The Camelot Caper, page 17
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cial flowers; she certainly hadn’t. So the white and purple clusters that overflowed the vases by the altar were probably the regular weekly arrangements. They were all the more lovely for being ordinary, seasonal garden flowers, lilac of every imaginable shade for the most part; and the colors were certainly appropriate.
But the glory of the church, which would have redeemed uglier architecture than the sturdy fifteenth-century sandstone, was the wagon roof, with carved, painted beams and golden-haired angels.
Throughout the long day, with its depressing cere-monies, Jess’s mind kept returning to those angels.
They acted as a focal point on which her restless, worried imagination could settle, and find a kind of reassurance. They were ugly angels, really; stiff, badly carved, and recently repainted in colors as glaring as the original shades had been, cherry red, bright gold.
What quality was it that redeemed this crude, local work and made it beautiful? For the angels were also beautiful angels. Beautiful, not because of the crafts-manship, but because of the certainty which had guided the craftsmen. Their belief formed their works: belief in God and in hell and in a specific devil, with horns and a tail—and in specific angels, whose golden hair was
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not yellow, nor flaxen, nor blonde—but gold.
Jess doubted whether the same sort of faith moved any of the members of their party. Aunt Guinevere looked like a nun in unrelieved black, with her set features hidden behind a veil. Cousin John, as usual, was a model of propriety. He wore formal morning clothes, and his fair head bent solicitously over his mother’s shrouded form as he supported her from the church.
But once during the service, when the minister referred to the deceased’s virtues as father and husband, he had caught Jess’s eye and let his right lid droop in an unmistakable wink.
Jess literally hadn’t known what to wear. She owned one black dress, which was backless and three inches short of her kneecap; it would not have been appropriate even if it had been in her suitcase instead of in a closet three thousand miles to the west. Borrowing or buying a dress was both hypocritical and impractical, so, in the end, she had settled for white, a simple straight shift which, at least, possessed sleeves, and a white lace scarf which she had brought with vague ideas of Roman churches later that summer. Studying herself in the wavy mirror in the parlor, she saw her eyes enormous and shadowed under the soft folds of lace, and guiltily
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wiped off her bright lipstick. On second thought, she replaced it. She had no harsh feelings toward the old man who lay dead upstairs; neither did she feel grief, or guilt that she felt no grief. Let the villagers stare, and call her a cold, hard foreigner.
But the glances and murmured greetings were all friendly. There were many mourners, most of them contemporaries of her aunt’s; there could not be many of the old man’s friends still living. From the conglom-erate of unfamiliar faces only one stood out: that of Mr. Simon Pendennis, who had a face like a wrinkled prune, a lean old body as straight as a lance, and a pair of wicked, lively, black eyes. He was a memorable figure; but she noticed him primarily because he was introduced as the family lawyer.
When they met at the church, Mr. Pendennis gave her a handclasp that made her flinch. She had barely had time to introduce David before they entered the building, and Mr. Pendennis’s glance made it clear that he did not think much of David. Jess had to admit that her “fiance” did not look propossessing. The black band pinned around his arm did little to counteract the color of his bright-blue suit; sartorial elegance, as she had noted, was not one of David’s strong points. His appearance was not improved by the fading THE CAMELOT CAPER / 253
bruises of his earlier encounters with Cousin John and Friend, and the clumsy bandage on his brow, fastened by her own fair and unskilled hands, completed the picture of a city tough.
When they settled down in the library after the funeral, Mr. Pendennis’s eyes kept straying to David with fascinated distaste. Seating himself behind the heavy table, he drew a document from his breast pocket, slapped it down onto the mahogany, and announced that he had no intention of reading it.
“Sum it up, so you can all understand it,” he said, glaring at them with a lawyer’s contempt for the laity.
Jess had heard about beetling brows, but this was the first time she had ever seen any. She was finding it hard to concentrate on the will, so intrigued was she by the thick white clumps of hair over the lawyer’s eyes.
No one objected, so the lawyer went on.
“Legacies to the servants,” he rumbled. “Fifty pounds.
Not many servants left, heh? All debts to be paid, et cetera…The rest is simple enough. Perhaps too simple.
I don’t know how familiar you are with your grandfather’s situation, Miss Tregarth—”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Jess said. “I don’t care, either.”
Mr. Pendennis put his fingers together.
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“That is a most peculiar comment,” he said bluntly.
“Why do you say that?”
Jess looked at her aunt, who looked coldly back; at her cousin, whose smile held more than its usual share of malice; at David, rumpled and disreputable, paler than usual and altogether wonderful.
“He didn’t owe me anything that he could give me now,” she said steadily. “People owe children—all other people, but especially their children—some things. Love, perhaps, until they prove they don’t de-serve it. But not money. Not this way. I’d love to have had a grandfather; my mother’s father died before I was born. I don’t harbor any ill will at all. But I don’t want his money. I’m sorry, I can’t say it right….”
Unexpectedly, it was the old lawyer who responded, and, though his rocky features did not change, there was a milder gleam in the black eyes.
“I understand quite well. And, may I say, I respect you for your sentiments.”
Jess was so surprised and grateful that tears came to her eyes. It was the first softening emotion she had felt that day, and she was grateful to the lawyer for evoking it.
“Arthur Tregarth was a hard man,” the lawyer went on. “He was my old friend and my THE CAMELOT CAPER / 255
old enemy, but no one could call him sentimental. And your father, my dear, was an impetuous, weak fool.
We need not resurrect that long-past quarrel, but it was not to the credit of either participant. Your grandfather despised his son; but he did come to regret not knowing his granddaughter. That was why, with my knowledge and at my suggestion, he wrote to you.
But his intention was to meet you, nothing more. There was no restitution he could have made, if he had wanted to. Do I make myself clear?”
“You mean there isn’t any money,” Jess said. She was beginning to like Mr. Pendennis; he, too, believed in calling a spade a spade.
“Precisely,” the lawyer said calmly. “He left to you some small investments, which were his sole source of income except for an annuity which dies with him.
They will not bring in more than two hundred pounds a year. The rest of the property goes to your cousin, who is the residuary legatee. That means—”
“I know. It means he gets everything that isn’t specifically left to someone else.”
“In nonlegal language, that is approximately correct.”
The short silence was broken by Cousin John, who rose with his customary grace.
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“Thank you, Mr. Pendennis. May I offer you a glass of sherry before you go?”
The lawyer grunted.
“At least you inherit some noble vintages,” he said, holding the slim glass up to the light.
“Four bottles of this left,” said Cousin John wryly.
“The old gentleman—God rest his soul—calculated his demise quite accurately.”
“Drank most of it himself, did he?” Pendennis made an abrupt barking sound which was evidently meant to be a laugh. “Quite in character.”
Her cousin smiled; catching Jess’s eye, he said, “Shocked, dear Coz, by our disrespect? Thought you Americans were more realistic. Darling Jess, why pretend? Our mutual ancestor was something of a bounder. When he inherited, the place was in flourish-ing condition. He sold most of the land and spent the capital in riotous living. Correct, Mr. Pendennis?”
“Quite accurate,” the old lawyer said calmly.
“Which means,” John continued, “that there’s nothing left. I probably won’t even be able to keep the house.”
David stirred.
“Will you have to sell the house to pay the death duties?”
“No,” the lawyer answered. “Mr. Tregarth made provision for that outlay. But there is, lit THE CAMELOT CAPER / 257
erally, nothing left. I would myself advise John to sell, if he can find a buyer; the house is in need of repairs, and there is not enough land remaining to be product-ive.”
“No one would buy a moldering pile like this,” John said carelessly.
“No private individual, perhaps; but it might do as a hotel or institution of some sort.”
This optimistic suggestion seemed to annoy Cousin John; he scowled, and Jess, thinking she had seen another sign of his family feeling which he was embarrassed to own, said gently, “This seems to be a popular vacation area. Would it be possible for you to run the house as a hotel yourself?”
That was the wrong thing to say. Cousin John transferred his scowl to Jess and said curtly, “It would require a great deal of money to finance such a thing.
Even supposing that I wanted to see the house so de-graded.”
Jess caught the old lawyer’s eye, and saw a gleam of frosty amusement which made her refrain from further comment. Suddenly she was aware, not of fear, but of a vast distaste. The dark, dusty library and the unspoken antagonism of her relatives repelled her; she felt a need for sunshine and fresh air.
“That seems to conclude our business,” Mr.
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Pendennis said. “John, I’ll just take that box with me, if you will put it into my car.”
“Box?” Cousin John repeated guilelessly.
“The box of artifacts. I’m sure your grandfather must have spoken of it. He told me years ago that he was leaving it to me.”
“Oh, of course. The objects he found in his digs.”
“The box is mentioned specifically in the will,” said Mr. Pendennis coldly.
“Of course, sir. Let me think…. Mother, what did we do with that box?”
Without speaking, Aunt Guinevere inclined her head and John went to the bookshelves on that side of the room.
The library was lined with bookshelves on three of its four sides, except for the spaces occupied by doors and by a cavernous fireplace. One section of shelving held, not books, but a miscellaneous collection of objects of stone and pottery. From the lowest shelf Cousin John lifted a large box, made of dullish metal.
It was two feet long and about a foot deep, and Cousin John carried it as if it were heavy.
He deposited the box on the table in front of the lawyer, who had risen to his feet, and who now bent over the box with undisguised curiosity and eagerness.
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“Have a look, sir,” said Cousin John gravely. “Make sure nothing is missing.”
The old lawyer glared at him.
“Nothing worth stealing, I daresay,” he mumbled.
“Arthur always was a braggart. The prizes of his collection, indeed…. Still, we may as well have a look.”
The box was unlocked; its lid fell back at a touch of the old man’s hand. The hand was actually trembling as it removed the first object and placed it tenderly on the table; Jess found the elderly lawyer’s excitement rather pathetic.
The objects, as they came out of the box, did not seem like the sort of thing that would produce such rapt attention. Several chunks of broken pottery; a large scrap of rusted, blackened metal; three greenish lumps; a collection of bones; a bronze arrowhead.
When Jess looked up in some disgust from the collection, she was amazed to see that Mr. Pendennis had gone pale. She stood up and walked over to the table.
At close range the miscellaneous collection looked even worse, but the lawyer stood staring at it with the expression of a man who has been dealt a stunning blow.
“So he did find something,” he muttered. “It’s impossible! All these years…. But where?”
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“What is it?” Jess asked. “What are these things?”
Pendennis merely shook his head dazedly. David, who had joined them at the table, picked up one of the chunks of metal which glowed with a brighter gleam than the rest.
“That looks like gold.”
“Yes.” The lawyer spoke carelessly, but his long gnarled fingers twitched, as if he were aching to snatch the fragment away from David. “A scrap, no more.
Meaningless…. Ah—do you know anything about archaeology, Mr. er—um?”
“Not a thing,” David said guilelessly. “But I’ve got a pal who lectures on British prehistory at Cardiff.”
“I take it that these are the results of Grandfather’s excavations,” Jess persisted. “They don’t look very exciting, I must say. Are they worth anything?”
“Completely worthless,” said the lawyer firmly. “Although in a sense they did cost a great deal of money—thousands of pounds of what might have been your inheritance, Miss Tregarth.”
“Thousands of pounds! I didn’t know digging up a lot of dirt could be so expensive.”
“You have the usual layman’s ignorance,”
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said Pendennis. “One doesn’t simply go out with a spade and plunge in, you know. Nowadays all sorts of technical equipment is necessary, not only for the actual removal of the soil, but for treating and preserving the objects one finds, and for surveying prepar-atory to digging. Why, last year Arthur purchased one of these soil anomaly detectors, instruments which can indicate the existence of metal, or of filled-in trenches and postholes, under the soil. That alone cost—”
“Two thousand five hundred pounds,” said Cousin John. “Know anyone who’d like to purchase a used soil anomaly detector?”
He spoke lightly; but his eye was on Mr. Pendennis, and Jess saw a spark, cannily suppressed, appear in the old man’s own eyes.
“Don’t blame me for your grandfather’s folly, my boy. I did my best to dissuade him.”
“But I get the impression that you are also interested in archaeology,” David said. “Why did you try to discourage him?”
Pendennis snorted.
“Because he was quite unreasonable about his re-searches. Oh, he discovered some interesting material—beaker fragments, Roman weapons, medieval artifacts. But he was not interested in scientific archaeology. He was obsessed with 262 / Elizabeth Peters
his—er—obsession. Just fancy, Mr. er—um—the old fool thought he was going to find the site of Camelot!”
“That is a shame.” David shook his head. “Even I know that the real Camelot is in Somerset. It’s been in the news lately. What’s the name of the place? Oh, like the chocolates. Cadbury.”
“Nonsense,” Mr. Pendennis exclaimed. “You’ve been taken in by all the sensationalism too. There are solid traditions which place Camelot in Cornwall. No, my dear fellow; I have a much sounder reason for knowing that Arthur would never find Camelot here. You see, Camelot is on my property.”
David took the curve at sixty, and Jess sat on her hands to keep from grabbing the wheel.
“I share your urge to leave that place,” she shouted over the roar of the wind. “But let’s do it alive, can’t we?”
David took his foot off the accelerator and the car slowed to a pace more suited to the narrow road and the negligible visibility. It was the most dangerous time of day for driving, near dusk, and a fog hovered over the pastures of Cornwall. Or was it still Cornwall? Jess tried to catch a sign, but there were no markers on this lonely road.
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They had been driving for two hours, after a departure whose abruptness had left even Jess gasping.
David had turned down the invitation of Mr. Pendennis to come to his place, which adjoined the Tregarth land, and have a look at Camelot. He had refused Cousin John’s half-hearted invitation to stay, at least, overnight. He had wanted out, and he had gotten out, without finesse or good manners.
Jess thought it might be nice, for once, to know where she was going, but she was not deeply concerned. Even a foggy dark English road, on a rainy night, with a mad stranger at the wheel of the car, was more restful than what she had been through. She had not forgotten the threats of the last week, nor the still unsolved questions she and David had argued so often; she had simply dismissed them. Probably she would never know what had been behind her cousin’s actions.
She didn’t want to know.
She glanced at her companion’s intent profile, with the rakish white bandage and the nose jutting forward like the prow of a ship; and an unaccustomed shyness came over her as she remembered certain episodes.
One good thing, at least, had come out of all the confusion—assuming that David felt as she did, and she was sure he must. Most of the relief she felt was on 264 / Elizabeth Peters
his account. The ridiculous bandage reminded her that, although they had lost the ring, they had kept something more important—their lives. And the danger must be over now; with the ring gone, and her grandfather dead, there could be no reason to harass them further.
Odd about the ring, though, she thought lazily. All the plotting and pursuit and bloodshed, for an ugly chunk of meaningless jewelry which her grandfather had not even bothered to mention in his will. Yet the plotters had wanted it badly enough to attack David within the house itself. The attacker must have been Algernon; but where had he been the rest of the time?
