Читать книгу The Secret of the Barbican and Other Stories - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 14

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Linkwater, senior and most trusted of the half dozen vergers of the Wyechester Cathedral, was having a day to himself on a job which could only be placed in the hands of a thoroughly responsible man. Abutting upon the chancel of the Wyechester Cathedral there is, as every tourist in those parts knows, an ancient building in which is housed the library of the Dean and Chapter. The walls are lined with old books and manuscripts, from enormous folios to tiny duo-decimos; where there is any space between the bookstands there are pictures and engravings of nearly as venerable an antiquity as the books. And there are also glass-topped cases set up in the room, wherein are displayed the curiosities and treasures which gather about our old buildings—some of them at Wyechester are unique and all of them are of considerable value.

Rarely as those cases are unlocked, dust penetrates into them and settles there. And the librarian—a reverend member of the Chapter—noticing that dust one day, suggested to Linkwater that he should close the library against everybody some morning and get to work with a feather brush and a duster.

Linkwater was now at work. The one door of the library, which gave access to the north aisle of the choir, was locked; nobody could enter. The large centre table had been denuded of the objects which usually rested upon it; upon the space thus cleared Linkwater was laying out one by one the various objects which he carefully removed from the unlocked glass cases, all in order. They were many and curious—bits of Roman pottery and glass, dug up under the cathedral, old minerals, books of hours, fragments of manuscripts in uncial characters: each was sufficient to make an antiquary’s mouth water. And most conspicuous amongst them, if not apparently most valuable, was the fifteenth-century crozier which had belonged to Bishop John de Palke, holder of the see 1411-1431, and somehow had escaped when the cathedral was robbed of its treasures in the time of Henry VIII. Maybe, somebody had hidden it at that time, and had in later years restored it; anyway, there it had been, taken care of more or less, and now, more than ever, for the last two or three centuries, the most notable object in the larger of the two glass cases.

Linkwater lifted the crozier from the two metal rests on which it reposed, and—being a man of some taste—admired its workmanship for the hundredth time. It was certainly a fine specimen of mediaeval art work, of a period in which craftsmen took vast delight in their labours and great pains in their detailed perfection. The shaft was of ebony, the ornaments and the light and graceful crook at the head of parcel-gilt, which was scarcely tarnished with age. Linkwater took up his cleanest duster, and gave the crozier a loving rub along its entire length. And whether it was that he used more force than was necessary, or that the passage of four centuries had made woodwork and metal work loose, the crozier suddenly parted into two pieces in his hands, and he found himself holding the crook in one and the shaft in the other.

Linkwater, his first moment of surprise over, immediately saw what had happened. Where the crook and the shaft met there was a jointure, which had been concealed by a band of metal. It was odd that no one—in his time, at any rate—had never noticed that the shaft could be detached from the crozier; and yet easily detached it could be, and there it was. He laid the two sections gently on the big table, and in doing so noticed that the shaft was hollow. Some time, perhaps when it was made, perhaps at a later period—a bore had been cut through it of a size big enough to admit a man’s thumb. And that bore was filled up with wadding of some sort—wadding which looked like lint or cotton wool. Linkwater’s curiosity was aroused by that. Why should anyone want to plug that bore with cotton wool? Why should the bore have ever been cut through the solid ebony of the staff? Here was certainly some mystery which he must solve.

And forthwith he drew out his penknife. The penknife had a thin corkscrew attached to it. With this he delicately disturbed the surface of the compressed wadding. It was wool—the softest wool taken from the under part of a fleece, where it is softest and silkiest. And Linkwater began to draw it out of the hollow shaft, strand after strand of it, which had been forced in until it had been firmly packed in the cavity. But suddenly something quite different to the wool appeared. There dropped from the hollow, and lay on the table before the verger’s astonished eyes a great blazing ruby. And following it came a stream of sawdust, and in that stream more rubies, and with the rubies sapphires, and with the sapphires diamonds. This shower of precious stones tinkled on the table and caught the shafts of mid-day sun which poured in through the old stained window of the library, and Linkwater drew a deep breath and rubbed his eyes.

After that, being essentially a man of common sense, he reassured himself that the one door of the place was securely locked. Then he counted the stones. Nine magnificent rubies, seven sapphires, eighteen diamonds. They were all of considerable size, especially the rubies. He swept them together into a little heap, which flashed back red and blue and white light; then he took from his pocket a wash-leather bag, in which he usually carried his money, and, having emptied it of its silver, he placed the strangely discovered treasure in it. Then he put the bag in his pocket, cleared away the sawdust and the wool, and calmly applied himself to fitting the shaft and the crook of the crozier together. It would be a long time—a very, very long time—he thought, before anyone ever discovered that little matter again, for he took special care to effect the new jointure in such a fashion that the two sections would not readily come apart. And while he thus worked, Linkwater thought.

Like everybody else who was connected officially with it, Linkwater knew that Wyechester Cathedral had been possessed of an extraordinary amount of treasure in mediaeval times. He had heard learned men talk of the possessions of the church—heard them many a time, in that very library. He had heard descriptions of the jewels which ornamented the shrines and altars, the reliquaries and vestments, in the pre-Tudor days—and he had also listened with vast interest to those learned men, wondering where all those rare things went to. Much of the treasure, of course, had been appropriated by the crown, under Henry VIII, but Linkwater remembered that he had heard more than one eminent antiquary express the opinion that a great deal of it had been secretly hidden. And now he inclined to that belief—for here was a fine proof of its value as a theory! Someone, four hundred years ago, had, without doubt, hidden those precious stones in the old crozier, cunningly hollowed out for part of its length to make room for them. And he, Linkwater, after all these years, had had the rare good luck to find them.

And—nobody knew!

The ancient library was very spick-and-span, free of dust, all in order, when Linkwater quitted it that afternoon. The fifteenth century crozier lay in its usual place within the big glass-topped case and Linkwater duly handed the key of that case to the librarian, said nothing to the librarian about the contents of his wash-leather bag, and once he reached his own cottage in Friary Lane he locked the bag safely up in a certain box which he kept screwed down to the floor, under his bed. Linkwater was one of those men who can keep a secret. He was a confirmed bachelor—always had been, always meant to be. But if he had possessed a wife he would still have had secrets—and this was one which no wife would ever have got out of him.