The Tewkesbury Tomb (10 page)

‘What happened to the Templars?’ asked Ravenscroft becoming more interested in the subject.

‘Many of them were rounded up by the authorities and put to
death, but some did escape persecution. A number of them joined the order of the Knights of St John and fought against the Turks on the islands of Rhodes and Malta. Some, no doubt, returned home, like your Sir Roger de la Pole, where they were fortunate enough to die in their own beds.’

‘And the order?’

‘Completely extinguished, although some say that there are descendants who are intent on continuing with the order, in secret, to this day, though I hasten to say that if there are any remaining Templars I certainly have never come across them.’

‘What can you tell me about Sir Roger?’

‘Ah, a most interesting family, the de la Poles. The first one to achieve prominence was William de la Pole, a rich merchant and ship owner who helped to finance Edward III in his campaign against the French. A very shrewd business man by all accounts. Then there was Michael de la Pole, financier and royal servant who became chancellor to Richard II, before being forced to flee to France to escape impeachment on charges of embezzlement and negligence. Very careless to say the least. After him there was his grandson, William de la Pole, who fought with Henry V at Agincourt no less, but who fared less well under his son Henry VI, where he was sent to the Tower on charges of treason and corruption. He came to a rather bloody end, beheaded by a group of dissidents as he tried to escape the country. Edmund de la Pole seems not to have fared any better, being executed by Henry VIII. They seem to have been rather intent in making a habit of annoying royalty and paying the ultimate price.’

‘And Sir Roger de la Pole?’ interrupted Ravenscroft, anxious to turn the conversation back to the Templar Knight.

‘Came from another, poorer and less illustrious branch of the family, I believe, who saw the prudence of keeping well in the
background, thus avoiding any controversy and thereby managing to keep their heads.’

‘You seem remarkably well informed about the de la Poles,’ said Ravenscroft.

‘Medieval history is my speciality, my dear boy, although you must have known that, or you would not have made the journey to visit me today,’ replied the professor moving his glasses further down his elongated nose so that he was able to stare at his questioner above their lens.

‘Of course,’ said Ravenscroft quickly, anxious not to cause offence. ‘And would Sir Roger have returned from the Holy Land with any kind of treasure?’

‘Ah, I see where this is going! You believe that Sir Roger returned bearing gold, frankincense and all kinds of precious goods.’

‘There was talk of a golden goblet,’ offered Ravenscoft.

‘Not in any documents of the time, as I recall.’

‘So it would have been unlikely?’

‘Unlikely, but not impossible. Just because it was not recorded at the time, does not lead one to the conclusion that there was no such treasure. If Sir Roger was able to acquire something of value on his travels, or in Jerusalem, then he would probably have kept very quiet about it.’

‘If there had been such a golden goblet, said to be encrusted with precious jewels, what do you think it could possibly have been?’

‘Ah, I see thoughts of the Holy Grail are entering your mind!’ exclaimed Salt lifting his hands above his head and clapping them together.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ said Ravenscroft, somewhat taken aback by the suddenness of the learned man’s strange behaviour.

‘All through history there have been strange fantasies concerning the Holy Grail, the cup or goblet which our Christ used at the Last Supper and which was said to contain His very own blood collected from His body at the Crucifixion. Nonsense, all of it! If such a cup, goblet or container had been used, let alone preserved, then it would almost certainly have been made of wood, or some other form of perishable material. Gold encrusted goblets indeed! A nonsensical idea carried forward through the centuries, later to be embellished by those stories made up about that vagabond King Arthur and his so-called Knights of the Round Table and their search for the Holy Grail. Nonsense – dangerous nonsense all of it,’ continued the professor becoming more animated during his discourse.

‘I see, then there would have been no golden goblet bought home by Sir Roger?’

‘Forget all this Grail nonsense. If Sir Roger did return with some keepsake or artefact, it would not have been a golden goblet I am sure.’

‘Do you think that if Sir Roger did return with something of value, it could have been placed in his tomb when he died?’ asked Ravenscroft.

‘Highly unlikely I would say. You would run the risk that someone would have helped themselves to the item either when he was entombed, or that someone would have returned within a few days to force open the tomb and appropriate it for themselves. More likely he passed it on to another member of his family before his death.’

‘Do you think he could have hidden it somewhere?’

‘Why do you ask that?’

‘We found some rather strange marks on the outside of Sir Roger’s tomb.’

‘Do you have a record of such markings?’ enquired the
professor, his curiosity aroused.

‘My constable jotted them down in his notebook,’ said Ravenscroft, producing the item from his own pocket and handing it to the professor.

‘Most interesting,’ said the scholar readjusting his spectacles and bringing the book closer towards his eyes.

‘No one seems to know what it means.’

‘I can see why that has been the case. At first sight it looks quite perplexing,’ said Salt, twitching his nose so alarmingly that Ravenscroft thought the scholar might be in imminent danger of losing his spectacles. ‘I think that you had perhaps better inform me as to the nature of your case, my dear boy.’

During the next few minutes Ravenscroft narrated in some detail all the facts concerning the dead man found inside the crusader’s tomb and all that had followed on from his investigation, ending with the disappearance of Ross and the flight of Anstruther, during which the professor paced up and down in deep thought, pausing now and then to exclaim such phrases as ‘well I never’ and ‘how extraordinary’.

‘And there you have it,’ said Ravenscroft coming to the end of his discourse.

‘Well, well. An interesting state of affairs. I can appreciate your difficulties, my dear Inspector. Difficulties indeed. I must say that I am inclined to agree with your premise that your six suspects all decided to keep their appointment at the abbey in the expectation of discovering Sir Roger’s treasure. If we assume that the goblet, or whatever we like to call it, was not buried with Sir Roger, then it must be somewhere else, and that is where your
strange markings come to the fore.’

‘I was hoping that you might be able to decipher the letters.’

Ravenscroft watched as the antiquary first bought the paper close to his face where he peered at the letters and numbers for some moments, before closing his eyes and clasping his forehead as if in pain.

‘Why everyone who has sought to obtain meaning from these symbols has failed, is because they have tried to solve the problem from their own perspective and time,’ pronounced the professor eventually, waving the paper in the air.

‘Go on,’ urged Ravenscroft, hoping that his words of encouragement might bear fruit.

‘What we must do, if we are to solve this problem, is to look at it from Sir Roger’s point of view; after all it was he, one presumes, who gave instruction for the message to be written on his tomb. Why did he do this? He wanted to make sure that only someone of sufficient intelligence, of a similar background and experience as himself, who came after him, would be able to work out what the message means. Sir Roger was clearly a man who enjoyed a good sense of humour. I rather like him, I must say!’

Ravenscroft smiled, but wondered whether all the professor’s deliberations would eventually lead to the solution he was hoping for.

‘Sir Roger had recently returned from the Holy Land. Out there he would have encountered another world, where the sights, smells and sounds would have all been different – more important even the language, both written and spoken, would have been unusual. Arabic writing is read from the right. It proceeds across the page until it reaches the left-hand side.’

‘So we have been reading the message the wrong way round!’ exclaimed Ravenscroft.

‘Exactly.’

‘But it still does not make sense, even when you read it backwards.’

‘Ah, that is where the second element of the puzzle begins. Chess!’ announced the old man triumphantly. ‘You play chess, Mr Ravenscroft?’

‘Not for many years.’

‘But you are no doubt aware of the rules. Chess is an ancient game, stretching back over two thousand years. When Sir Roger went on his crusade, chess was completely unknown in England, but in the Holy Land it was already established. Sir Roger must have seen the game and decided to work it into his little puzzle. By adopting both the Arabic way of writing and the game of chess, both of which would have been unknown to his contemporaries at home, he was ensuring that only someone like himself, a crusader knight, another Templar, would have been able to solve the clues and work out what the message says.’

‘And would have been rewarded for his efforts,’ added Ravenscroft.

‘Exactly!’

‘Like a gentleman’s club?’

‘A very select gentlemen’s club, my dear Ravenscroft.’

‘So do you think we could now solve the puzzle?’

‘Ah well, that may be difficult – but not perhaps impossible. Here, take this large sheet of paper and this ruler – and with this pen draw a chessboard, eight squares across and eight the other way.’

Ravenscroft did as he was instructed, as the antiquary, stroking his flowing beard, continued to stare hard at the paper before him.

‘Good. This will be our chessboard. Bearing in mind that Arabic script is written from right to left, I want you to place
each letter of the alphabet, in order, in each square, commencing with the “a” in the bottom right-hand square and so on.’

Ravenscroft did as he was instructed, ending the first bottom row of the board with the letter ‘h’, the second row ending in ‘p’, the third with ‘x’.

‘There are two letters left over, “y” and “z” – where shall I place those?’

‘In the first two squares of the next row,’ replied the professor leaning over his shoulder. ‘Good, now do the same with your opponent, starting again with the ‘a’ in the last right-hand square of the back row, and then moving leftwards across the board.’

‘Surely one’s opponent would have been facing the other way,’ corrected Ravenscroft.

‘True, but I believe that the board is meant to be seen by one person, namely the reader of the inscription and, as such, the letters would again run from right to left.’

Ravenscroft again wrote in all the letters on the paper.

‘Excellent, my dear inspector. So we now have both the ‘a’s facing one another and so on. Now mark on the paper, outside the main board, the names of the pieces.’

Ravenscroft wrote ‘castle’ facing the square which bore the letter ‘a’ ‘knight’ facing the letter ‘b’ and so on, until he had completed the back row.

‘Now do the same with your opponent’s side of the board. Excellent. Now we are ready to begin. What we clearly have is two words, one written underneath the other. If we assume that white begins the game first, at the bottom of the board, then we can conclude that the first word on the inscription is played by white and that the second word, is played by black at the top of the board. Now remembering that the word is written from right to left, we look at the first group of letters and numbers, namely Q2—’

‘Q stands for the queen,’ interrupted Ravenscroft, fascinated by the learned man’s conclusions.

‘So, if the queen moves two squares forward, from the edge of the board, then we arrive at the letter M. Now if we take the next group Q1 and this time only move the queen forward one square from the edge of the board, which in fact is its starting position, we reveal the letter E. The next group poses a problem, CR4. Ah yes, I have it! C stands for the castle, and because there are two of them, the letter R suggests the castle to the right. Now move four squares to the front, departing from the edge of the board, and we arrive at the letter Y. Likewise, BR3 relates to the bishop on the right side, which when we move it forward gives us the letter S. Q1 gives us the letter E again, and CR4 will give us the letter Y. Now you try to decipher the second word, for your opponent, black, remembering to start from the right. I believe that the letter K represents the knight and that the “+ 3” probably stands for the king as he is the most important piece on the board.’

Intrigued, Ravenscroft worked through the second group of letters, revealing the word HAMPTON after a few minutes work. ‘Meysey Hampton – what on earth does that mean?’ he asked, finally laying down his pen and looking intently at the two words before him.

‘It’s a place, my dear Ravenscroft. A place. Wait here!’ instructed the professor, rushing quickly out of the room, leaving a bewildered Ravenscroft behind him. The learned antiquary may well have deciphered the inscription on the side of the old crusader’s tomb, revealing the two new words, thought Ravenscroft, but the whole thing did not appear to be any clearer to him.

‘Ah, here we are,’ said Salt, returning triumphantly to the room bearing a large thick volume which he flung down on the
table, before intently running his finger along several lines of script on the open page. ‘Here we have it! Meysey Hampton, ancient Gloucestershire parish, north of Cirencester, close to the market town of Fairford. Ah, ah! Now everything is revealed. The church of Meysey Hampton is said to have been built by the Templar Knights! It is a Templar church and that is why the inscription was placed on the side of Sir Roger’s tomb.’

‘But why? Why would Sir Roger have left instructions for such an elaborate code to be written on the side of his tomb?’ asked Ravenscroft.