The Tewkesbury Tomb (9 page)

‘Oh yes, of course. There was a military gentleman. He was just coming away from the Hop Pole. How silly of me not to have remembered.’

‘What did Major Anstruther say to you?’ asked Ravenscroft, after giving Crabb a knowing glance.

‘He asked me if I knew of any stables in the town where he could acquire a horse. I told him that there was one further down the road, but I doubted that it would be open at such a late hour.’

‘What happened next?’

‘He thanked me for my answer then he walked away.’

‘That is most interesting, sir, because the landlord of the Hop Pole distinctly recalls that the two of you walked away together from the inn.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose we must have walked a few yards down the road, before we each went our separate ways. I remember we walked as far as the corner, then I returned home, leaving the gentleman to find his own way to the stables. Yes that is what happened.’

‘Thank you, Reverend, you have been most helpful. One more thing, can I ask you whether you visited the Hop Pole at all last night?’

‘No. What a curious question. Why should I have gone there?’

‘Then I can take it that you did not?’

The clergyman nodded.

‘Thank you again,’ said Ravenscroft walking away.

‘You will let me know when you have caught the terrible person who killed that poor man?’

‘Of course. You will be kept fully informed.’

‘You think he was telling us the truth, sir? He seemed very nervous, as though he had something to hide,’ said Crabb, as the two men walked away from the abbey.

‘I have no reason to doubt him. At least we now know that Anstruther was looking for a horse to effect his departure from the town.’

Later that afternoon Ravenscroft and Crabb stood in the empty room of Ross’s house in the village of Bredon’s Norton. Outside, the sun, which had made a brief appearance in the sky, had as yet failed to penetrate the gloom of the interior.

‘He is nowhere to be seen, sir,’ said a bewildered Crabb.

‘It is as if no one has lived here for years. Even the fire looks
as though it has not been lit this morning. There is nothing of a personal nature here, Tom – no clothes, no food or wine on the table, no portraits on the walls. It is almost as though we have come to another house. The only thing which appears to be the same is the intense coldness and misery of the place.’

‘Perhaps our friend Ross does not live here at all,’ suggested Crabb. ‘He could have just been staying here.’

‘Listen, Tom, do you hear that noise,’ interrupted Ravenscroft.

‘It sounds like a dog barking, somewhere in the distance.’

The two men walked quickly away from the room, closing the door of the house behind them.

‘Over there!’ said Ravenscroft pointing. ‘Quickly, Crabb, stop that fellow and ask him to join us if you will.’

Crabb ran across the grass and returned a moment later with an old, bearded man wearing a long torn overcoat. A black and white sheepdog followed at his heels.

‘I wonder if we might have a moment of your time, sir,’ began Ravenscroft.

‘Depends on whose asking,’ replied the man.

‘Inspector Ravenscroft of the Ledbury Constabulary, and this is my colleague Constable Crabb.’

‘Ledbury you say. You be a long way from Ledders.’

‘We are making investigations into a crime that has been committed in Tewkesbury. Can you tell me whether you reside locally?’

‘Live at farm down road,’ said the old man patting the head of his dog.

‘Have you been there long?’

‘Eighty years, man and boy.’

‘Then you can tell me who lives in the house over there.’

‘No one at present. House been empty for past ten years.’

‘We were given to understand that a Mr Charles Ross resides
there,’ said Ravenscroft, hoping that the farmer might be able to offer a solution to the mystery.

‘Ross you say. He used to live there. He weren’t ’ere for long though.’

‘Can you describe this Mr Ross for us?’

The man stared at Ravenscroft in silence.

‘It is very important that we find Mr Ross and speak to him. Can you confirm our description – tall, thin man, approximately thirty in years, black hair, staring eyes, very bad cough.’

‘That be him. Spoke in a funny way.’

‘He has a Scottish accent,’ added Crabb.

‘Could be,’ replied the man turning away and looking down at his dog. ‘Come on now, Red, time for yer supper.’

‘One more thing, just before you go – when did you last see Mr Ross?’ asked Ravenscroft.

‘About ten year ago.’

‘Ten years ago!’ exclaimed a frustrated Ravenscroft. ‘You have not seen him for ten years?’

‘That’s what I said,’ said the farmer beginning to take his leave.

‘I find that difficult to believe. I spoke to Mr Ross only yesterday, in this same house.’

‘Impossible. You must be mistaken,’ called out the old man.

‘We were both here, my constable and myself, and spoke to Mr Ross. Why do you say it was impossible?’ asked a perplexed Ravenscroft.

‘Because Mr Ross is dead. That’s why. He were shot in a hunting accident ten years ago!’

Ravenscroft took out his pocket watch, noted that the time was two hours past midnight, and reached out to stir the dying embers in the hearth before him. A solitary candle on the table at his side cast flickering shadows on the walls of the house, as he bought the remains of the glass to his lips.

His thoughts turned once more to the empty house at Bredon’s Norton, and he saw again the cold, inhospitable room and its strange occupant. The old man had been quite adamant that Ross had died ten years earlier as the result of a hunting accident when his firearm had blown up in his face – an assertion which had been confirmed by at least two other people with long memories who resided in the area – and yet that could not have been the case, as he and Crabb had spoken with the Scotsman earlier that day. Then there was the entry in the directory stating that a Mr Charles Ross was still resident at the house – and his three remaining suspects had all said that Ross had been there with them that night at the abbey. No, the old man and his
neighbours must have been wrong. Ross was certainly very much alive, and had not been killed as the result of some shooting accident. The man must have been thinking of someone else who had come to an untimely demise. Perhaps Ross had once lived in the house, and had left the area many years previously and had recently returned, unnoticed by his neighbours, only to disappear now once more into the unknown. But then if he had returned, why had he done so? The others had certainly confirmed the missing goblet story, so that had probably been the reason for his return, and yet if he had not been resident in the house when he had first been approached by the deceased stranger Crosbie, where had he been? Perhaps he had been in league with the man, planning the whole enterprise together – but if that had been the case, how did it explain the brutal stabbing of Hollinger?

Then there was Anstruther. What part had he played in all this? His discussion with the doctor before they had both retired for the night, the bloodstained clothes left behind in his bedroom, and his sudden midnight departure from the Hop Pole, all these facts seemed to implicate him in the killing. Crabb’s inquiries at the stable yard further up the road, had confirmed what Jesterson had said, reavealing that one of the horses had been taken in the night, so it appeared more than likely that the major had left the town in a hurry. Everything seemed to point to his guilt. A telegram sent to his regimental headquarters had confirmed what he and Crabb had suspected, namely that Anstruther had never been a member of the Guards. Clearly the man had set out to deceive everyone by exaggerating his own importance, and now had gone to ground. But why had Anstruther killed Hollinger – what possible reason could he have had to want to murder the poor man? Maybe Anstruther had been in league with the deceased Crosbie, in which case Ross was
innocent. But if Ross had killed neither Crosbie nor Hollinger, why had he now gone to ground? The whole thing did not make sense – unless of course, Anstruther, Ross and Crosbie had all been in it together.

Why had either Anstruther or Ross, or both of them, killed Hollinger? What kind of threat had the Prussian doctor posed to them? Had he stood in the way of them finding the golden goblet? All his suspects had stated that they had not believed a word that had been told to them by the deceased Crosbie, and yet they had all chosen to keep the appointment outside the abbey; six complete strangers – except for the friends Jenkins and Ganniford – meeting for the first time, all said to be descendants of the crusader knight Sir Roger de la Pole, and all hoping to recover the ancient golden goblet. Had they found that treasure inside the tomb that night, or had Crosbie lifted it out of the grave earlier that same evening, handing it to his accomplice who then killed him in such brutal fashion? But if the goblet had been found, why had the killer then chosen to remain in the town instead of escaping as quickly as possible with his treasure? Perhaps the whole goblet story was pure fantasy. There had never been such a treasure in the first place, and Sir Roger had gone to his grave leaving no secrets behind him.

Then there was the greatest mystery of all. If there had been a treasure waiting to be discovered, why had not Crosbie just taken it for himself? Why had he chosen to involve the six strangers? Why had he visited them each in turn, using a different name each time, acquired from the novels of Anthony Trollope, informing them they were all descended from the Templar Knight, and urging them towards the fatal meeting?

No, the whole thing made no sense at all, and no matter how many times he considered the evidence, examining it from all the possible angles, every solution he came up with seemed to
contradict one another.

‘Samuel, do come to bed.’

The voice startled him, breaking into his deliberations and returning him abruptly to the present.

‘It is nearly three o’clock in the morning,’ said Lucy, kneeling before him and looking up into his face. ‘You will be very tired in the morning, Samuel.’

‘I am sorry, my dear. I keep going over and over this case in my mind. But no matter from which way I look at it, none of it makes the slightest sense,’ said Ravenscroft, taking his wife’s hands in his own.

‘Perhaps in the morning you will see things in a different light.’

‘I do not think so. I do believe this is the most difficult case I have ever undertaken in the whole of my career. I can see no reason why any of the parties involved would have committed these crimes. Not only do I have two dead bodies on my hands, but also two missing suspects.’

‘Perhaps Tom will track one of them down tomorrow, or you may gain new inspiration in the morning,’ suggested Lucy.

‘Dear Lucy, you are my only source of inspiration,’ smiled Ravenscroft, looking deeply into his wife’s eyes. ‘I do not know how I managed all those years without you. But I have been entirely selfish. I have been most neglectful in my duties as a husband.’

‘Give me your hand,’ said Lucy reaching out.

Ravenscroft rose from his chair and, taking his wife’s hand, moved across to the window. ‘I promise you that once this case is over, we will take the very next train to London. We are both in need of some entertainment and a change of scenery.’

‘I shall keep you to that, Samuel Ravenscroft,’ smiled Lucy.

‘Look there in the sky, my dear. Do you see that star? Just
there to our left. See how brightly it shines in the clear moonlit sky,’ said Ravenscroft, drawing his wife closer to him, and placing his arms around her waist. ‘One would think that it is the only star in the heavens tonight, and yet we know that there are many more in the universe. Sometimes, when I was in Whitechapel and the air was oppressive and I could not sleep at night, I would travel out to the heath at Hampstead and climb the hill there so that I could look down on the great city. There I would gradually clear my mind of all the crime and unpleasantness that lay beneath me, and remind myself of all the goodness and honesty that often lies hidden in the world. Then I would wonder whether I would ever leave that place, the bustling, noisy, smoke-ridden city, and what the future would hold for me. All that seems such a long time ago now. I little dreamt then that my life would so suddenly change for the better. That was only a year ago. And now I have you, my love, and you have given me a new purpose to my life. It often seems that I have been here in Ledbury, with you, for years. So you see, one must always have hope that things will become better, and that one’s lot will be improved. I wonder who else tonight is looking upwards at that same star? Let you and I, my dear Lucy, adopt that star. Let it become our talisman, the source of all our hope and expectation. We must not despair. We must go forward.’

‘You are quite the romantic, Samuel Ravenscroft,’ said Lucy leaning her head on her husband’s shoulder.

‘I will find out who killed that poor man in the tomb and Dr Hollinger. We must have courage to go on. All will be well, of that I am sure. Now, I think it is time that we both sought out the comfort of our bed. Tomorrow will shortly be upon us, and we will both need our sleep if we are to gain inspiration from the new dawn.’

Lucy said nothing as she kissed her husband’s cheek.

‘Come, my dear.’

‘I have been thinking of your case all night,’ began Lucy, as they started to climb the stairs.

‘I am sure that you have, but no more. Let us forget the whole thing for a few hours.’

‘Perhaps the answer lies with your Sir Roger de la Pole, or whatever his name was.’

‘Oh, why do you say that?’

‘Well, he is, after all, the reason why your six suspects and the deceased man came to Tewkesbury. Perhaps if you were to turn your attention more to him than your five suspects, and try to find out more about him, then you might be able to discover what all this is about.’

‘My dear Lucy, yes of course!’ exclaimed Ravenscroft. ‘In all this conjecture, I have been forgetting the most obvious course of action. You have pointed me in the right direction. Am I not married to a genius?’

‘There, I told you that you would find inspiration. How will you find out more concerning your Sir Roger?’

‘There are no doubt a number of books in the local library, and the clergyman at the abbey may be able to throw some more light on our old Templar. Of course, Professor Salt! Why did I not think of him before? Yes, I know a man who I can consult; Mathias Salt.’

‘Mathias Salt?’

‘Mathias Tobias Salt, Professor of Medieval Studies, to give him his full title.’

‘And where does this Professor Salt reside?’ enquired Lucy opening the door to their bedroom.

‘In one of the darker corners of Oxford, hidden away from all view, and no doubt engaged on some great historical research. I remember that I had reason to consult him many years ago, when
he was able to assist me in the solving of a very difficult case. Yes, I shall take the early morning train for Oxford. Tom can carry on the search for Ross and Anstruther. Salt may well have the answers to all this.’

Ravenscroft stared up at the imposing ancient building which cast long deep shadows on the neatly cut lawns before him. The journey by train to Oxford had been uneventful and he had enjoyed the pleasant walk along the busy streets of the town before entering the grounds of the college.

‘Careful, my dear sir!’ exclaimed a young man running into the quadrangle and colliding with Ravenscroft.

‘I am so sorry,’ began Ravenscroft. ‘I should have been paying more attention. I was admiring the architecture of your college.’

‘Not bad, is it?’ said the young man picking up a pile of papers which had dropped to the ground.

‘You are most fortunate to be a student here. Would that I had been granted the same opportunity in my youth.’

‘It’s not all that people would have you believe, you know. The rooms are freezing cold in winter, the food is barely passable, company is of a mediocre quality, and a great deal of the tuition leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway, can’t stop now. No time to talk. An interesting lecture on eighteenth century politics in the Sheldonian beckons.’

‘Could you tell me where I might find the residence of Professor Salt?’ asked Ravenscroft.

‘Over there, up two flights of stairs, knock on number sixteen.’ came back the hasty reply as the young man ran off at a brisk pace.

‘Thank you.’

Ravenscroft entered the building and began to make his way up the worn stone steps.

After a few moments, he reached the second-storey landing and made his way along the corridor, reading the numbers on the oak doors until he reached one that bore the number sixteen. Raising his hand he tapped gently on the woodwork and listened for any sound from within the ancient room. Receiving no reply he repeated the action in a louder fashion.

‘Come in,’ bellowed a voice, somewhere in the distance.

Ravenscroft opened the door and entered the room. An old, tall, grey-haired, bearded man was seated at a large desk in the centre, busily engaged in examining what Ravenscroft supposed to be some kind of ancient document.

Ravenscroft coughed.

‘What did you say your name was, my dear boy?’ asked the voice without looking up at the new arrival.

‘I didn’t. But my name is Ravenscroft.’

‘Ravenscroft?’

‘Detective Inspector Ravenscroft.’

‘Ravenscroft? I have certainly heard that name somewhere before. You look familiar. Have we met sometime in the distant past?’ said the questioner casting a brief glance in his direction before resuming his studies.

‘About ten years ago. I had need to consult you regarding the demise of Sir Charles Foulsome,’ offered Ravenscroft, hoping that the old man would recall their earlier meeting.

‘Foulsome, you say. I can’t say I recall the name.’

‘You were kind enough to translate an old will for me, which, as it proved, had a distinct bearing on the case,’

‘Ah yes, I do remember! Case of a forged signature and all that, and some dubious legacies if I recall. Ravenscourt, you said?’

‘Ravenscroft,’ said the detective, shaking the hand that had suddenly been offered.

‘And how can I be of assistance to you, Inspector?’

‘I wonder if you could tell me anything about the Knights Templar and about one of their number in particular, namely Sir Roger de la Pole of Tewkesbury,’ asked Ravenscroft, relieved that he had at last obtained the learned man’s attention.

‘Ah, the Templars! Interesting group of people. To give them their full title, Knights Templar or Order of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon – although many of them were far from poor. They were a kind of religious military order, formed around 1119, with the purpose of protecting pilgrims as they travelled to the Holy Land. They played an important role in the crusades. Pope Innocent II even placed them under direct papal authority.’

‘You say that many of them became quite wealthy. Why was this?’

‘As the various crusader states declined in authority, they increasingly found themselves in the role of financiers and bankers of the crusading enterprise. People often forget that many of the crusades might not have taken place at all were it not for the money provided by the Templars. Religious endeavour is all very well, but it is money that pays for food and weapons. Such a state of affairs could not continue for long of course. Philip IV of France and the Avignon Pope Clement V decided to suppress the order, claiming that they had become heretics, but really resenting the independence, power and wealth of the brotherhood. Money can often lead to corruption, Inspector, and even if it does not, jealousy can be a dangerous thing to countenance,’ continued Professor Salt, stroking his long white beard and staring at Ravenscroft through the lenses of his narrow-framed spectacles.