’t seem to be here. Can you find anything, Jon?”
The carpenter’s strong, tattooed hands delved through the tallowed skin. “Nothing, lad. The chest was empty once we took the cross out. I was hopin’ we’d find something in this wrapping, but no.”
Alex sat at the table, his chin cupped in both hands, downcast. “We’ve missed the next clue somewhere.”
The black Lab’s tail swished to and fro as he raised his eyes to Ben. “Tell them it’s carved on the bottom of that half-dome the bird is standing on, I can see it from here. So could you if you were lying on the floor. Good job old Braithwaite held the cross up. What would you do without me, eh, mate?”
Ben sat down on the floor by the Labrador and patted him fondly. “You’re the best dog in the world, Ned. Excuse me while I break the good news to them.”
Ben squinted up at the underside of the crucifix, then raised his voice in excitement. “Look, there’s carving underneath that dome the bird is standing on. I can see it!”
Mr. Braithwaite harrumphed. “Bird, young man? That’s the eagle of St. John the Evangelist you’re talking about. Let’s see!” He turned the cross upside down. With Mr. Mackay leaning over his shoulder, checking, he read aloud.
“ ’Twould seem at the wicked’s fate
that bell ne’er made a sound,
yet the death knell tolled aloud
for those who danced around.
The carrion crow doth perch above,
light bearers ’neath the ground.”
Mrs. Winn looked around. “Well, what do you make of that?”
The lawyer meticulously copied the words onto a piece of paper, before taking charge of the cross.
“I’d better get this locked away in my office safe with all dispatch. Will, could you run me down there in your gig, please?”
“You ’ave some lunch first, sir,” Eileen chimed in. “Then my Will can drop you all off.”
Over hot meat and potato pie, Mr. Braithwaite made out another copy of the words for his own use. “Hmm, very good, very good. Must, er, get back to the, er, library, of course. I’ll, ah, er, study this and let you know my findings, yes, very good!”
Amy made more copies in her fine, neat hand and distributed them to everybody, keeping one for herself and her brother. After lunch it was decided that they would spend the rest of the day each trying to solve the riddle. They had the time.
Will delivered Mrs. Winn to her house first. Ben stayed in the gig, alighting in the village square with the others. Mr. Mackay read the notice tacked to the board on the post not far from his office. He turned to them, his face grave. “Two days from today the clearances start. That means Smithers and his partners will be here with the county o
fficial and the bailiffs. Payments will be made to the evacuating tenants, the land will be cleared, and, unfortunately, Chapelvale will cease to exist as a village community and become a limestone quarry and a cement factory. Those are the facts, my friends.”
Ben’s blue eyes grew hard. “Not if we can help it!”
33
SMITHERS TAPPED LIGHTLY ON MAUD Bowe’s bedroom door, and he called out as gently as his gruff, demanding voice would allow. “Are you in there, Miss Bowe, I’d like a word with you in the sitting room, if possible.”
Maud opened the door a crack and was confronted by Smithers’s rather worried-looking face. “I think you owe me an apology first, for the way you insulted me this morning, Mr. Smithers.”
It galled him to do it, but there was no other way. “Well, er, I was a bit, hasty shall we say. Forgive me, I’m a gruff fellow sometimes. Comes of doin’ business among men all the time. I shouldn’t have raised my voice to you, young lady. I mean, Miss Bowe.”
She stared at him, enjoying her moment of triumph, then shut the door in his face. “I’ll be down presently.”
Obadiah Smithers drew in a deep breath, clenched his fists, and strode purposefully along the corridor to his son’s room. Flinging the door wide, he marched in without a word and dragged the coverlet off Wilf, who lay huddled, still covered in breakfast mess. Smithers curled his lip in disgust as his son sniffed and sobbed.
“It wasn’t me, he went in there on his own, I had nothing to do with it, honestly, I never!”
His father towered over him, ignoring his pleas.
“Enough, sir, no more lies! I saw Regina’s father in the village this morning. He caught her sneaking in, long after midnight. So you can stop your sniveling lies. I know exactly what went on around the old almshouse last night!”
Wilf cowered on the bed, his face ashen. “Regina’s the liar, it was her who got Alex murdered, not me. I swear!”
His father’s voice was like thunder. “What nonsense is this, eh? Murder indeed, I saw the very boy you’re talking of, the animal vet’s young son. He was alive and well, sitting in a dairy cart with his friends. So you can stop your lying about murder!”
Wilf was temporarily lost for words. He sat openmouthed as reality flooded in on him. Alex was alive, there would be no policemen calling on him. No judges, court, or prison.
His father ranted on furiously. “A disappointment to me, that’s what you’ve been, lad, a thorough disappointment! Letting y’self get beaten by a boy half your size, then thinking up stupid murder plots. Still, I blame m’self in ways—you’re not half the young fellow I was at your age, no backbone! Mollycoddled, that’s what you’ve been, spoiled rotten! But all that stops right here and now, sir, d’you hear me? No more being waited on by a maid an’ hiding behind y’mother’s skirts. Oh no, m’lad, it’s boarding school for you. They’ll straighten you out, an’ no mistake!”
Wilf had only heard the latter part of his father’s tirade. He leapt out of bed, a look of horror on his face. “B-boarding school?”
His father took him by the arm and shoved him in the direction of the bathroom. “Aye, boarding school. There’s a good one up in Scotland, so I’m told. I’ll make the arrangements today. Now, get in there an’ clean that mess off y’self. Then you can tidy your room up an’ pack your trunk. I’m not havin’ the good name o’ Smithers scoffed at by village bumpkins. No use appealin’ to your mother. My decision’s final, sir. Final!”
Slamming the bathroom door on his son’s stunned face, Smithers went downstairs and out onto the back lawn, where he took a deep breath of the summer air and straightened his starched collar. Maud Bowe was sitting primly, reading another of her young ladies’ etiquette books, not a hair out of place and not a sign of a flush upon her cheeks. She shut the book decisively, folding her hands on the cover. “You wanted a word with me, sir. Well?”
Clasping both hands behind his back, Smithers circled her chair several times, finishing up facing her.
“Those, er, associates you’re bringing up from London, Miss Bowe.”
Completely composed, she stared levelly at him. “Yes?”
He dropped his eyes and lowered his voice.
“Let them come and do what they’ve got to do. But no mistakes or failures. I want them in and out of Chapelvale as quick as possible. Understood?”
Maud could not help reveling in her victory. “Jackman Donning and Bowe are an established London company—we don’t deal in failures and mistakes. Like some I could mention . . .”
Blood mounted to Smithers’s cheeks, and he struggled to control himself. Turning on his heel, he made for the house, replying as he went. “I’ll leave it up to you . . . my dear!”
A black cat appeared out of the hedgerow. Purring, it rubbed its flank against Maud’s fine-grained, calf-button boots. She shooed it off with a swipe of her book. “Shoo, cat!”
Horatio prowled slowly back through the small gap in the hedge. “Miaow! ’Ratio go home now, Winnie got milk, sardines, purr!”
The black Labrador rose slowly from his hiding place in the shade of some lilacs. “Come on, then, me old furbag, I’ve heard enough for today. Sardines, ugh, nasty, slimy little fishes, don’t know how you can eat the things!”
Mrs. Winn was taking her afternoon nap in the sitting room. Ben sat outside on the sunny lawn. He unfolded the copy of the poem Amy had given him and began studying it.
“ ’Twould seem at the wicked’s fate
that bell ne’er made a sound,
yet the death knell tolled aloud
for those who danced around.
The carrion crow doth perch above,
light bearers ’neath the ground.”
Sweat suddenly beaded on his forehead, he felt cold despite the warm summer day. The bell ne’er made a sound . . . carrion crow. . . . Visions and images of death floated about in his mind. Villainous faces marked by evil appeared unbidden, the sounds of seawaves roared in his ears. Long, long ago, Vanderdecken, Petros, Scraggs, Jamil, he saw them all, leering, cursing. But others were there, mingled with the crew of the Flying Dutchman. Older, half shadowed, their features showing the wickedness of evil men the world over. Closing his eyes tight, Ben fell back upon the grass, shuddering, feeling the earth move like a rolling ship’s deck.
Warm breath and a damp tongue against his cheek brought Ben back from his dreadful trance. “Now then, pal, are you all right?”
Something smooth and silky brushed his hand, and Ben sat up, glad to be back in the normal world. Ned was sitting next to him, he caught sight of Horatio vanishing into the house. Immediately Ben felt better. He hugged the big dog’s neck.
“I’m all right now you’re here, you old rogue. It just happened, I was reading the poem from the base of the cross, when this awful feeling came over me.”
The Labrador nodded. “Flying Dutchman again, eh?”
Ben ran his fingers through his tousled blond hair.
“Yes, it was Vanderdecken and the others, but there were strange faces there, too, frightening ones I’d never seen before. Good job you came and snapped me out of it. I think it was due to reading that poem.”
A bee was taking an interest in Ned’s nose, and he swatted at it with his paw. “Then don’t read the poem, leave it to the others to solve. They’re a pretty brainy lot, ’specially old Mackay and Braithwaite, real knowledge pots those two. Besides, we’ll have other things to worry about tomorrow. Bet you’d forgotten about those rough types due to come up from London?”
Ben smote his forehead with an open palm. “Of course, the four men Miss Wot’sername said were arriving Thursday! I’ve been so busy contending with riddles and dealing with Wilf and his gang, they completely slipped my mind. Have you found out any more about the situation, Ned?”
The black Labrador winked. “Oh yes indeed, I spent a very profitable hour at the back of Smithers’s lawn. You should have heard the racket. Mr. Smithers must have lungs of leather. By the way, isn’t it time
for tea? Come on, I’ll tell you later, we’ve got the rest of the day. At least you won’t have to worry about young Wilf anymore.”
Ben followed Ned inside. “What d’you mean about Wilf?”
Ned helped himself to a drink of water from his dish.
“Tell you later, come on, get the kettle on, slice the seed cake. Where’s my old lady?”
Ben spread a clean cloth over the table. “Asleep in the sitting room, we’ll surprise her with a nice afternoon tea when she wakes. Ned, will you tell Horatio to keep from under my feet?”
Ned shook his head. “No use telling him anything, unless it’s about sardines!”
34
BY NINE O’CLOCK ON THURSDAY MORNing the sun was almost as hot as noon—it was a record summer. Jonathan Preston sat at his workbench, a pencil behind one ear. He stared at the poem and blinked. Stroking his beard, the old ship’s carpenter took a sip of tea and bit into a bacon sandwich. Hearing the noise of young people coming in through the back window, he spoke without turning around.
“Aye aye, mates, sun’s been up since six, so have I. What time d’you call this to be rollin’ up on deck?”
Tearing the crust and bacon rind from his sandwich, he fed it to the black dog who’d gotten to the table before his companions. “Like my breakfast better’n your own, eh, feller!”
Amy perched on the edge of the workbench, where she saw the poem. “Have you solved it yet, Jon? St. Matthew’s message?”
The old seaman smiled slyly. “No, not yet. Have any of you?”
Both boys shook their heads. Jon watched Amy drumming her heels against the bench. “Now then, pretty maid, d’you know something you ain’t telling us? How did you find out it was St. Matthew’s message?”
Her brother sounded rather injured. “Yes, how did you? You never said anything to me!”
Ben gave her a mock severe look. “Nor me!”
The girl plucked the pencil from behind Jon’s ear and wagged it at them. “That’s because you were asleep, my dear brother, and how could I tell you, Ben, you weren’t even there. So I thought I’d keep it a secret ’til we were all together. Now watch this.”