Death at Blenheim Palace (4 page)

It was an interesting story. Mr. Rupert Dreighson of Castlegate Hall, some fifteen miles from Oxford, had retired from a profitable career as the owner of a string of drapers’ shops in Liverpool and Manchester and, now that he could afford such things, had become an enthusiastic collector of Celtic antiquities. In his passionate search for treasures to add to his collection, Mr. Dreighson had suggested to antiquities dealers that if a hoard should happen to turn up, he would be willing to pay a handsome price for it. Of course, everyone knew that such a transaction would have to take place on the wrong side of the law, for one who dug up a cache of gold and silver objects was required to turn over everything to the Crown. But these days there were a great many collectors who possessed more money than scruples, and the legalities were frequently disregarded.

In the event, Mr. Dreighson was delighted when an unknown lady—a well-bred woman of quiet demeanor and modest dress—called upon him at Castlegate Hall one day and offered to sell him an antique golden earring, with the suggestion that if he were interested, several similar pieces might be available, the price to be negotiated. The earring’s workmanship being quite extraordinary and Dreighson, being confident that it was without a doubt the real thing, handed over the money without demur, expressing an enthusiastic interest in the remainder of the collection.

Within a few days, he received a letter describing the pieces in detail and quoting a price for the whole. While the amount was high enough to raise Dreighson’s eyebrows, he was not the sort of man to quibble when it came to something he wanted as badly as he wanted this. Arrangements were made, the required amount was deposited, in cash, in the designated London bank, and the collection—a dozen pieces of great beauty and rarity—was safely settled in Dreighson’s capacious private vault.

And there it might have safely remained, if Rupert Dreighson had not been a braggart. He could not resist the temptation of showing off his newly acquired treasures to a friend from London, who had come for a weekend’s fishing to Castlegate Hall. A few days later, the friend happened to bump into Lord Charles Sheridan, and casually mentioned that a chap in Oxfordshire had privately got his hands on something rather remarkable, which—dash it all—had not come up for auction so others might’ve had a go at it. Charles, who had heard a whisper of rumor about the Warrington Hoard going missing, made a discreet inquiry at the Ashmolean, and Buttersworth was forced to admit the theft.

The next bit of business proved surprisingly easy. Under the guise of having a gold Celtic bracelet to sell, Charles arranged an introduction to Mr. Dreighson and talked his way into the Castlegate vault. Then, armed with the Ashmolean’s catalog and documentary photographs of the Warrington Hoard, he confronted Dreighson, who gave him a cock-and-bull story about buying the lot from a pair of navvies who had turned it up while digging a drain in a field in Essex. But the story soon fell apart and the truth about the clandestine purchase emerged.

Dreighson, of course, claimed that he had not had an idea in the world that the pieces were stolen property, that he had purchased them fair and square, and that they were his. But a visit from the museum’s solicitor persuaded him of the wisdom of returning the items in exchange for the addition of his name to the patron’s list—a distinction that would polish Mr. Dreighson’s prestige quite brightly indeed, and allow him to shine like a star among all the other retired drapers in the kingdom.

The Ashmolean, of course, was overjoyed at having regained the Hoard without having to admit publically that it had been lost. But Charles did not share in the general pleasure, for while the stolen property had been returned, the thieves were still at large. As was to be expected, inquiries at the bank turned up nothing; the account had been opened under the unrevealing name of George Smith and closed immediately upon the withdrawal of the money. The postal address also yielded no clues. What troubled Charles most was the apprehension that this theft might be just one of several. He had recently heard, for instance, of a theft at the Duke of Portland’s establishment in Nottinghamshire, which could only have been carried out by a ring of clever thieves, some of them working as servants.

“By the way,” Charles said, looking around, “I haven’t seen Ned Lawrence today—your young helper. Does he still come to the museum?”

Charles had met young Lawrence during his dealings over the Hoard and had been impressed with the boy’s knowledge of the local archaeological sites and his passion for exploring. Since Charles planned to be near Oxford for a few days—he and Kate, his wife, were staying with the Marlboroughs at Blenheim—he thought he might drive the Panhard to Chipping Norton for a look at the Rollright Stones, a Neolithic stone circle which, in Charles’s view, held every bit as much interest as the more famous Stonehenge. Young Lawrence might like to come along.

“Ned?” Buttersworth asked. “Oh, yes, I wouldn’t part with the boy—although I’d be glad to lend him to you, if there’s something you want him to do.” He smiled. “He’d be delighted to lend you a hand, you know, if you had another investigation. He was enormously impressed with the way you handled that business with Dreighson.”

Charles chuckled. “I know. He offered to come on as my assistant—without pay. Watson to my Holmes, he said. Very keen.”

“That’s Ned,” Buttersworth said, amused. “Like most boys his age, he loves adventure. Too much Stevenson, I’m afraid. He’d sail off to Treasure Island in a minute. However, he’s far above other boys in his competence and his range of interests.” He smiled. “Why, he reads the newspaper’s police reports as religiously as he reads his lessons.” His smile faded. “Something of a sad story, though, and rather a mystery. His family, that is.”

“Oh?” Charles asked.

“His father is an Irish gentleman of some consequence named—” He stopped, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “On second thought, perhaps Ned would rather tell you himself, if the opportunity arises. Were you thinking of taking him out with you?”

“I was,” Charles said, “if he can be spared. My wife and I are staying with the Marlboroughs, so I’ll be in the area for a few days.”

Buttersworth seemed to hesitate. “With the Marlboroughs, you say. At Blenheim, I take it.”

Charles nodded. “I’d like Ned to see the Rollright Stones, if he’s not been there already. I want to encourage his interest in archaeology—although I suppose he’ll be disappointed to hear that I don’t have a case he can help investigate.”

“Oh, by all means, take him with you,” Buttersworth said. Behind his glasses, his eyes became more intent. “But speaking of cases—”

“There’s not been another theft, I hope,” Charles said warily.

Buttersworth fluttered a hand. “Oh, no. At least, not here at the museum, I’m glad to say. It’s only that—” He broke off, obviously troubled. “But perhaps I shouldn’t mention it. It is only speculation, after all. My suspicions, if that’s what they are, are probably quite unfounded.”

Charles waited, feeling that there was more here than the man wanted to say—more, perhaps, than he wanted to hear.

“On the other hand,” Buttersworth went on after a moment, “since you are staying with the Marlboroughs, perhaps I ought to—” He looked in both directions up and down the hall, then lowered his voice. “I was visited by a rather remarkable woman on Friday, you see.” He paused.

“Remarkable in what way?” Charles asked.

“Well, her appearance, for one thing. Her nose, quite classical, exactly like that of Sappho, whose bust we have in our collection.” Buttersworth seemed to reflect on this phenomenon for a moment.

“And this remarkable woman—” Charles prompted.

Buttersworth started. “Ah, yes. Well, she claimed to represent her employer. Wanted my opinion on several antique pieces.”

Charles smiled. “I shouldn’t think such a request would be all that unusual, in your line of work.”

“It was not the request, it was the items themselves. One was a rather ordinary scarab seal—people are always fetching those things home from holiday in Egypt. But she also had a Minoan prism seal and three very fine Greek seal stones, and she suggested that there were more.”

Charles tipped his head to one side, remembering Dreighson’s story—when the truth had finally been forced out of the man—of being visited by a woman who had sold him an earring. “I see,” he said. “I suppose you thought of the Dreighson affair.”

“I did,” Buttersworth said ruefully. “But I was also reminded of the Marlborough collection. The Marlborough Gemstones.” He paused. “I suppose you know of them.”

“Ah, yes,” Charles said reflectively. “A large assemblage of very fine gemstones—more than seven hundred, as I recall—gathered at enormous expense by the fourth duke. And sold by the seventh duke, who needed the money to keep the palace going.” He smiled crookedly. “Alas, they went for just thirty-five thousand guineas, although they were said to have been worth twice that.”

Buttersworth cleared his throat. “But there’s something else, you see,” he said, distinctly uneasy. “The woman who brought the stones—she let it slip that she had been sent by the Duchess.”

“The Duchess?” Charles repeated with a chuckle. “Come now, Buttersworth. You can’t be serious.”

“I know,” Buttersworth said gloomily. “Well, of course it could only be the Duchess of Marlborough. And I wondered, you see . . . Of course, it was just a thought, but I couldn’t help asking myself whether some of the gemstones might have escaped the auction block, after all, and were now being offered for sale, clandestinely. Although I must say,” he added quickly, “that it does seem rather strange. The Duchess was Consuelo Vanderbilt before she married the Duke, as you know. The Marlboroughs’ pockets are said to be empty, but I doubt that a Vanderbilt would need money. Or, if she did, that she would stoop to sell the Duke’s family jewels.”

Buttersworth’s story, Charles thought, was highly unsettling, and not because the Duchess would be involved in anything underhanded. “There may be a scheme afoot that doesn’t involve the Marlboroughs,” he said, thinking of the Dreighson affair. “A plot of which the Duke and Duchess know nothing.”

“It’s possible,” Buttersworth agreed. He gave Charles an anxious look. “You’ll keep it in mind while you’re there?”

“I shall,” Charles said. “I shall indeed.”

CHAPTER FOUR

 
Blenheim: Biography of a Palace
Miriam Fowler

 
 
 
 
Kate Sheridan, carrying a string bag containing her purchases, walked past Woodstock’s town hall, past The Bear, past St. Mary Magdalene’s church, and along a row of rose-covered Georgian houses and pretty shops. At the last shop, she turned left, crossed a grassy quadrangle, stepped through an imposing stone arch, and paused to admire the sweeping view that lay before her—the finest in all England, it was widely reckoned.

Before her lay a quiet lake girdled with mature beech-woods and soft green meadows, its glittering surface reflecting the shadows of moving clouds and the darker, heavier shadow of a massive stone-arch bridge. To the left of the lake rose the walls and towers of Blenheim, and Kate thought with a shiver that, even softened by distance, it seemed cold and fierce and forbidding, more like a prison than a palace. To the right, through the trees, she could see the tall stone Column of Victory, monument to John Churchill’s decisive defeat of the French at the Austrian village of Blenheim two hundred years before. A grateful Queen Anne had awarded the nation’s hero a dukedom and crowned the honor with the grant of the eighteen hundred-acre royal manor of Woodstock, promising to build on it, at government expense, “the Castle of Blenheim.”

Never mind that the park and woodland, the site of Henry I’s famous hunting lodge and Henry II’s royal palace, had fallen into a sad decline, seldom used, derelict and neglected. And never mind that certain cynics in the court hinted that the Queen had merely taken the opportunity to off-load a surplus royal estate that had become a royal embarrassment. Most agreed that it was a magnificent gift, worthy of a victorious general and a munificent queen.

But things hadn’t sorted out as the triumphant Churchill, now known as the Duke of Marlborough, might have wished. Having paid out nearly a quarter of a million pounds for Blenheim’s construction, the Queen repented of her promise, snapped shut the royal purse, and died, leaving to Marlborough and his heirs the pain of finishing the palace out of their personal pockets, which, unfortunately, were not very deep.

The task had been difficult and prolonged, but eventually the grand house had been completed, and eight succeeding dukes had carved out the landscape that now held Kate’s admiring gaze. The famous landscape architect, Capability Brown, had dammed the River Glyme to create the lake and artfully planted beeches and oaks around it, creating the illusion of the long-vanished medieval forest that had once surrounded the King’s favorite hunting lodge. And on the lake’s far shore, beyond the bridge, a clump of trees marked the oldest, most historic, and most romantic site of all: Fair Rosamund’s Well, that mysterious spring about which Kate had heard so many stories. In fact, Rosamund’s Well was the reason she had come to Blenheim, to see for herself the setting of one of the most tantalizing romances in English history.

By this time, Kate had reached the elm-lined avenue that led from Hensington Road to the East Gate of the palace. She had just turned onto the lane when, behind her, she heard the chugging of a motor and the peremptory tootle of an airhorn, and turned to see her husband Charles piloting their Panhard along the graveled road. He slowed the motorcar to a stop, pushed his goggles up on his forehead, and leaned over to open the door with a smile.