The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

For the moment I was somewhat taken aback, for I had no idea we had been watched, nor that we had aroused his suspicions. When a man is in search of hidden treasure he does not usually tell it to the world, for fear of derision being cast upon him, therefore I again naturally hesitated to explain our real object.

But he continued to press me; and, being one of my oldest and most intimate friends, I called in Walter, and, closing the door again, explained briefly the explorations we intended to make, and how I had gained the knowledge of the hidden casket.

He listened to me open-mouthed, in amazement, especially when I described the deadly contact of those forbidden pages, and the attempt made by Lord Glenelg and his companions to find the treasure of Crowland Abbey.

“Lord Glenelg, did you say?” Fred remarked when I mentioned the name. “I know both him and his daughter Lady Judith Gordon. We first met them in Wellington, New Zealand, three years ago. He has a shoot up at Callart, in Inverness, and curiously enough they’re both coming here to stay with us on Saturday.”

“Coming here?” I gasped. “Lady Judith coming here?”

“Yes. Pretty girl, isn’t she? I’d be gone on her myself if I were a bachelor. Perhaps you are, old chap.”

I did not respond, except to extract a strict promise from my host to preserve my secret.

“Of course I shall say nothing,” he assured me. “Father and daughter are, however, a strange pair. It’s very remarkable – this story you’ve just told me. I don’t half like the idea of that bear cub being shown in the window in Bloomsbury. There’s something uncanny about it.”

I agreed; but all my thoughts were of his lordship’s motive for coming there. Like myself, he had shot with Fred before, it seemed, and my host and Connie had, last season, been his guests for a week up at Callart. In Scotland, hospitality seems always more open, more genuine, and more spontaneous than in England.

“Of course, Glenelg is something of an archaeologist, like yourself,” Fred said; “but if what you say is true, there seems to be some extraordinary conspiracy afoot to obtain possession of certain treasure, which, by right, should be yours, as the purchaser of this remarkable book. I must admit that Glenelg and his daughter have been both to Connie and myself something of mysteries. When we were in town last Christmas, Connie swore she saw Lady Judith dressed in a very shabby kit coming out of an aerated bread shop in the Fulham Road. My wife stopped to speak, but the girl pretended not to know her. Connie knew her by that small piece of gold-stopping in one of her front teeth.”

“But why should she go about like that?” I asked.

“How can I tell? They were supposed to be away in Canada, or somewhere, at the time; they’re nearly always travelling, you know. We came home with them on the Caledonia the first season we met them.”

“They’re mysteries!” declared Wyman bluntly. “The girl is, at any rate.”

“What do you know of her?” inquired Fred eagerly.

But Walter would not satisfy us. He merely said:

“I’ve heard one or two strange rumours – that’s all.”

I was torn by conflicting desires: the desire not to meet his lordship beneath that roof, and the all-impelling desire to be afforded an opportunity of more intimate friendship with that sweet, sad-hearted woman whom I adored.

Fred Fenwicke was just as interested in the strange circumstances as we were, and promised at once to do all in his power to assist us. I knew him to be a man of sterling worth, whose word was his bond, and whose friendship was true and continuous. Equally with Walter Wyman, he was my best friend, and, with the exception of keeping back the fact that I loved Lady Judith, I was perfectly frank with him, telling him the suggestion that had crossed my mind – namely, that it would perhaps be as well if I left Crailloch before his lordship’s arrival.

“Why?” asked the Major at once. “Does he know that you are making this search?”

“I suppose he does,” Wyman replied. “He evidently knows that The Closed Book has been in Allan’s hands, and that he has deciphered it.”

Fred remained thoughtful for a moment, then said:

“But it may be that he’s coming here with the same object as yourself – to see Threave and make investigations. If that’s so, I’d go over to Castle-Douglas, and stay at the ‘Douglas Arms’ – a very comfortable hotel. You’d then be right on the spot.”

“Yes,” I said; “that’s what we will do. And, meanwhile, you will watch his lordship’s movements for us, won’t you?”

“Of course,” laughed Fred, now entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, for the excitement of a treasure hunt appealed to his vigorous nature.

Our plans were, however, quickly doomed to failure; for next morning, at breakfast, Fred announced to us that Lord Glenelg had written from Edinburgh to say that urgent family affairs called him to Paris, and that, consequently, neither he nor his daughter could come to Crailloch just at present.

The very wording of the letter, which he read to those at his end of the table, was to us suspicious, that his lordship had learned that we were Fred Fenwicke’s guests, and on that account feared to come. This idea I put later to Fred himself, and he entirely coincided with my opinion.

“They’re mysterious, very mysterious, old fellow,” he said. “I don’t half like the idea of those people you told me about – the hunchback and the other fellow – who are behind them. Yet, on the other hand, Lord Glenelg is a man well-known, with a very high reputation when he was in Parliament, ten years ago. He was an Under-Secretary, if I recollect aright.”

“But what is their game, do you think?”

“Their game at Crowland was to find the hidden treasure of the abbey,” he answered, “and they may probably try the same thing at Threave.”

“That’s exactly what we’ve feared,” chimed in Walter. “I believe they are in possession of some further fact, of which we know nothing. There’s a conspiracy against Allan, too, the nature of which we are at present in ignorance.”

“But why?” I asked, recollecting all the curious events of the past, and remembering my conversation with that strange woman in black who had so ingeniously stolen the Arnoldus.

Wyman shrugged his shoulders, saying:

“It is never any good inquiring into the motives of either man or woman. The cleverest man can never gauge them accurately.”

“Well,” remarked Fred Fenwicke, “the move in this case is undoubtedly the recovery of the treasure.”

“But the treasure, if it exists, is mine!” I said. “I purchased the book and deciphered the secret. Therefore I may surely make investigations with profit to myself?”

“You may make investigations, but without profit, I fear, so far as Threave is concerned,” was Fred’s calm reply.

“I don’t understand you,” I said. “The book was offered to me at a fair price, and I purchased it. Whatever I found within I may surely use to my own advantage?”

“Observing, of course, the law of treasure-trove,” was my host’s remark.

“Of course.”

“Then whatever you find must either go to the Crown or to the lord of the manor.”

“You mean Colonel Maitland?”

“No, I mean Lord Glenelg,” my friend said.

“Why Lord Glenelg?” I demanded quickly.

“Because, according to the Glasgow Herald this morning, he has purchased both the island and castle from Colonel Maitland, so, whatever is found on that property undoubtedly belongs to him.”

Chapter Thirty Three

Will the Sun Shine?

Fred took from his study table the Glasgow Herald of that morning, and there, sure enough, was a paragraph stating that the Earl of Glenelg had purchased the historic castle of Threave, together with the islands, from the laird, Colonel Maitland. The Gordons had been connected with the property since the seventeenth century, it was stated, hence the purchase by the Earl.

“Curiously enough,” observed Fred Fenwicke, “Maitland’s solicitors are my own: Burton, Brooks, and Co, of Union Street, Glasgow. From them I could get to hear the actual situation.”

“Wire them in the morning, and ask if the property is really sold. The papers often get hold of news of that sort prematurely,” I said, clutching eagerly at the last straw, for our enemies had certainly forestalled us by this purchase, which, if actually effected, upset all our plans. If Lord Glenelg had paid for the property then the Borgia emeralds could never be ours.

Fred proposed to wire, and at noon that day Wyman and I were in the express travelling towards Euston.