The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

Having battered upon it and used our crowbar to little effect, we heard a frightened and muffled voice on the other side demanding who and what we were.

“Let us out, old chap?” I shouted. “Can’t you open the door? Who are you?”

“My name’s John Kirk,” was the man’s hoarse answer. “Where are you, and who are you?”

“There are three of us. We’ve been along an underground passage, and this is the end of it. Where are we?”

“This is the old dairy in Threave Mains. Wait a bit, and I’ll get the master.”

“Threave Mains?” cried Fred. “Then we’ve passed right under the Dee into Balmaghie! You can see the Mains from the castle – an old white house about three-quarters of a mile away. I hope the master, whoever he is, will let us out of this very soon.”

We did not have to wait long; but the fact was that some old panelling in the ancient part of the building, now used as a dairy, had first to be taken down, and then the door was revealed and opened, letting us out once again to the light of day.

Truth to tell, we were nothing loath to breathe the fresh air once more; and the dirty and disreputable figures we cut as we emerged, I think, filled the good farmer with some suspicion. We told him of our explorations underground, not mentioning the treasure, of course, whereupon the old man said, in his broad Galloway dialect:

“I’ve heard talk of a passage under the river to the castle, but I thought it was only a fable. I had no idea it ended in this wall.”

“Well,” said Sammy, “you go down and have a smell round yourself. You’ll find it interesting. You won’t want a boat in the future to get over to the island.”

Whereat we all laughed, and after examining the old oak panelling, and coming to the conclusion that the dairy was originally the most ancient part of the house, we gave the farmer a trifle to repay him for the removal of the woodwork, and departed, carrying the jewels, in their cases, secreted in our pockets, and leaving the unfortunate Selby still a prisoner on the island, with Walter guarding him. One thing was at least reassuring – namely, that the casket, having been discovered beneath the bed of the river, could be claimed by neither of the owners of the property on either side.

In the lightest of spirits we joined the high road at the Black Bride Burn, and hurried along for a mile to the Bridge of Dee, where we knew we could obtain a boat to fetch Walter off the island. This was done, and while Fred and Sammy rowed back upstream, I idled on the wayside railway station close to the river, the whole of the jewels being transferred to my care, while the old casket had been wrapped in a newspaper we had picked up by the roadside.

The farmer at Threave Mains had looked askance at the old box until, in order to satisfy him, I showed that it was empty. He had no use for empty boxes, he said, laughing; but he was not aware of its precious contents then in our pockets.

I had a long wait at the railway station; but about six o’clock my companions returned, bringing Walter with them. The latter had feared, as we did not return, that some accident had happened to us, and had been amazed to find Sammy and Fred, afloat, hailing him.

Selby was still at the place where we had secured him, bound hand and foot, shouting and cursing until he was hoarse, and uttering all kinds of threats against us. But we had secured the historic jewels of the notorious Lucrezia, and now intended to make the best of our way to Crailloch. With that intention, therefore, we tidied ourselves as well as we could, and walked on to Dildawn, the fine estate of our host’s good friend, Charlie Phillips, and there borrowed a conveyance to take us home, a distance of about fourteen miles as the crow flies.

So disreputable our appearance, so mysterious our movements, not to mention the absence of guns or game bags, that our friend’s curiosity was aroused; but we merely explained that we had been out for a day’s excursion and got stranded, the railway being of no use to us. He gave us some whisky, smiled knowingly, but was much puzzled.

“My opinion is that you fellows have been up to some trick or other that you oughtn’t to have been,” was his remark as we drove away.

“All right, old chap,” shouted Fred; “we’ll tell you all about it some day.” And the smart pair of bays swung away down the drive.

We agreed to say nothing to anyone, not even to the rest of the party at Crailloch. At present, in view of our forthcoming investigations at Crowland, it was not judicious to make any statement. We had forestalled our enemies at Threave, and for the present that was sufficient.

Our tardy and unexpected return gave rise to a good deal of comment, as may be imagined. The ladies of the party were soon around Sammy imploring him to tell them the reason of our mysterious movements, and many questions were put to Fred by the men. But to all we were dumb. We had been visiting friends was all we explained.

“Friends!” exclaimed Jack Handsworth, sucking at his cigar. “Been down a drain somewhere, by the look of your clothes,” a remark that was greeted with considerable laughter.

That night, after the others had retired, the four of us held a secret sitting in Fred’s study, where we examined our find, and discovered it to be more remarkable and important than we had believed it to be. The emerald collars were magnificent; but, besides what I have already enumerated, there was a magnificent Byzantine cross of diamonds, containing in the back the relic of St. Peter, which is known to have been the property of Lucrezia’s father, the Borgia Pope. In the Vatican archives are several mentions of it; but on the death of Alexander VI it unaccountably disappeared, having been given, no doubt, to his golden-haired daughter. There was a heavy gold bracelet, too, in the form of a serpent, and several fine rings. One, in gold, was engraved with the sacred tau, believed in the Borgia era to guard the wearer against epilepsy; another, of agate, carved with an image of St. John the Divine, which was worn in those days as a protection from venom; and in a third was set a piece of toadstone or bufonite – the fossil palatal tooth of the ray fish Pycnodus– the most potent periapt against black magic.

The most interesting of all, however, was a beautiful ring of gold niello, of the fourteenth century, with a hollow bezel or sharp point pierced by two tiny holes, which had undoubtedly been used to contain poison. It was quite easy to see that this ring, if charged with the deadly liquid, could be used with fatal effect in a hand-grasp with an enemy – a curio of world-wide interest, the actual poison-ring of that veneficious bacchante Lucrezia Borgia, which had caused the death of so many unsuspecting and innocent persons, from cavaliers in Ferrara to cardinals in Rome.

I turned it over in my hand and felt the sharpness of that fine needle-point. Surely the controversy regarding the venom of the Borgias would now be set at rest forever.

The crystal perfume bottle, with its few drops of that deadly cantarella poison, I held to the light and examined carefully, as well as the antidote – both presents given to Godfrey by Lucrezia herself, with instructions how to use them.

I was in the act of replacing both bottles in the old jewel case, with its faded lining of purple velvet, when I noticed the top of the lining was loose, and on touching it it fell away and a small folded piece of damp-stained parchment came into my hand.

There was faded writing upon it in Godfrey’s erratic script, and the words I deciphered caused my heart to leap.

Chapter Thirty Six

Shows the Actual Spot at Crowland

The words, badly faded by the action of the water which had apparently got into the casket during its years of submersion, we made out as follows:

“Ye who hast dared to learn this secret may ye benefit greatly by it. Know ye now also that ye may discover the treasure of our good abbot John of Croylande by means only of this plan I have hereunto drawn.

“Godfrey Lovel, sometime monk at Croylande.”

Below was a rough plan similar to those in The Closed Book, but which needed no second glance to show the exact spot where the abbey treasure lay hidden.

“See?” I cried excitedly. “The secret is at last revealed to us! What is written in The Closed Book was only in order to mislead any curious person who attempted to search. The truth was deposited in this casket by Godfrey before he left Scotland.”

And my three companions bent eagerly, and for themselves slowly deciphered the words after I had repeated them aloud to make certain of no misreading.

“Well, our next step is undoubtedly to go down to Crowland,” Fred remarked. “Let’s get the treasure first, and clear up the mystery afterwards.”

“Certainly,” we agreed in chorus, and then, after placing the Borgia jewels in Fred’s iron safe, we all smoked and discussed our future plans, finally deciding to go up to London again in the morning, as Crowland could be more easily reached from King’s Cross than from Scotland.

Next night, therefore, we arrived in town, Fred and Sammy putting up at the Euston Hotel, and I going home with Walter as his guest. On the morning after our arrival I deemed it wise to pack up the Borgia treasures, all save the poison-ring, the tiny crystal bottle, and the antidote, and deposit them with my banker’s manager, just as I had already placed The Closed Book in safe keeping.

The historic ring that had dealt death so frequently and had enabled the House of Borgia to become the most powerful in Europe, I put with the little bottle in the old velvet-lined jewel case and placed them aside in a drawer in Walter’s writing-table, intending later to take them down to Professor Fairbairn at the British Museum.

Fred Fenwicke had some pressing affairs to attend to in London, therefore it had been arranged not to go to Crowland till the following day.

We were much puzzled regarding the whereabouts of Glenelg and the hunchback, and also wondered whether Selby still remained a prisoner at Threave. The loaded weapon upon him proved that he intended mischief, therefore neither of us expressed much regret at leaving him in such evil case. The silence of his companions was, however, ominous.

While I had been down at the bank Walter had strolled round to Harpur Street, only to find the house still closed. Of Judith’s whereabouts I knew nothing. She had disappeared. Through those weeks I had been living in alarm and dread. Scarcely a day passed without some puzzling incident, and I longed to see my love again and hear a full and frank explanation from her.

I recollected how, when we had parted outside the town of Castle-Douglas, I lingered there speaking gently, making a thousand promises at which she smiled. At last it became imprudent for us to tarry there longer, and as we stood to bid each other farewell, face to face, I saw her eyelids quiver. And then I did not dare to seek her lips.

Yet it was all so strange, so mysterious, such an utter enigma, that I had become overwhelmed by fear and suspicion, bewildered, staggered, and aghast.

I idled away the morning, and about noon I received a note from the woman Bardi, in response to the letter I had sent her, making an appointment to meet me under the clock at Charing Cross Station at three o’clock. I was there to time, and found the dark, neatly dressed figure awaiting me, just as strange, just as mysterious as before.

We walked together down Whitehall and across St. James’s Park, chatting affably in Italian. I put to her a number of questions, but gathered little in response. Her motive puzzled me, for she neither assisted me nor repeated her words of warning.

“I am returning to Italy soon,” she told me. “I suppose you have made up your mind to live here in England in future?”

I responded in the affirmative; and then, halting in the quiet path beside the lake, I tried to obtain from her the identity of the person who induced her to steal my Arnoldus, but she steadily refused to tell me anything.

Just before five o’clock, after giving her tea at Blanchard’s, I took my leave of her, more than ever puzzled. She had fenced with every question, and with the exception of giving me to understand that Judith Gordon was not my friend, she had really told me nothing. Therefore, I resolved to trouble myself no further about her in future. The woman had been proved to be a thief, and therefore unreliable. Yet my sole aim now was to get at the meaning of the bear cub in the window, and the actual motive of the remarkable conspiracy.

On entering the hall in Dover Street I ascended the stairs to the second floor and rang at the door of Walter’s cozy flat. There was no response, and at first it struck me that the faithful Thompson had gone out upon some errand in the immediate neighbourhood. I pressed the electric bell again and again, but there was no sign of life within. Of a sudden, however, I recollected that Walter had that morning given me a latch-key, and taking it from my pocket I let myself in; but judge my dismay when in the small hall quite close to the door I found the white-haired old valet lying half doubled on the carpet, motionless as one dead.