Chapter Text
[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]
John often remarked that the ill-starred Hawke/Buckingham family aside, how rare it was for people whom we had helped before to reappear in our lives which, given the nature of my work, was I suppose understandable. This case however began with a connection from one such person, and most unusually it was something that I decided to keep from John. And I hardly kept anything from him.
He would doubtless be agreeing with that statement and smirking at the unintentional double entendre, the horny bastard!
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The aforementioned connection also tied into the recent case concerning my sister-in-law Rachael and Mr. Blaze Trevelyan, and in particular her son Tantalus. A gentleman in the making, he had called round at Baker Street not long after Mother had decided how the problems arising from Pinner would be Resolved and he presumably wished to thank me again for my efforts. Or so I first thought.
“It is something else that brings me here today”, he said, “and perhaps it is fortunate that the doctor is out.”
John was away treating a rich hypochondriac out in Dagenham, who would almost certainly be suffering from little more than a sore throat and an overactive imagination. But she was also a good payer, unlike some of his few remaining clients. Money may or may not buy happiness but, I often observed, it rarely seemed to buy the ability to pay one's debts on time sometimes to the point where I had to use some of my own contacts to 'prompt' those who were slow to pay what they owed.
“We had a school trip yesterday down to the Houses of Parliament”, the boy said. “We even had a short talk from one of them; I think he could have even given my so-called father lessons in how to bore people rigid!”
I smiled at the all too accurate description of Mycroft, who had been in the newspapers only the other day when the new cottage that he had purchased down in Surrey had been destroyed in a gas explosion. Most curiously the cottages either side of it in its row had been undamaged, so someone up there clearly loathed my brother as much as John and I did.
“We had lunch while we were there and there was also a school down from Gloucestershire, Stow I think”, the boy said. “One of them came up to me and asked if I was Master Tantalus Holmes.”
I was immediately wary.
“What did he want?” I asked.
“He said that if I was, his mother had a message for, and he actually said this, 'a scruffy not-relative of mine'. It was really odd; he said she had wanted him to pass on these words: 'prepare for the worst when you go out on a limb'. To be honest I wondered if he was all right in the head but he got called away just then and we all had to leave soon after.”
“You did not get the other boy's name?” I asked.
“He did not mention it”, Tantalus said. “But he mentioned his mother by her first name which I thought unusual, at least to a stranger. He called her 'Pamela'.”
My heart sank. Mrs. Cynric Musgrave! The seer who we had met nearly two decades back in one of our early cases had, I knew, been right far too often in her predictions. And with all the happiness that I had been feeling with John lately, especially his loving care after Ranulph's attack, I had come to empathize with his oft-expressed opinion that if good things did happen then bad ones were in line with a number ready to step up. What was lying in wait for us this time, and where the hell were our guardian angels?
I was by this time much more careful about which cases I chose to take on. I was actually being offered more than at any time in my career thus far but I eschewed any where I felt there was any real danger involved, as I wished for my current happiness – my current ecstasy if truth be told – to last as long as possible.
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I was compelled to tell my beloved a small lie when I claimed that family matters were once more a problem, as I knew he would not press me over that. It was not a complete fabrication; John was much as if not more than my blood family. My sole consolation was that the message had only been to prepare, not that disaster would befall one or both of us. Though then again Mrs. Musgrave could hardly entrust such a direct message to her young son.
I had managed to put the matter out of my head for a while by the most effective expedient of telling John last night that he do whatever he wanted with me. Certain parts of my body might not be on speaking terms with me as a result, but I fully understood the oft-expressed oxymoron about a 'glorious ache', even if I had borrowed one of John's cushions this morning.
All right, two. I had not needed them but his pleased smirk had been worth it.
It was not long after breakfast when we had a caller. A maid brought up his card.
“'The Reverend Hugh Britten'”, I read. “'The Vicarage, Tenterden, Kent.'”
“That was in the newspapers the other week”, John said casually.
I was on my guard at once.
“Why?” I asked.
“They are building one of those new 'light railways'† to the place like the one up at Seahouses where we met Doctor Winchelsey”, he said. “I think Tenterden used to be a quite important place but they never built a railway there so it fell behind.”
That was quite likely, I thought. Stevedon, scene of our recent monastic-themed murder, had shown the signs of if not decay then lack of growth due to the railway passing it by and I had read some time back about the sufferings of towns in the remoter parts of Cornwall and Devonshire as they had claimed that people and businesses were abandoning them for railway-connected towns.
“I wonder what he can want?” I mused. “Perhaps problems with the new railway? Some people do not take well to change.”
“It is not open yet”, John said. “It must be something else. Let us have him up and find out.”
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The Reverend Britten was in many ways the archetypal English vicar; short, bumbling, forgetful (he could not seem to locate the spectacles that were perched on his wide forehead) but also clearly very determined. And it was really unfair of my brain to choose that particular moment to suggest that our obliging local shop might run to a vicar's costume for one of us....
I had probably just earned myself some extra time in Purgatory for that thought. But at least John would be there with me judging from the redness of his own face!
“I am hoping that you may be able to use your influence to avert a local problem that has arisen on the Weald”, our visitor began. “It concerns a dead body.”
My eyebrows shot up. That was certainly direct.
“I think you had better begin at the beginning, sir”, I said firmly. “Let us start with the body. Do we know who it is?”
“There is the chance that it may be King Hlothere.”
He said this as if I should have known full well who this personage was. I looked hopefully across at John.
“An ancient king of Kent when it was still an independent kingdom back in the seventh century”, he said. “One of the best of his time.”
“It was all rather tragic”, the vicar mused as if he were considering events only the other week rather than some twelve centuries past. “King Hlothere's nephew Egbert was too young to succeed at a dangerous time so he stepped up for him and defended the kingdom. Rather than show any gratitude said nephew then had him killed. But that is families for you.”
Indeed, I thought, ignoring John's smirking across the room. Families!
“I would have thought that there was little way of ever knowing If the body was that of our slain monarch”, the vicar said, “except that some little distance from the body there was found a small hoard of coins and the remains of a helm. I am not really an expert on such things but Mr. Penny, the amateur archaeologist who was visiting the area and found them, is very hopeful. He has written to someone who he knows at the British Museum and who is an expert on such things and asked that they might come down to examine them.”
“He cannot bring the items to London?” I asked. The vicar shook his head.
“There are two problems with that”, he said. “First the helm is very fragile after all that time in the ground; a small part broke off when it was extracted. And second, the land where the body was found is in dispute. We have two landowners at opposite ends of the town and I am sorry to say that they are being most difficult about the whole thing.”
“I suppose that they are seeing an opportunity to seize both the riches and the glory”, I sighed. “It is not as if you unearth such things every day.”
“Actually we do.”
We both looked at the vicar in surprise.
“Not the treasure”, he said, “but sad to say several bodies have come to light in John Best's Field as the place is called. Kent has as I am sure you are both aware often been the centre of rebellion against those in power in London, and the field was where a group gathered as part of the famous Peasants' Revolt in 1381. Unhappily for them the then-sheriff had some of his archers brought in and many of the rebels were cut down, the others fleeing. Such were the times, I suppose.”
I saw something there.
“You mentioned that an expert was coming down from the British Museum”, I said. “Do you have date for his arrival?”
“Yes, in two days' time”, the vicar said. “Why? Is that important?”
“I rather think that it is”, I said. “Tell me more about these two landowners who claim an ancient king and his treasure for themselves.”
“Mr. Owen Jones inherited the Wittersham estate from his father two years ago”, the vicar said with a sigh. “My good lady wife, one of the mildest and most gentle people ever to walk this earth, recently described him as 'a puffed-up little pipsqueak who I would like to strangle until his pips squeaked'. And that is one of the politer things that I have heard in the village; old Mrs. Price made a quite improper suggestion as to where she should like to shove her walking-stick! As a Christian I do try to be charitable but unfortunately my wife knows that she is right on this. Mr. Jones' late father owned the field and sold part of it off as housing land but the dispute is over just how much.”
“Lord Bulverhythe is the gentleman who purchased the land from Mr. Jones and then sold it on to the council for building land”, he went on. “That caused even more bad blood; Mr. Jones had thought that it could not be used for houses otherwise he would have demanded a higher price for it but Lord Bulverhythe knew that the council had agreed to that. His wife sits on the council so I presume that she told him. The body was found in the disputed area so both men are claiming it.”
“What about the treasure?” John asked.
“On Lord Bulverhythe's land”, our visitor said.
“So that is why the expert is important”, I said. “If the two can be tied together then they are treated as one, with the body marking the correctlocus. I presume that there is no chance of these two landowners of yours reaching a settlement to split any proceeds from a future sale?”
The vicar just looked at me. I smiled.
“We will go with you down to Kent today”, I said. “But first I wish to put in place certain arrangements. If you care to amuse yourself in this fair city of ours vicar, we shall meet you outside the W. H. Smith's store on Victoria Station at two o'clock precisely.”
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