The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

Then, after receiving a dose, and being compelled to swallow it in order to keep up the fiction, my friend had commenced to chat with the doctor, and learned that the patient he had been called to was a clean-shaven, middle-aged man who had apparently about nine months ago come to live in Harpur Street. The name he gave was Selby, no profession – at least as far as the doctor knew. He had been struck by his rather mysterious bearing. The little old lady was probably a relation, but of that he was not quite sure. The name I had found in the Directory was that of the present tenant. Wyman had also approached the subject of The Closed Book; but it was apparent that neither Selby nor the doctor suspected that its leaves were envenomed. The patient had made no remark to the doctor about the book. Barton had found him suffering acutely, and betraying all the symptoms of poisoning; but beyond that he knew nothing.

Yet Wyman’s visit had cleared up one or two points, and had given us the name of the man into whose possession The Closed Book had passed.

Presently we went forth again in company, and at the corner of Theobald’s Road found the young Italian still vigilant, although palpably worn out and very hungry. Nothing had transpired, we learned. No one had come out of the house; but the little old lady had come to the door and taken in the milk and bread from the baker. She apparently acted as housekeeper.

We dismissed Enrico for four hours, and I took his place, while Walter Wyman went down to the Naval and Military Club, where he declared he was certain to meet a friend of his who was intimate with Lord Glenelg, and from whom he might obtain some information.

“What connection they have with this affair is a profound mystery,” he remarked; “just as much of a mystery as the fact they are in London when believed to be abroad. Colonel Brock, my friend, only told me the night before last that they were with friends up at Mussooree, in the north of India.”

“Well, it seems they’re back again now,” I remarked.

“So it appears,” was his reply, and he stepped into a hansom and drove down to the club to gather information, leaving me to lounge in the vicinity of that rather dark and cheerless London street.

The weather was damp and muggy, and the continuous traffic in Theobald’s Road jarred upon my nerves. Even in the broad daylight the exterior of the house in Harpur Street was dingy, with an air of distinct mystery. The shutters of the area window remained closed; but the stuffed bear cub had now been removed from the upper window, having served its purpose, whatever that might be.

Soon after noon Wyman met me again. He had been active every moment, had seen his friend, and had moreover called at Grosvenor Street under some pretext, only to discover that the Earl and his daughter, having returned unexpectedly from abroad two days ago, had left again that very morning.

Was it that inexplicable signal that had caused the pair to flee from London again?

The reason why they had been both dressed shabbily was now obvious. They were in London in secret, and feared recognition. Walter Wyman’s interest was now thoroughly aroused, and he declared his intention of sifting the matter to the bottom.

The question now arose as to the means by which we should get back the book stolen from me. In the bar of the public-house where I had taken refreshment on the previous night we further discussed the matter. To attempt to regain it by interviewing the man Selby would, we felt assured, be in vain, for of such value was it and so widespread the conspiracy that he would probably either deny that it was in his possession or openly defy us. On the other hand, it would be a dangerous matter to commit a burglary there, and more dangerous still to enter forcibly and demand my property. Even Doctor Barton had confessed that there was something puzzling and forbidding about the blustering man’s manner and antecedents.

Therefore, we found ourselves at a complete deadlock.

I wished heartily that I had ordered the old woman to be stopped on landing at Dover pier.

Could the police assist us? Wyman thought not, at least not in their official capacity. We should frighten this Mr Selby, and if so would probably lose the precious volume altogether.

We both saw that it was a matter in which there must be no bungling. My friend Wyman was as shrewd a man as any in London, and this fighting with conspirators was work just to his liking. He was one of those men who, in whatever tight corner they find themselves, either at home or abroad, always managed to wriggle out of it.

In the first place, we had no knowledge of the character of the man with whom we had to deal; while, in the second, we were utterly in the dark as to the motive of the conspiracy against me from the moment when the rare Arnoldus had passed into my hand.

That we should act promptly and with firm determination was imperative; but what line to take we knew not.

The more we discussed it the more determined I became to act fearlessly and go straight to the point by going to the police station and demanding the little old woman’s arrest. Such a course would bring matters to a head, and yet I still hesitated to show our enemies our hand. At present they were unaware of my presence in London, and surely their ignorance of this would be to our advantage, inasmuch as the looker-on sees most of the game.

I felt that I wanted an expert opinion, and suddenly recollected that in the old days, when I had lived in London before, I had been on friendly terms with a detective-sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Department named Noyes, who had been attached to the Hunter Street Police Station. I had several acquaintances in the Metropolitan police, as most literary men have; but to Noyes I had been indebted more than once for showing me certain phases of unknown London. Therefore I knew that if I sought his advice he would willingly give it.

Leaving Wyman to watch, I therefore took a cab to Hunter Street, and inquired of the inspector on duty for my friend, who, I was informed, had been promoted to the rank of inspector, and was posted at the chief station of the T Division at Hammersmith.

I returned in the cab to Wyman, and then lost no time in following out my quest by going out to Hammersmith.

I found my friend, a loosely built, heavy-jawed man of middle-age, sitting in his upstairs office; and when I entered he rose to welcome me warmly. Then, on telling him that I had come to seek his advice, he settled himself at his plain writing-table to listen.

The story I related interested him just as much as it had Wyman; but now and then he pencilled a note upon the sheet of paper he had instinctively placed before him. I related the whole facts from first to last, concealing nothing. The secret poisoning appealed to him, clever detective that he was, for every man attached to Scotland Yard will tell you that a good many more people die in London of poison annually than ever doctors or coroner’s juries suspect.

“Now, what I want is to get my property back again without these people knowing,” I explained at last.

“I quite see,” he said. “If they knew you had followed them up so quickly it might put an end to their game without you ever knowing what their motive has been. Yes, you want that book back at all costs, but in a secret way. You can easily lay information before the magistrate; and I could, on that, go and search for the stolen property. But that’s hardly your game, Mr Kennedy. We must use methods a trifle more – well, artistic, shall we call it?” and his big face broadened into a grin.

“Well now, what do you suggest?” I asked.

But, instead of responding, he asked me for a detailed description of the rare and interesting volume. Then, when I had given it to him, he raised his eyes from the paper whereon he had made some memoranda, and with a mysterious smile asked:

“Would you be willing to leave the affair entirely in my hands, Mr Kennedy? I have an idea that I might, with the assistance of a friend, be able to get hold of the book without this person Selby knowing that it has gone back into your possession. If I attempt it, however, you must not be seen anywhere in the vicinity. Any observation kept upon the old lady or upon this fellow Selby must be done by your friend, Captain Wyman. Would you be inclined to act under my directions and lie low until I communicate with you?”

“Certainly,” I answered, although not yet understanding his point.

“If there is a conspiracy, you’ll very quickly be spotted if you remain hanging about Harpur Street,” he said. “I think, if you’re prepared to pay a sovereign or two, that I can get hold of the book for you. Only it will have to be done secretly; and, in order that you should not be suspected of regaining possession of it, you must go away into the country and wait until you hear from me. We don’t want them to suspect anything, otherwise we may not be able to solve the mystery of it all.”

“I’ll leave the whole affair in your hands, Noyes, of course,” I responded. “When shall I go into the country?”

“Today. Go where you like, to some place within easy reach of town, and stay there till you hear from me. Don’t go back to Harpur Street, because it’s too dangerous. You must be recognised sooner or later. I’ll find Captain Wyman and explain matters to him. Why not run down to somewhere on the Great Northern, to Peterborough, for instance. It’s on the main line, and the first stop of the expresses to the north – an hour and a half from King’s Cross. You see I could get down quickly if I wanted to see you, or you could run up if necessary. There’s a good old-fashioned hotel – the ‘Angel.’ I stopped there once when I was after a German bank-note forger, and was very comfortable.”

“Very well. I’ll go there. That will be my address till I hear from you. Tell it to Captain Wyman, as he may want to write to me.”

After some discussion, in which he steadily refused to enlighten me further upon his scheme for getting hold of The Closed Book, we returned together by the underground railway to Charing Cross, where we parted, he to seek my friend Wyman, and I to hide myself in the small provincial town of Peterborough, where I arrived that afternoon about half-past four.

As Noyes had declared, the “Angel” was replete with old-fashioned comfort, a relic of the bygone posting-days and a centre of agricultural commerce on market-days. Except the cathedral, there is very little of interest in the town of Peterborough; for of late years it has been modernised out of all recognition. In itself it is ugly, although situated in the centre of the rich green pasturage of the Nene Valley, a busy place, where the hand of the vandal has been at work everywhere save perhaps in Narrow Street, the small, old-fashioned thoroughfare wherein the “Angel” is situated.

I spent the evening examining the interior of the cathedral, afterwards taking a stroll as far as the village of Longthorpe, and after dinner retired early, for I had not yet recovered from my swift journey across Europe.

The following day passed, and still the next, yet I could only idle there, chafing and anxious regarding the success of Noyes’s undertaking. Letters from Wyman showed that, aided by Enrico, he was still keeping observation upon the house, although he had seen nothing further of my friend the detective after his announcement of my departure.

I began to wonder if Noyes had broken faith with me. Yet we had been the best of friends in the old days when I had lived and worked in London; and I thought I knew him well enough to be confident that he would assist me in every way within his power.

Therefore I wandered the streets of Peterborough or lounged in the bar of my hotel, in hourly expectation of some message from him.

His silence was ominous, and my uneasiness increased until, on the third day, I determined to remain inactive no longer.

Chapter Fifteen

The Old Monk’s Secret

To idle in a provincial town without friends and without occupation is neither pleasant nor profitable. In London one can always amuse one’s self and pass the time; but in dull Peterborough my principal excitement, in addition to visiting the much-restored cathedral and the local museum in the Minster Precincts, was to watch fat stock being sold by auction.

Anxiety consumed me as to what had occurred at Harpur Street, and whether The Closed Book was actually lost to me. I had telegraphed twice to Noyes, Hammersmith Police Station, but had received no response. His silence was in no way reassuring, therefore I resolved that if I heard nothing by nine o’clock that night I would return to London by the last train.

I dined at seven after a dismal day, and while at table the waiter entered the coffee-room where I sat alone, saying that a gentleman wished to see me. Next moment Noyes, dressed like a commercial traveller in dark-blue suit and bowler hat, entered the room.

There was a smile of triumph on his face, from which I gathered instantly that he had been successful. He carried a black leather bag in his hand, and this he opened as soon as the waiter had gone out, saying, as he produced a brown-paper packet:

“I’m glad to say, Mr Kennedy, that I’ve been able to do the trick. It was a very delicate matter, and the affair presented features and difficulties I had never anticipated.”

“Then you’ve actually got it?” I cried eagerly, opening the parcel and displaying the precious volume.

“There it is, as you see,” he laughed. “Only please don’t ask how I got possession of it, because I’d rather not say – you understand.”

Detectives are apt to be mysterious sometimes, therefore I did not question him further. For me it was sufficient that he had been able to secure it without the thieves knowing into whose possession it had passed. I was well aware of the great circle of criminal acquaintances Noyes had in London, and I suspected that it was through one of them that the book had been obtained.

“I wired twice to you,” I said, when at my invitation he seated himself at the table to join me at dinner.

“I know,” was his response. “It was not necessary to reply. In such a case as this patience is everything. You were just a trifle too impatient, Mr Kennedy – if you’ll pardon me saying it. I had promised to do what I could, and did so, with the result you see.”

I know I deserved this quiet reproof, and admitted it, for patience is one of the many good qualities I do not possess.

He would explain nothing of the means by which he had obtained my property, although he told me one or two strange facts concerning Selby and the little old lady who had travelled from Paris.

“I’ve seen Selby,” he said. “At first I seemed to have a faint idea that I’d seen his face before, and that he was wanted for something. But I’ve searched at the Yard, and found no photograph resembling him, so I suppose I must be mistaken. The old woman’s name is Mrs Pickard. She knows several foreigners living at different places, mostly people in good circumstances.”

“You haven’t seen anything of a tall, dark, and very handsome young woman – Italian probably?” I hazarded, wondering if the actual thief had arrived in London.

“No. Captain Wyman is still on the watch. He’s as good as any man I’ve ever had under me – quite professional in his methods. And that young Italian, too, seems a smart sort of chap. You picked him up quite accidentally, I think you said?”

I explained how I had sought Enrico’s aid, and what opinion I had formed of him.

“Well,” Noyes remarked, as he gulped down a glass of Bass with evident gusto, “I shall return tonight, but you’d best remain here, Mr Kennedy; or, if not here, somewhere in the country. You must not be seen in town. Bury yourself away from there, and leave all the watching to us. You’ve got the book, therefore be careful it don’t go out of your possession again.”

“Trust me,” I laughed. “When I’ve gone through it all I shall put it in a bank for safe keeping.”

“It ain’t the sort of thing to leave about if the leaves are really poisoned, as you say. I’ve been afraid to open the thing,” he remarked, half apologetically.

“I’m tired of this place,” I said, longing to return to London.

“Then go somewhere else – to the seaside, for instance. You’re quite near the east coast places here.”

“A good idea,” I exclaimed. “I’ll go to Sheringham tonight. I stayed at the ‘Grand’ once, and will go there again.”

“Very well,” he said, and we concluded our meal and lit cigars afterwards, chatting over the various remarkable features of the mystery. My decision to go to the little watering-place, now becoming so popular, pleased him. My absence from London was imperative, he declared, and at Sheringham, if dull, I could at any rate get some golf. How long I would be compelled to remain there he had no idea.

“Let me complete my inquiries,” he said. “They are very difficult; but I don’t despair as long as Captain Wyman will continue to assist me. Perhaps, when you’ve deciphered the whole of the book, a further clue will be furnished to the motive of all this secrecy and conspiracy.”

“I shall resume at Sheringham tomorrow,” I replied. “I expect to discover some secret which will throw further light on recent events.”

At nine o’clock, after an exchange of expressions of confidence, we drove together to the Great Northern station, and after seeing him into the up-express. I took the slow night train, via Wisbech and South Lynn, to the clean little fishing-village of Sheringham, which Harley Street has recently discovered to be so healthy, and which society is now commencing to patronise.

I took a private sitting-room at the “Grand,” overlooking the promenade, an expensive luxury to be sure, but I wanted quiet and privacy in my investigations; and next morning, after my breakfast had been cleared, I first assumed a pair of thick driving-gloves, and then reopened The Closed Book at the page where my reading had been so abruptly broken off.

I think, in order to reproduce the record plainly, it will be best to give the transcript just as I copy it from the time-stained poisoned pages now before me, with all its quaintness of expression and orthography, only eliminating the contractions and some obscurities.

What I further deciphered, then, was as follows:

“Reader who darest to seeke within this BOOK, I commend me unto you as heartily as I may think, trusting in God that you be (the which Jesu continue) in good prosperity. It is not out of your remembrance that my lord of Valentinois had sworn to kill me because I had given help unto my lady Lucrezia, and had more than once used the knife contayning the antidote, striking as I had stricken my lord of Pesaro those whom he attempted to poison. Hence my lady, seeing that her lord was dead, and right knowing her helplessness, induced me to recover her jewels and flie to England with them, there to await her ladyship’s arrival, her intention being to seeke the gracious intercession of our lord Cardynal Wolsey, who had befriended her when in Rome. Loth as I was to leave my lady alone in the Vatican, that place of so many black deeds, I saw that to serve her I must obey, hence did I at once repair unto the spot near unto the village of Monte-Compatri, where I had concealed my lady Lucrezia’s wondrous jewels within a strong casket of wood and iron. The Borgia emeralds, be it knowne unto you, were the finest the world had ever seen, and were once the property of the Great Turk, the Sultan Muhammed, who is said to have obtained them from the ruins of ancient Babylon. They were set in the forme of a neck-collar, each stone as large as a mann’s thumb. And preserved with them were diamonds, pearls, and rubies of value enormous, and with the which was the sealed phiall of the secret venom and the antidote. All these did I recover securely, and having bade farewell unto my lady, journeyed to England after many adventures that need not be herein recounted. Arrived in London, I again took up my lyving in the house of my friend Sir George Goodrick, in East Chepe, on the iij. daye of January in the yeare of our Lord 1501.

“For the space of one year and two monthes I remained in London, until a messenger came from my lady with the amazing news that she had become wedded unto the lord Don Alfonso D’Este, heir of the lord Duke Ercole of Ferrara, and, having removed to Ferrara, did not intend travellynge to England at that presente. In her letter she told me how that at last she had wedded a man she loved, and that with her confessor she was seeking the forgiveness of her God for the black deedes her brother Cesare had compelled her to commit. Furthermore, she tolde me that knowing her jewels were in safe keeping in my hands she wished me to still retaine them in their secret hyding-place until such time as she should arrive to see mi lord Cardynal Wolsey at Hamton. She pointed out that I, well knowing of the terrible deedes commited by her, and therefore havying been more than once her assistant in her murderous treachery, was as guiltie as she. The blood of many of those who had been envenomed was upon my hands, therefore it was for me to make penance and seek forgiveness.

“Her words were those of a penitent woman, and they caused me to think. She was happy with her husband, but uneasy on account of her guiltiness of mind. She was repentant, and wished me to be so. For a long time I thought over her words, until at last becoming convinced that being privy to those foul poison-plots wherein death was dealt secretly to every enemy, I was also an assassin and accursed. Wherefore, after much reason, I resolved to hide mi lady’s treasure and enter as a novice the order of Saint Benedict at their great abbey of Croylande in Lincolnshire, hoping that the rigours of a monastic life would open up to me the glories and comforts of religion, of the which I stood sorely in need.

“Please it you, reader, to understand that I repaired to Croylande, and having sunk the casket of my lady’s jewels in the fish pond one hundred and thirty and one paces south-east of the grand altar of the abbey, midway between the shores, I entered as novice of the sacred order, Roberte de Deepynge then being abbot. Through eighteen full years did I make penance, leading a religious life and making peace with my God. Our abbey was one of the finest and well-favoured in all England, and my lyfe was spent mostlie in religious work among the people. At times I visited the abbeys of Peterborough, Thomey, Fynshed, Fountance (Fountains), St. Albans, and our great Glassynburie (Glastonbury), travelling much, and making many and long pilgrimages. Much that I did see at Glassynburie was indeed of a scandal; but my bounden duty most humbly remembered, I speak not of the evil deeds of those supposed to live in sanctitie. One day in April, when I passed across the tryangular bridge at Croylande towardes the Abbeye, having been to the priory of Castor to visit the beadsman Willyam Petre, a monk, my friend named Malcolm Maxwell, brought unto me a travel-stained messenger from Ferrara, who tolde to me the death of my lady Lucrezia, and gave unto me a letter written to me an hour before she died. She urged me to continue my lyfe of religion and peace with God, and sente me as her dying wish that her pryceless jewels should remain concealed because a curse rested upon them. She wished that no man should see or touch them, but her will was that they might only be used in the cause of the holy Catholic church. And for that purpose she left the treasure in mi hands, together with the poison-phiall and the secrete antidote to be used if occasion warranted in the same cause, these also beynge concealed with the marvellous gems in the mud of the fish pond. This news overburdened my heart with greefe, and I vowed unto God (praised be Him) that I would faithfully fulfil my lady’s commandments, and still continue in my unfained fidelity of my allegiance. Wherein reducing to remembrance the prised memories and perpetual renowned facts of the famous Duchess, yet having the reader’s most benign and gracious favour, I resolved to still remain in the sanctuarie of the abbey, although I hadde in mi possession some of the finest jewells known unto the world, and the whych, if solde, might keepe me in prosperity all my days.”

Chapter Sixteen

Continues the Record

Pausing in my work, I rose and looked out across the sunlit sea. Then, eager to gain further knowledge, returned and continued the deciphering, as follows: