The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

Wyman was walking beside me, carrying a basketful of bottles of soda water, and as the view burst upon me I turned to him and said:

“Can it be possible that the casket of which old Godfrey speaks is hidden upon that island?”

“Maybe,” was his reply. “It certainly looks just the sort of outlandish place to hold a mystery. But we must say nothing to anyone. Let’s take our observation in silence. They’ll enjoy their picnic while we will refer to that memorandum you made of the parchment record.”

At that moment Sammy Waldron, ruddy and sun-tanned, in a rough cycling suit, came up and began to chaff Walter regarding the soda – he himself being the bearer of a quantity of that spirit very precious with men on such occasions, being assisted in its transport by the ever humorous Mrs Payling, well turned-out as usual, and brimming over with good humour. Being a widow, with a son in the Indian service, she was essentially a man’s companion as well as being a chic woman. She was chatting with Mr Batten, while Fred Fenwicke was walking with Connie and two ladies of the party a little in advance.

At last we all gained the water’s edge, and, depositing our loads, proceeded to examine the laird’s boat, a key of which Mr Batten had obtained. It was half-full of water, and there were no oars.

After some search a labourer was discovered who knew the spot where the oars were concealed, and he having pointed them out under a hedge, we discovered that they were so badly rotted by the weather that there was scarcely any blade left, and, further, that there were no rowlocks.

Sammy, Godfrey Handsworth, and the two Sales commenced to bale out the water with drinking-glasses, while the rest of the party, now being very hungry and thirsty, sat impatiently on the bank watching, and passing sarcastic remarks upon the slow progress of the work.

At length, however, it was concluded, and some of the provisions were taken aboard: Sammy being elected coxswain, with the two Sales as rowers. Then they took in a male volunteer on the trial trip.

“The husbands’ boat for Margate!”

“Nice day for a sail!” and “Man the lifeboat!” were among the derisive shouts and jeers amid which the venturous party put off into the stormy and rather dangerous waters of the Dee. The course of the boat with such oars and without rowlocks was necessarily erratic, and the absurd antics of the rowers and of Sammy as coxswain convulsed us on shore. Amid-stream the rowers, affecting fatigue, commenced to refresh themselves upon the provisions which we had sent across, and calmly lunched, leaving us hungry and empty.

After a long and tempestuous voyage they landed their first freight; then returned and took a second and a third. In the fourth Wyman and myself were included, and after running on a mud bank and having a very exciting and ludicrous time of it, we at last, laughing merrily, sprang ashore on that wild, unvisited island, where, according to The Closed Book, the wonderful emeralds of Lucrezia Borgia had, through centuries, lain hidden.

Mr Batten assured us that no one had landed there for at least a year or more; but the instant we gained the shore we turned our first attention to discovering any traces of those whom we knew were aware of the old monk’s secret in common with ourselves.

Chapter Thirty One

Under the Gallows Knob

The low-lying island upon which we found ourselves was certainly a dismal, out-of-the-world place, covered by rank grass and nettles, and yellow with St. John’s wort. Ruined walls were scattered around the castle of Threave itself, a square, roofless tower, which in the bleakness of its gaunt and terrible majesty suggested the idea of an armed skeleton, in the facial apertures of which lay the darkness of death and decay.

This was the monument of the Douglases’ pride and the engine of their oppression during their galling ascendancy, when Archibald rode with his retinue of two thousand armed retainers, many of them the most noted desperadoes, and ravaged the Border. The huge fourteenth-century fortress, once the pride of kings, was still a massive pile, with walls nearly seventy feet high, built of common grey moor stone.

As we wandered through it, the wind howling through the narrow slits where archers had sent forth their shafts, our friend Mr Batten pointed out in the lowest story the dungeon, arsenal, and larder; the barracks on the first floor; and, above, the apartments of state, where the Black Douglas lodged his friends or feasted his vassals, the walls of all massive, but now crumbling to decay.

Around the castle were the remains of a strong barbican, flanked at each angle by a circular tower, which had been secured in front by a deep fosse and vallum, both water and walls of the latter having long since disappeared.

Then, standing outside – while the rest of the party, seated on the grass, were eating their luncheon, laughing merrily and thoroughly enjoying the novelty of reaching such a place – Mr Batten pointed to a large granite bracket projecting from the front of the castle, high up near the roof: the far-famed “Gallows Knob” or “Hanging Stone,” which the Black Douglas was wont to boast was never without a “tassel,” either in the shape of a malefactor, or, if none such were in custody, some unoffending vassal!

When the Douglases maintained their power in Galloway the deeds committed within that grim, grey fortress were such as invest it with fearful interest. I recollected having read of its sinister memories, and some of them were now recalled to me by Mr Batten, who made a deep study of the subject. Indeed, as I stood there with Walter Wyman, apart from the gay Crailloch house party, gazing up at the high grey walls that had once sheltered the old soldier-monk and chronicler, Godfrey Lovel, I recollected how well the weirdlike halo that, to the present day, surrounds the place is expressed in those plaintive lines of the unfortunate Inglis of Torsonce:

Threave’s Castle looms as dark by day,With its walls of moorland grey,And the sad and sullen streamWhich, like some dank, unwholesome dream,Creeps on its stagnant way,In mossy pool and quagmire pentAround the island battlement.Dismal is the granite pileWith barbican and flanking tower,That frown beneath the merry smileOf laughing noontide hour.Dismal is the island when,With herbage rank and stunted thornThat clothe the blood-besprinkled fenIn leaf and bough forlorn,Some evil spirit haunts it yet.The dreary annals of the pastAthwart the meadow wan and wetTheir spectral shadows cast;No feathered minstrel tunes his throatOn lowly bush or lofty spray;No skylark pipes his dulcet noteIn the sun’s yellow ray;And still the prisoned oxen lowTo reach the farther shore,Like captives of the spear and bowIn Douglas raids of yore;No rural lover comes to hideThe stolen tryst at eventide;And the otter seeks his prey,And the wild duck leads her brood,And desolation and decaySleep in the ghastly solitude.

Mr Batten was called over to the luncheon party by Connie Fenwicke, who cried, “I say, Mr Batten, leave the author to meditate, and come and have something to eat. And you also, Captain Wyman. Allan will come when he’s hungry; he’s feasting on ruins at present.”

Wyman excused himself for a moment, but Mr Batten succumbed to the temptation of cold partridge and claret.

With Walter, I walked behind one of the round flanking towers, scrambling over the fallen masonry, and when out of sight of the others we commenced to search carefully for any traces of previous visitors there. The rank grass and weeds were trodden down here and there by recent footsteps; but we concluded that it had been done by some of our party who had wandered about the place prior to our own landing. We wondered whether Lord Glenelg or his companions had already been there; but the absence of any evidence that the laird’s boat had been used for months convinced us that they had not.

“Our first direction is to follow the shadow of the keep to its easterly angle when the sun shines, at 3:30, on the sixth of September,” I began, when Walter interrupted me with:

“But has it occurred to you that since that record was written the calendar has been altered? What was the sixth of September in the sixteenth century is not the sixth of September in the present day.”

“By Jove?” I gasped. “I never thought of that. But what is the precise difference?”

“I happened to be looking that very point up not long ago,” said Walter, “which is what brought it to my mind now. About 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that ten days should be omitted, and October fifth was reckoned as the fifteenth. But this was not universal till 1751, when a bill was passed for regulating the commencement of the year, and for correcting the calendar. By that bill eleven days were omitted after the second of September, so that the ensuing day was the fourteenth.”

“In that case, then, September sixth of Godfrey Lovel’s day is really our September seventeenth. That gives us nearly two weeks more time than we had counted on,” I remarked. “Yet it will be half-past three before we leave today, and we shall then, at any rate, be able to see the vicinity of the spot, although we cannot fix it exactly until the day and hour indicated.”

“I wonder whether we shall really find the casket?” Walter said, eagerly. “To me this is just the sort of place where some treasure lies buried. The day before we left town I went to the British Museum and looked up the history of the place. Our record in The Closed Book is certainly borne out by history. Maxwell of Terregles was keeper of the Threave in Godfrey’s day, the dawn of the Reformation, and seems to have had rather a rough time of it, just as the old monk has written. John Gordon of Lochinvar, Dean Vaus of Soulseat, the Macdowalls of Freuch and of Mindork, who burned Brodick Castle and invaded Arran, and James Earl of Bothwell, of Earlston, as mentioned by Godfrey Lovel, were all his prominent contemporaries. Therefore it is certainly likely that the ex-favourite of Lucrezia Borgia did actually conceal the casket intrusted to him somewhere on this island, which in his day was, of course, impregnable.”

“I quite agree,” I answered, looking wonderingly around. “Of course, the directions are complicated, purposely no doubt; and today it seems quite useless to attempt to follow them. We must arouse no suspicion of our intentions.”

“We shall require assistance when we really do investigate,” my companion remarked.

“Then we’ll take Fred into our confidence. He would thoroughly enter into the spirit of the thing – that I know.”

We walked back to where the others were still seated on the grass, in the shadow of the high grey wall, with its grim “hanging knob,” and a chorus of jeers at my studious nature greeted me.

“Going to write a book, I suppose, Allan?” cried Sammy Waldron, his mouth full of sandwich. “Put me in it, old fellow. I’m good-looking enough to be a hero, aren’t I?”

Bertie Sale opened a bottle of soda clumsily, and squirted it in a lady’s face, and Mrs Payling, to whom Walter turned his attention, was discovered actually talking frocks with Connie, and was allowed to continue, for both men and women admired her for being so well turned-out on every occasion. Godfrey Handsworth had been heard to remark that it was a pity that she was not twenty years younger; but, as it was, she was still very handsome, with a figure that many a younger woman envied.

Fred Fenwicke and Connie looked after everyone’s comfort. On such occasions they never took servants. Everyone helped himself and looked after a lady, and, as such al fresco luncheons were weekly in the shooting season, this kind of entertainment had been brought to a fine art.

The men smoked and idled, some of them lying stretched upon the grass, while others escorted the ladies around the ruins, the chief excitement being the loss of Connie’s Aberdeen “Jack,” a one-eyed dog of Satanic expression and cunning, the terror of Campbell, the sturdy, good-humoured gamekeeper of Crailloch.

I sat on the grass, smoking, chatting, and drinking whisky and soda with Fred, – Walter, Sammy, and Mr Batten, while the others wandered about the island. The afternoon was absolutely perfect, with as blue a sky as ever seen in Italy, and across the wide sweep of river, towards Greenlaw, rose the long, low heathery hills.

From where we idled Mr Batten pointed out to us the peaks Bengairn and Cairntosh and the highlands of Balmaghie, and related several archaeological facts that, in view of our forthcoming explorations, were of intense interest to us.

“You see that great rugged hole in the wall, half-way up the front of the castle?” he said, pointing to it. “The hole looks almost like a window, but it is a breach made by the cannon known as Mons Meg, now to be seen at Edinburgh Castle. The piece of artillery was made by a blacksmith and his sons at Buchan, and was used by the king in his operations against Threave. The charge consisted of a peck of gunpowder and a granite ball the weight of a Carsphairn cow. The first discharge produced a panic among the inmates of the castle, and the second shot went through the walls and carried away the right hand of the Countess, the celebrated Fair Maid of Galloway, as she sat at table in the banqueting hall about to raise a wine cup to her lips. The garrison quickly surrendered, and the blacksmith was granted the forfeited lands of Mollance and Barncrosh.”

“Curious?” I remarked. “Only a legend, I suppose?”

“Not at all – a historical fact. As late as 1841 Mr Gordon of Greenlaw, tenant of this island, discovered an immense granite ball which, on examination, was found to be a bullet, in all respects the same as those belonging to Mons Meg, while a massive gold ring inscribed ‘Margaret de Douglas’ was discovered by a workman employed to clear out some rubbish when the castle was repaired as a barrack for French prisoners. This was the actual ring supposed to have been on the hand of the Fair Maid of Galloway when it was blown away at the siege.”

Such discovery caused hope to arise within us. I exchanged glances with Wyman, and saw that he considered this additional evidence that treasure might be hidden beneath that turf on which we were lounging.

Presently we all rose to rejoin the party, and again Walter and I managed to separate ourselves from the rest and strolled around the small marshy island.

It was ten minutes past three, and the sun, still shining brightly, cast a long, straight, sharply defined shadow in the direction of the broad river and the high land of Greenlaw. The great square tower was higher on the eastern angle than the western, therefore from its position to the sun the eastern angle threw a longer shadow, which, together, we followed through the grass-grown ditch which was once the fosse and up the bank, then, counting forty-three paces, we halted at a spot covered with nettles or grass.

“The starting point for measurements must be somewhere here. Fifty-six paces with the face toward Bengairn,” I remarked. “I’m no astronomer; but I suppose that, on the date mentioned, the shadow will be more to eastward or to westward. We will, at any rate, mark this spot,” and, finding a piece of broken hurdle, used some time or other to pen in cattle which had grazed on the island, I stuck it deeply in the ground just at the farthermost point of the great oblong shadow across the grass.

Chapter Thirty Two

The Major Makes a Statement

While the rest of the party examined the dungeon, I clambered over the ruins, and ascended by the winding, broken stairway to the summit. I walked with Wyman across the weedy, neglected ground beyond the dried-up fosse, reconstructing the stronghold in imagination by the position of the broken barbican.

Over the self-same ground the unfrocked monk of Crowland had wandered with his companion in misfortune, the monk Malcolm. We looked back at the gateway of the castle, so high up that it was on a level with the second floor. Through that, the only exit from the castle, old Godfrey had fled with his fair charge across the drawbridge, over the island to the river, and across the narrow temporary bridge, then existing, to the shore – away back to safety in England, leaving Lucrezia’s casket, with its precious contents, safely hidden.

The long, straight shadow veered round slowly; and by four o’clock, when the party carrying the empty baskets and picnic accessories strolled back to the spot of embarkation, it had shifted a considerable distance from the spot where I had driven in the stake.

Everyone pronounced the picnic a distinct success. It was an entire novelty to go to that historic spot, unvisited from one year’s end to another, and certainly to us it had been a very interesting experience. We had taken certain observations which would, later on, be of the greatest use to us.

The ferrying back of the party, in twos, by Sammy Waldron and Bertie Sale, was fraught with just as much hilarity as the arrival. The old boat was declared to be leaky, for it now had a quantity of water in it, compelling the ladies to hold their skirts high and place their feet out of the way of the wash. On the first trip Bertie “caught a crab,” owing to the absence of blade to his oar, and the remainder of the rowing was done Indian fashion, the craft, being rudderless, always taking an erratic course. Time after time they crossed and recrossed, until there remained only Fred Fenwicke, Walter, and myself. All of us embarked at last, and, with triumphant shouts, set a course toward the opposite shore; but ere we had gone far we ran deep into a submerged mud bank, and notwithstanding our combined efforts for nearly half an hour, beneath the derisive cheers of the rest of the party, we remained there.

One desperate effort, in which Sammy broke his oar in half, resulted in our getting clear at last, and slowly we continued across to the opposite bank, being greeted with mock welcome on our return from that perilous voyage, during which the vessel had been so long overdue.

Together we walked in a straggling line back to our brake, which we left at the farmhouse of Kelton Mains, and at the invitation of Mr Batten we drove back into the clean, prosperous little town of Castle-Douglas and took tea with him, after inspecting his pictures; for, in addition to being a well-known archaeologist, he was an amateur artist of no small merit. True to his promise, he lent me a collection of valuable books dealing with Threave, and then, in the glorious sunset, we set out on our long drive back through the Glenkens to Crailloch, the cyclist contingent going on ahead. Fred Fenwicke was of the latter party, and both he and a friend named Gough, curiously enough, had punctures within a hundred yards of each other, and had to be picked up by us.

Ten days of merriment went by. One night, dinner was as usual a merry function, but the ladies being tired, retired early, while the men idled, gossiped, and played billiards. Connie’s boudoir adjoined the billiard-room, and I was sitting there alone with Fred, about half-past one, preliminary to turning in, when, looking me straight in the face, he said:

“Look here, Allan! What’s your game over at Threave? I watched you that afternoon, and saw you poking about and counting your paces. I was on the top of the castle wall and looked down on both of you when you thought yourselves unobserved.”

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.