The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

By the man’s dark, smooth face I saw he meant mischief.

“I have been left in charge of this property by its owner,” the man declared. “You have no right to land here without his permission, therefore I order you to return to the shore.”

“Ho! ho!” cried Sammy, in quick defiance, “those are fine words, to be sure. I fancy you’d better remain quiet, or we shall have to be very unkind to you.”

“What do you mean?” the big fellow cried in a bullying tone.

“I mean that we aren’t going to be interrupted by you,” was Sammy’s cool rejoinder. “If your friends have gone away and left you alone, like Robinson Crusoe, on this island, it isn’t our concern. The laird of this place is still Colonel Maitland, and you have no authority here whatever.”

“I forbid you to take any observations,” Selby shouted, his fists clenched as though he would attack us. “And as for that man there,” he cried, pointing to me, “he’d best get away before my friends return.”

“Now that’s enough,” cried Sammy. “We don’t want any threats;” and, before Selby was aware of his intention, the other had seized him by the wrists and was calling to us to secure him with the cord I had carried from the boat. He cursed and struggled violently, but in the hands of the four of us he was quickly bound and rendered powerless, much to his chagrin. He commenced shouting, whereupon I took out my handkerchief and gagged him tightly with it. Then, on his refusal to walk, we all four carried him into the roofless castle and there bound him to a big iron ring that we found in one of the walls, and thus made him our prisoner.

It was the only way. The fellow intended mischief, for we found in his pocket a loaded revolver. Having relieved him of that, we left him there, secured in a spot where he could not observe our movements.

Without loss of time we returned to the place we had marked, and the athletic Sammy, laughing over Selby’s utter defeat, set his face towards the distant mountain of Bengairn and walked fifty-six paces, all three of us walking beside him to check is measurements.

“Seek there,” I read from my notes, “for my lady Lucrezia’s treasure is hidden at a place no man knoweth.” Then, omitting several sentences, I came to the words: “Item: How to discover the place at Threave: First find a piece of ruined wall of great stones, one bearing a circle cut upon it as large as a man’s hand. Then, measuring five paces towards the barbican, find – ” And there the record broke off.

“Look?” cried Fred, pointing to a small piece of ruined wall about a foot high cropping up out of the tangled weeds and nettles. “Those are evidently the stones, and yet you’d never notice it unless it were pointed out.”

We all four rushed to the spot he indicated, and, on tearing the weeds away, there, sure enough, we discovered that one of the large moss-grown moor-stones bore a circle cut upon it about the size of one’s palm.

“Five paces towards the barbican!” cried Walter. “One – two – three – four – five! Here you are?” and he stamped heavily upon the grass. “Why,” he exclaimed, “it’s hollow!”

We all stamped, and sure enough there was a cavity beneath.

With Fred, I rushed off to the hole dug by our enemies, and, obtaining their tools, brought them back. Although the record in The Closed Book was carried no farther, it was evident that some opening lay underneath where we stood.

As the excavation made by our enemies was three hundred yards away, in an opposite direction, we concluded that they had only deciphered the first portion of the directions and not that final or unfinished sentence in the record, a page of which was missing.

Without further ado, however, we seized pick and spade, and commenced to open the ground at the spot where it sounded hollow. At a depth of about two and a half feet, through stone and rubbish, we came upon a big flat slab, like a paving-stone.

Was it possible that the historic emeralds of Lucrezia Borgia were actually hidden beneath? Our excitement knew no bounds, especially so as Selby had loosened his gag, and we could hear him shouting and cursing in the distance. We had, however, no fear of his shouts attracting attention, for the spot was far too lonely, and his voice would not reach the river bank, so broad was the stream.

With a keen will we all worked, digging out the earth from around the slab until at last I drove the end of a pick beneath it, and, using it as a lever, succeeded in raising the huge flat stone sufficiently to allow the insertion of a crowbar. Then, all bending together, we raised it up, disclosing a deep, dark, cavernous hole which emitted the damp, earthy smell of the grave.

“Who’ll go down with me?” asked Fred.

“I’ll go presently,” volunteered Sammy, “when the place has had a bit of airing. There’s foul air there, I expect. Perhaps it’s a well.”

Fortunately we had provided ourselves with two hurricane lanterns, and one of these I lit and lowered into the hole by a string. It remained alight, showing us, first, that the air was not foul; and, secondly, that the place was not a well, but a small stone chamber, the floor of which was covered with broken rubbish, and that the walls were black with damp and slime – not at all an inviting place in which to descend.

Fred was the first to let himself down, and, taking the lantern, he disappeared.

“I say,” he cried a minute later, “it isn’t a chamber. It’s a kind of low tunnel – a subterranean passage!”

The announcement caused us even increased excitement; and, while Sammy and I let ourselves down to join Fred, we arranged that Walter, armed with Selby’s revolver, should remain on the surface and so guard against any trickery on the part of the man who was our prisoner. It would, we knew, be easy enough to trap us like rats while we were down there.

“Wait till we come back, Walter!” I cried, and then, with my lamp, followed my two companions into the narrow burrow which ran down a steep incline in a southerly direction. Fred went first; but so dark was the way and so blocked in parts by fallen stones that our progress was very slow. We remembered that in such places of secret communication there were often pitfalls for the unwary; hence the caution we exercised.

We had pursued our way for, as far as we could judge, nearly a quarter of a mile, Sammy and Fred joking all the while, when the passage gave a sudden turn and commenced to ascend. This alteration in its direction struck me as curious, because, up to that moment we had walked in an absolutely straight line. But as I turned aside to follow my friends a small touch of colour on the wall attracted my attention; and, halting, I held up my lamp to examine it.

It was a crude drawing of a bull, outlined roughly in paint that had once been scarlet, but was now nearly brown, owing to the action of time and damp.

“Look?” I cried, almost beside myself with excitement. “Look! The red bull of the Borgias! The casket is concealed here!”

Chapter Thirty Five

What we Found at Threave

The bull passant gules of the Borgias was certainly a significant sign, deep there in the bowels of the earth, so far from the scene of the Borgias’ forgotten triumphs.

My two companions were beside me in an instant, and both agreed that the bull placed there was a signal to the person who gained the secret of The Closed Book – an invitation to search at that spot.

All three of us closely examined the rough stones with which the low tunnel was arched; but none of them showed signs of having been disturbed. The passage had, without doubt, been constructed by the Black Douglas as a secret means of ingress and egress to his stronghold, and most probably all trace of it had been lost in the day of Godfrey Lovel. He and his friend Malcolm had perhaps rediscovered it, and old Godfrey had there ingeniously hidden the precious casket which he had brought from Italy, and which had for years previously been concealed in the fish pond at Croyland, or Crowland, as it is now spelt.

The position in which the bull had been drawn showed that it was placed there to attract the eye of the person possessing the secret. To any other it would convey nothing. Yet, although we searched hither and thither, high and low, we discovered no cavity nor any place where the casket was likely to be concealed.

Presently, after full half an hour’s search, Fred discovered upon the flat surface of a stone some little distance further up the tunnel the numeral “15” marked in the same paint, and evidently put there by the same hand as that which had drawn the bull – only with one of those queer sixteenth-century fives like a capital N turned the wrong way about.

“Can this mean that the place is fifteen paces off?” I queried.

“Or it may be fifteen stones away,” suggested Sammy, starting at once to count them. “Why, look!” he cried a few moments later; “here’s a stone that’s been removed at some time or other.” It was a block about two feet long, and when I rushed forward and touched it, it moved beneath my hand.

Without a second’s hesitation I grasped it, and with all my might tugged it out of me wall, allowing it to fall to the ground with a heavy thud, Sammy being compelled to step aside quickly.

Then, plunging my hand deep into the cavity behind, I felt something and pulled it out, with a loud cry of joy, which was echoed by my two companions.

It was the long-lost casket!

About a foot and a half long, ten inches in height, and six broad, it was covered with stout old untanned leather, the lid being curved and studded with nails. The lock was an antique, and therefore a complicated one, no doubt; but having no key, we at once set to work to force it open with the short crowbar which I had carried down there. So stoutly made was that ancient box that had seen so many vicissitudes and hid in the mud of the abbey fish pond at Crowland for many years, that for some time I could not manage to force it open; but after several trials, in the dim, uncertain light, I at length succeeded in wrenching up the lid, and there found within several old jewel cases which, on being opened, were found to contain those wonderful emeralds which were the most valued treasures of the Borgias.

We handled them gingerly, at my suggestion, not knowing whether those faded, velvet-lined old cases might not be envenomed with poison of the Borgias, like the vellum leaves of The Closed Book.

The jewels we examined were, however, magnificent in their antique gold settings. Three collars of wonderful green gems, each emerald the size of one’s thumb nail, and each set separately to form drops, were the first ornaments we drew forth – emerald collars of which we knew the world had never seen the equal. Several bracelets, pairs of earrings, and pendants were also among the collection; one emerald, unset, and evidently the greatest treasure, being almost the size of a pigeon’s egg – a truly marvellous set of gems, the like of which none of us had ever before set eyes upon.

There were eight small cases in all, seven of them as full of jewels as they could hold, while the eighth contained that which, in the day of Lucrezia Borgia, was more powerful and potent than the mere possession of wealth – a small sealed bottle of rock crystal and a larger phial of greenish Venetian glass, the latter containing a thick dark-brown fluid.

This latter discovery interested my companions, who were much puzzled by it. But I knew the truth, and told them so. That tiny crystal bottle contained the actual secret venom of the Borgias, given by Lucrezia to old Godfrey, and the dark-brown fluid was the antidote.

The secret poison of the Borgias was no longer a legend. We had it actually in our possession!

I put my hand again into the cavity, while Sammy raised a lamp to peer within. But there was nothing else.

With our precious find stowed in our pockets we at last moved up the incline, in order to explore the full extent of the subterranean passage. The casket itself interested me; and, handing my lantern to one of the others, I carried the heavy old box, which through those centuries had contained treasure worth a king’s ransom. Then, delighted with our success, we pushed forward and upward, finding the air fresher nearly every foot we progressed, until at last, nearly three-quarters of a mile from the point we had descended, the tunnel went suddenly upwards, and we found farther progress barred by a huge oaken door strengthened by a kind of network of iron battens securely bolted on to it.

We tried it, but it would not budge. It was very strongly secured on the other side, and all our efforts to open it proved futile.