The Camelot Caper, page 11
“Not the ring, no, I’ve got that.” Jess was white with anger. “The son of a gun stole my passport!”
Mutual recriminations were flying thick as hail several hours later, as the conspirators sat over spiritous li-quors in the bar of the King’s Arms. David had discovered that the enemy were registered there by the simple expedient of spotting their blue convertible in the inn yard.
“It was a stupid thing to do,” Jess raged, for the fifth or sixth time. “But how could I imagine—”
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“Don’t they warn you at the State Department, or whatever, not to leave the blasted thing lying about?”
“You said that!”
Bill cleared his throat, and the pair subsided.
“And I don’t understand why we came here,” Jess muttered. “They’ll catch us red-handed.”
“That hardly matters now. Everybody knows that everybody’s chasing everybody. I thought we’d wait till they go out, to feed, or look for us, and then try a spot of room-searching ourselves.”
Jess sighed and drank beer. She had chosen to drink beer rather than anything stronger because it looked as if they might have a long wait. She knew better than to object to David’s ingenious plan; when he got an idea, he stuck to it.
They had gotten a table by the window. Even so, they almost missed the exodus, being involved in another argument, this time over why the enemy had stolen Jessica’s passport. Two of them were arguing; silent Bill drank his beer. He had an enormous appetite for it, but it did not distract him from the matter at hand. Silently he glanced out the window; silently he nudged David.
David took one look and bounded to his feet.
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“They’re escaping—the cowardly swine!”
“Where? Where?” Jess tried to see out the window.
David shoved her.
“Hurry, can’t you? My car’s a block away, we’ll never catch up with them.”
Bill coughed.
“Splendid thought,” David said approvingly. “Very well, troops. On your mark—get set—”
They erupted out of the door of the hotel in time to see the blue car drive off. David snatched Jess’s hand and dragged her down the street to the spot where they had left the Jaguar. She didn’t notice, until he shoved her into the front seat, that somewhere along the way they had lost Bill. Before she could inquire about him she saw him—a block and a half away. He was conspicuous, not only because of his height and his golden locks, but because he was running down the middle of the street, arms up and knees bending, in approved professional style. He left a trail of staring pedestrians behind him.
David pulled out from the curb in front of a truck, which responded with a squeal of brakes and a spate of curses. David paid no attention. They passed Bill, still chugging along, turned left at the next corner in response to his signal, and caught sight of the pale-blue convertible two blocks away. The hunt was up.
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Jess’s suggestion that they force the other car off the road was not well received. David claimed that there was too much traffic, but Jess suspected that his real reason was fear—not for himself, but for the gleaming smooth finish of his car. She did not press the point.
They had left Salisbury well behind when David said suddenly, “Unless I miss my guess, they are heading for Glastonbury. What do they think this is, a sightseeing tour?”
There was no sensible answer to this question, so Jess didn’t try to answer it. Instead she asked, “What about Bill?”
“Oh, Bill never leaves Wells. He likes it there.”
“He does?”
“I mean to say, he’s something of a recluse.”
“He is? Oh. But isn’t he going to be hurt at our rushing off this way, without so much as a farewell?”
“Who, Bill? Why should he be hurt about that?”
“‘If I forgot your silly birthday, would you fuss?’”
David grinned.
“‘By and large we are a marvelous sex,’” he agreed.
“But we may not have seen the last of Bill.”
“Why? We’ve got our suitcases. It was smart 160 / Elizabeth Peters
of you to put them in the car, I must say.”
“Thank you for noticing the only intelligent thing I’ve done today. No, I meant that we might have to go back to Bill’s to sleep.”
“But it’s late now. Why can’t we sleep in Glastonbury, if that’s where they’re going?”
“Because, my sweet, you do not have a passport.”
“Oh, they never ask for it.”
“Don’t they?”
Their destination was Glastonbury. They were soon traversing its sedate streets, and in the near distance Jess saw the tall symmetrical shape of a tower-crowned hill which she knew must be Glastonbury Tor. She had done her homework with guidebooks from the ship’s library, and now she hung out the window to get a better view. The high hill where, according to legend, Joseph of Arimathea had concealed the Holy Grail, looked green and beautiful in the evening light. David had to repeat his last question.
“What? Not usually. They just give you a form and if you already know your passport number, and where it was issued, and that stuff, you don’t even have to produce it.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
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“A dastardly alternative had shaped itself in my mind,” David admitted.
“Oh, look at that tower! Is it the Abbey?”
“No, you unromantic wench. Don’t you ever think of anything but sightseeing? It’s the parish church of some saint or other. I haven’t been here in…Look out!
This is it.”
He came to a screeching halt somewhere near the curb. When Jess had withdrawn from the windshield, she said irritably,
“It’s a miracle you haven’t collected a ticket.”
“A ticket to what?”
“How long were you in New York?”
“Oh, that sort of a ticket. Why? I’m an excellent driver.”
Jess rubbed her forehead.
“You’re illegally parked,” she said gently.
“I want to be sure they’re settling down for a while.”
The blue car had stopped in front of a hotel. Cousin John got out, entered the hotel, and reappeared with one of the employees, who began to unload suitcases.
David then consented to move on.
Thus far Jess had not been captivated by Glastonbury. Its little shops and dull houses might have been those of any provincial town. But she fell in love with the hotel David selected. Its 162 / Elizabeth Peters
facade, of creamy stone, had three floors of tall narrow windows framed by carvings, and a gilded set of coats of arms above the entrance.
“What is it?” she asked. “Not a replica of something, I hope.”
“Replica?” David was outraged. “The George is an old pilgrim inn, built to hold the overflow of guests who came to visit the Abbey. No later than the fifteenth century, if that impresses you, and I suppose it does, Americans always…Oh, come along.”
He perspired gently while Jess filled out her registra-tion form, inking in a set of numbers in the appropriate spot with perfect aplomb.
“Bright of you to have memorized the number,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.”
After they had inspected their rooms they met in the bar, over Jessica’s protests. She was getting tired of beer, she wanted to go see the Abbey, and anyhow she failed to see the point of sitting around in bars all the time.
“This happens to be the bar of the George,” said David patiently, “and its windows happen to look out upon the High Street and the market square. This is the center of Glastonbury. Sooner or later those blokes will have to pass this point.”
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“Unless they decide to leave town the way they came in.”
David banged his empty glass down on the table.
An assiduous waiter, mistaking the cause of his temper, hastened up with a refill.
“Thank you. Why should they do that?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I was speaking to the lady.”
Jess waited till the waiter had left.
“I don’t know why they should leave town. I don’t even know why they came to town.”
They could carry on this sort of aimless bickering for hours, and they did, while the shadows of evening fell and a mellow light painted the market square of Glastonbury. Then David stiffened.
“I won’t say I told you so,” he remarked.
The villains had just appeared, strolling down the street like any visitors. Both wore what might be called casual attire, but the effect was as different as day and night. Algernon was dressed completely in black—slacks and a turtle-necked knit shirt; the color did not improve his sallow complexion or his generally villainous air. Cousin John, by contrast, was a vision of what the well-bred gentleman wears while weekending in the country—tailored tweeds, a spotless white shirt, and a beautiful fawn 164 / Elizabeth Peters
sweater. Only the mustache spoiled the picture, and Jess was now certain that it was false.
Over his arm Cousin J. carried a dark garment, presumably his coat. His right hand held a little book; and as Jess stared he stopped dead in front of the inn, book in hand. He looked at the inn’s facade; he glanced at the book, and nodded. He spoke to his companion, and read from the book.
“Overdoing it,” David muttered.
“Do you think he knows we’re here?”
“How could he? No, he’s playing tourist. Look, there they go. And here we go.”
They followed at a careful distance, but their precautions were needless. The pair ahead never looked back.
They ambled off down the street and vanished under a wide gateway; and David caught Jess by the arm.
“They’re visiting the ruins,” he said incredulously.
“Oh, good!”
“Probably bad. Wait, we’ll have to let them get ahead.”
“Why?”
She saw why when David finally consented to pass through the gate. It led into a narrow street, closed in by high walls, with no place for concealment. At the far end was a small build
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ing with a ticket window and turnstile.
Their quarry had vanished when they ventured into the alley but, as David pointed out, they could only have vanished into one place: through the turnstile into the enclosure which contained the ruins of the once rich and famous Abbey.
The woman who took their money warned them that the place would be closing in half an hour. Never-theless, Jess insisted on buying a small illustrated guide.
As they went through the turnstile they saw straight ahead the best preserved part of the old church: the Lady Chapel, whose creamy walls seemed, at first glance, almost intact. But the roof was gone, and the windows, framed with carved foliage, gaped empty; lichen and ivy had rooted in the cracks of the walls, and a fine crop of green grass sprouted on their tops.
The modern precinct was several blocks long—Jessica’s ability to estimate size was no more precise than that—and almost as wide. At the far end, away from the entrance, lay the stately remnants of the church to which the Lady Chapel had been an adjunct. Like monolithic stone sentinels, two tall piers towered in isolated majesty. The top of the vast arch of which they had formed the sides had fallen; but 166 / Elizabeth Peters
somehow the eye was led up, to complete its form in imagination. The westering sun cast a theatrical glow, gilding the stone and brightening the green of trees and close-clipped grass. Except for the octagonally shaped Abbot’s Kitchen, most of the other buildings of the monastery were represented only by foundations, carefully preserved and marked. Preservation, not restoration, had been the aim of the scholars who brought Glastonbury back to life. It cast a spell, a unique kind of magic from which few visitors escape, unscathed.
Jess, being particularly susceptible, succumbed at one glance.
“The Great Church,” she muttered, flipping the pages of the guidebook. “Piers of the crossing…What’s a crossing, David?”
“This place is too big. Where the hell are they?”
“Who? What’s a crossing?”
“Where the transepts, crossarms, of a church meet the nave,” David said absently. “Where did they go?”
“I want to go down there.”
“Where? Oh. Might as well.” David shrugged. “Look sharp for wandering villains.”
Jess had no attention to spare for villains; it was hard enough trying to read the guidebook and look at the sights simultaneously.
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“Look at this,” she exclaimed, stopping before a marker.
“Huh?” David glanced at it disinterestedly. “Oh, yes, your ancestor.”
“‘Site of King Arthur’s tomb,’” Jess read. “‘In the year 1191 the bodies of King Arthur and his queen were said to have been found on the south side of the Lady Chapel. On nineteenth April 1278 their remains were removed in the presence of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor to a black marble tomb on this site. This tomb survived till the dissolution of the Abbey in 1519.’
Isn’t that exciting?”
“No.”
“Oh, you’re about as romantic as—as an oyster.”
Jess sighed. “Imagine—King Arthur! I remember now, this is the Isle of Avalon that the books talk about. It doesn’t look much like an island now,” she admitted doubtfully. “Was it ever?”
“Dunno.”
Jess made exasperated sounds and flipped the pages of her book.
“Yes, it was. Not in water, but in marshland. ‘Linked to the main uplands by a narrow tongue of land running southeast—’”
“Will you stop that!” David snatched at the book and she ducked, clutching it.
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“Aren’t you interested in King Arthur?”
“No, I’m much more interested in Cousin John.” He scowled at her, and then said maliciously, “It probably wasn’t Arthur they found anyhow. When was it—twelfth century? Those credulous boobs probably dug up some old abbot and decided he ought to be Arthur. Even the bones are gone now, there’s no way of knowing what they found, if they found anything, and didn’t invent the whole story.”
“You’re the kind of guy who would tell little kids there isn’t any Santa Claus. The bones survived till the Dissolution. What’s the Dissolution?”
“Henry the Eighth, you ignorant colonist. Don’t they teach any civilized history in your country?”
“I know all about Henry the Eighth,” Jess said coldly.
“He declared himself head of the church and stole all the monasteries. He had six wives, and I can name them all. Which I’ll bet is more than you can do.”
“Ann Boleyn,” David said. “Let’s meander over this way. I thought I saw a familiar form by the Abbot’s Kitchen. Katharine of Aragon. Anne of Cleves. Uh…”
“Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr, Jane Seymour.
What’s this part?”
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“Kitchen, cloister, refectory,” David said with resigned patience. “Or rather the foundations of same, the upper parts are gone. I don’t think I am very happy.
Have you noticed how dark it’s getting?”
He was right. The shadows on the grass had faded as the light dimmed. One bright star hung low in a darkening sky. Just then an unharmonious but peremptory noise from the direction of the entrance made David glance at his watch.
“Closing time. Jess, look here—I know you haven’t been watching, but I have. Neither of those blokes has left.”
“So, they’re staying till the last minute.”
“Possibly. But I am beginning to have a strange premonition. This way, please. Let’s go back to the entrance, and lurk.”
It was not difficult to lurk; the ruins provided splendid cover, with strategically placed gaps for spy-ing. From behind a wall of the Lady Chapel they could see the part of the path directly in front of the turnstile, and it was not long before their vigilance was rewarded by the sight of Villain Number Two. He strolled by them, his hands in the pockets of his baggy trousers, his lips pursed in a whistle, and went out the exit without so much as a backward glance.
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Jess caught David’s eye, and saw, reflected, her own question. Algernon was the last man to seek out the holy ruins of Glastonbury for their own sake. Why had the precious pair come here? And where, now, was Cousin John?
Wherever he was, he meant to stay there. The last tourists straggled out, the caretakers closed the gift shop and ticket window. The last footsteps died away; and a profound stillness gathered, with the dusk, over the towering ruins of King Arthur’s Isle of Avalon.
By this time the adventurers were in the crypt, behind an altar. David had insisted on the retreat, not only to avoid any vigilant custodians checking on absent-minded visitors, but to give himself, as he expressed it, time to think. Jess didn’t feel that the crypt was conducive to thought, except thoughts of murder, ghosts, and decay. It was not totally black-dark, being open at one end where the Galilee joined onto the Lady Chapel; but the high remaining walls of the latter structure cast shadows, thick shadows which left the lower portion in darkness. The place felt damp and smelled damp. But, she had to admit, it had one advantage. No one could approach their hiding place without being seen and heard.
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“I’ll bet he sneaked out when you weren’t looking,”
Jess whispered. “David, how are we going to get out?
We can’t stay here all night.”
“Oh, we can get out. Hop over the turnstile and bang on the gate till someone comes.”
“And how do we explain our failure to hear the all-out signal?”
“I can think of one explanation,” David said, and chuckled evilly.
“You have a low mind. Let’s go look for him, since we’re here.”
“We’ll have to wait for moonrise. I didn’t bring a torch.”
The wait seemed interminable, but it could not have been more than an hour in objective time; and when the moon did rise Jess forgot her cramped limbs.
