The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias Part 19

"Exactly," I answered. "My suggestion is that we lose no time in making preliminary observations at the two spots mentioned by the man who hid it from his enemies."

"And supposing we found it, would it benefit us, having in view the law of treasure-trove?" was Walters very practical inquiry.

"Not very much perhaps," I admitted. "But we should at least clear up a mystery that has puzzled the world for ages--the actual existence of the Borgia poison and its antidote, besides rescuing Lucrezia Borgia's emeralds, and at the same time discovering the real motive of the strange conspiracy surrounding the book."

"I quite agree with that," exclaimed my friend; "but does it not strike you that we are considerably handicapped by that folio being missing-- the very page of all others most important for the success of our search? Besides, this man Selby has, in all probability, read the chronicle, and therefore knows just as much, and probably more, than we do."

"That I grant you," I said. "But, nevertheless, I somehow feel that we ought to search both at Crowland, which is within easy reach of this place, and at Threave, in Scotland." And I explained how I had written to my old friend Fred Fenwicke, asking that we might both be allowed to come up and visit him.

"You certainly haven't let the gra.s.s grow under your feet, old fellow-- you never do," he said, taking a cigarette from the box I handed to him and lighting it. "I think with you that we ought to try Threave, seeing that the plan is evidently of the spot. But we are unable to do anything till the sixth of September, when we ought to be there at three o'clock in the afternoon, according to the directions given."

"We have still three weeks, then," I remarked. "In that case we might go over to Crowland first and look around there. In all probability the other plan is meant to indicate where the treasure of the abbey is concealed."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, taking the transcript from my hand. "This list of things, the silver altar, gold chalices, and boxes of gems are sufficient to make one's mouth water--aren't they?"

"Yes," I laughed. "We ought, if we act in a circ.u.mspect manner and arouse no attention on the part of the villagers, to be able to make a secret search. The one thing to avoid is public interest. The instant anybody suspects what we are after, the whole affair will get into the papers, and not only will our chance of success be gone, but our enemies, whoever they are, will know that The Closed Book is again in our possession."

"I quite follow you, Allan," he said with sudden seriousness. "We'll go to Crowland tonight, if you are agreeable, and set carefully to work in order to see if the plan tallies with any landmark now existing. It's a pity the old chap who wrote the record didn't label it, as he did the other."

"He may have wanted to give the plan but hold back the secret from anyone who casually opened the book," I suggested. "You see, the volume has evidently been preserved for centuries in the library of the Certosa Monastery at Florence--the house in which the monk G.o.dfrey Lovel died-- and, being written in early English, could not, of course, be translated by the Italian monks."

"I wonder how many people have died through handling those poisoned pages?" my friend observed. The deadliness of that secret Borgia venom appealed to him as it has appealed to the world through ages.

"Ah!" I said, "it is impossible to tell."

But my mind was on other things, and as soon as the opportunity offered I related to Walter my strange rencontre with Lady Judith Gordon.

"What?" he cried, jumping up from the couch; "you've actually seen her and spoken to her?"

"Certainly. She is charming, and I admit, my dear Walter, that I've fallen most desperately in love with her."

"Love! You actually love her?" he demanded.

"Indeed I do. She is the perfect incarnation of what a good, sweet woman should be. Is there any reason why I should not admire her?"

"None that I know of," he returned; "but I'm afraid of these people and their connection with this mysterious affair. Remember, all we know about them is that they have led very peculiar lives for years. But time will show whether you are wise. Certainly these people appear to have found the secret just as we have--the secret of the existence of a valuable treasure."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

WE MAKE PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION.

"I thought buried treasure existed only in books!" I remarked, recollecting "Treasure Island" and other such romances. "Certainly I never antic.i.p.ated that I should be actually engaged in a real treasure hunt."

"Nor did I, until I saw the gravity of the whole thing, and how deeply in earnest are these people."

"They have no idea that The Closed Book is again in my possession?" I asked.

"None whatever. The volume was stolen from Harpur Street, of course, and they are puzzled to know into whose hands it has fallen. All the chief dealers in ma.n.u.scripts in London--Quaritch, Maggs, Tregaskis, Dobell, and the others--have been warned that if the Arnoldus is offered them it is stolen property."

"Well, it is not very likely that any of them will have the offer," I laughed. "It will be kept in a safe place now I have it in my possession again, you may depend upon that."

Walter Wyman had turned over the many folios of my transcript, and was reading the portion concerning the hidden treasure of the Abbey of Crowland. I think the list of gold and silver objects so plainly set out appealed to him.

"We'll go back to Peterborough tonight," he said, "sleep at the `Angel,'

and visit Crowland, as it is now spelt, tomorrow. I've heard that the ruins of the abbey are very fine. It will be an interesting outing, if nothing else."

"Before we go we had better take a tracing of the unnamed plan," I suggested. "It may a.s.sist us, and yet it may, on the other hand, be a plan of an entirely different place. One thing, however, is certain-- namely, that it had been drawn there with some distinct object, just as the plan marked `Treyf.'"

To this he agreed, and going downstairs I obtained the packet containing the book from the hotel manager's safe, and together we carefully traced the rough plan in question. It was merely an arrangement of lines and numerals, which told us absolutely nothing. Still, we both felt half-convinced that it must somehow concern the Crowland treasure which was hidden from the king's men at the time the abbey was dissolved and destroyed.

At seven-thirty, after an early dinner, we left by the London express for Peterborough, arriving back at the old-fas.h.i.+oned "Angel" just before eleven. In travelling I carried the precious Arnoldus myself, fearing to lose it; but at our hotel I again transferred it to the landlord's safe, with injunctions to the hotel keeper to be careful of it, as its value was considerable.

Next morning was bright and sunny, and taking a carriage from the hotel we drove out to Crowland, a fen village distant some seven miles.

Perhaps you may have visited it, an old-world straggling place cl.u.s.tering about the time-worn, blackened ruins of the ancient abbey, a venerable pile which even in its present gaunt decay displays mute evidence of a long-past glory.

As we stood before its restored tower and great ruined, roofless aisles, where arches still remain that are the wonder of the modern builder, we could not help reflecting on the vicissitudes through which the grand old place had pa.s.sed from its foundation, A.D. 713, as a memorial to the Saxon Saint Guthlac, down to its complete dissolution and overthrow by Henry VIII. Because of its isolation in that great marsh, it was for centuries a place of refuge, where the monks were engaged in a n.o.ble and great work, employed in prayer, writing ma.n.u.scripts, building bridges, making roads, or constructing by degrees that n.o.ble monument to the glory of G.o.d, the great abbey, the nursing mother of Cambridge University, and the very centre of Christian life in the fens of Lincolns.h.i.+re. Though those venerable aisles are roofless, and the wonderful Early English life-sized statues in the western front of the nave are blackened by age and crumbling to decay; though all traces of the original dimensions of the place are lost in the ill-kept and weedy churchyard surrounding it, the old pile is still one of the n.o.blest buildings in England, wonderful in its station, unique in its beauty, and a valuable relic of Christian devotion, interesting alike to the architect, the historian, and the antiquary.

The guide to the place, which we purchased of the sacristan, told us that the vast structure, consisting of the porch, western tower, and the north aisle, with the ruins of the nave, did not represent one-fourth of the original abbey church. Indeed, the grey, time-stained building which we stood before was little more than the north aisle of the church attached to the abbey, and therefore conveyed no more adequate idea of the extent of the monastic building than the ruins of a domestic chapel will of the castle or mansion to which it was attached. At the time of the dissolution it was standing in all its glory, with the wooden roof of the now ruined nave richly gilt, the great windows full of fine stained gla.s.s, two grand organs, and altar blazing with gold, silver, and gems.

The north aisle still remains roofed over,--but uninteresting--to do duty as the parish church; but the magnificent nave is stripped, mutilated, and open to the four winds of heaven, for what sacrilege the commissioners of Henry VIII did not commit in old G.o.dfrey Lovel's day, Oliver Cromwell's soldiers completed when they stormed the place and shattered the remaining walls and windows in 1643.

Together we strolled into the s.p.a.ce enclosed by the nave, wandering among the grey old ruins, where the quiet was broken only by the twittering of a bird. The morning was bright, with a warm sun and cloudless sky; but its very light seemed to render the venerable pile, rich with deeds long since forgot, the more bare, solemn, and imposing.

We were alone, for the sacristan, having received the sixpence for the guide, had returned to her cottage, allowing us to roam there at our own sweet will. Therefore, when in a spot where we thought we should be un.o.bserved, I drew forth the transcript I had made of the old monk's record, and reread it aloud to my companion in order that my memory might be refreshed, and that he should know the exact wording of what was written.

We smiled at the simplicity of the old Abbot John sending Thomas Cromwell a present of his fen fish in the hope he would be appeased and pa.s.s by the abbey without seizing it; yet, as I afterwards discovered, the original of that very letter is still preserved in the British Museum, and I have had it in my own hand, thus showing that old G.o.dfrey must have possessed the entire confidence of his abbot.

In front of where I stood, let into the ruined wall and beaten by the weather, was a grey slate which I knew to be of fifteenth-century workmans.h.i.+p. The incised marginal inscription, in Lombardic characters, read as follows:

"PETRE: PRECES: P: .ME: PETRO: PASTOR: PIE: P: ME."

This, being translated, reads:

Peter (offer) prayers for me. Peter, Pious Shepherd (pray) for me.

In the centre of the slab was a floriated cross, and the words, "Orate p. aia Johanis Tomson." In 1423 John Tomson gave ten marks for the building of the abbey tower, and it appeared that the marginal inscription was a prayer addressed either to the Apostle St Peter or to John Tomson's father confessor, named Peter.

Those great bare walls and high pointed arches, grey and frowning, rudely broken, yet perfect in grace and symmetry, surely furnished a striking instance of the uncertainty of all human labours. In the day when the soldier-monk G.o.dfrey lived there it was the seat of devotion and learning, the abode of luxury and ease, possessing riches in abundance, and vessels for its use of the most costly description; now, except in that portion fitted as a church, it scarcely afforded shelter to a rook or daw, and the last remains of its once almost unparalleled magnificence were smouldering silently and mingling with the soil on which they stood:

"Whilst in the progress of long decay, Thrones sink to dust, and nations pa.s.s away."

We turned again to the old chronicle of the monk who had lived there and actually seen those ma.s.sive walls torn down by Southwell's men; the monk who, with the abbot himself and his friend the Scotch monk Maxwell, had at midnight on the first of December, 1538, concealed the greater part of the abbey treasures.

According to G.o.dfrey's statement, Malcolm had kept watch at the south door while the abbot and himself had carried the three chests out and sunk them in the centre and at the deepest part of the fish pond. It was hidden in the same pond in which he had previously concealed the Borgia jewels--namely, in the lake at a spot indicated, being one hundred and thirty-one paces south of the grand altar. The pond was never dry, it appeared, even in the hottest summer, and like all other monastery waters contained carp for Fridays. The Borgia treasure he managed to secure before leaving Crowland with his friend Malcolm Maxwell, but the abbey plate and jewels and the silver altar he had been compelled to leave, the two others who alone knew the secret, in addition to himself, having died. He had recorded the existence of the treasure from a sense of religious duty, feeling that the Catholic Church should not suffer by entire loss of such a magnificent property.

His directions were by no means explicit, but in our eagerness we resolved to investigate as far as possible.

Pa.s.sing up what was once the nave, where great trees now flourished and bushes grew in tangled profusion, we came to the high round-toothed arch and two ma.s.sive piers which were all that remained of the central tower.