The Nine-Spoked Wheel, page 6
‘No reason at all,’ said Revers, ‘but at this stage I can’t wholly rule it out. That’s what we’ve got to go into, and obviously it will be helpful if we don’t have to disclose anything about the various things for which at present we can find no explanation. Those stones are visited by many people, and perhaps, sir, you could suggest that the police need time for inquiries to ensure that whatever brought about the fall of this stone is not likely to endanger any of the standing stones in the vicinity.’
‘I understand. That seems eminently reasonable. Well, good luck with your inquiries, Inspector, I’ll keep tomorrow’s proceedings brief and formal. Do you have any objection to the issue of a burial certificate?’
‘I don’t think so. There is detailed medical evidence about the condition of the body and, of course, a full set of photographs. Quite who is going to be responsible for the funeral, though, I don’t know – the deceased seems to have had no relatives.’
‘I think there won’t be any problem about the funeral,’ the coroner remarked rather unexpectedly. ‘My office had to get on to St James’s College about identification – they’re sending an Assistant Bursar who has known him by sight for some years, since he was an undergraduate. I happen to be a St James’s man myself. Of course all the dons of my day have long departed, but I know the present Master slightly. I had a word with him, and in the circumstances the college will look after the funeral. “In loco parentis” still means something – to some of us, at any rate.’
*
Rather to his surprise, Revers actually had time to go home for lunch before setting out to meet Dr Arbolent for the dig at three o’clock. He took with him two constables, both good men in their gardens, equipped with picks and spades. Dr Arbolent was waiting for them, with George Armitage whom Revers had met at the camp. ‘I have brought Mr Armitage because he is a professional archaeologist and I may need his help with measurements and levels,’ Dr Arbolent explained. ‘Whatever your own purpose in wishing to dig, Inspector, I trust you realise that this is primarily an important archaeological investigation, of which I am in charge.’
Revers nodded politely, but said nothing. Dr Arbolent went on, ‘I suppose you know that this has all happened before?’ Revers, who had been studying the pit, looked up sharply. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I mean one of these stones falling and killing a man. Oh, no, not another job for the police –’ the archaeologist chuckled with pleasure at his own wit – ‘it was about 500 years ago. But I find it interesting that history should repeat itself in such a fashion. During excavations about forty years ago a skeleton was found underneath a fallen stone. With it were some early fourteenth century coins and the remains of some sort of lancet and a pair of scissors. It has been conjectured that the man was a travelling barber-surgeon, but how he came to be beneath the stone, and why he was left there, no one knows. The fourteenth century police were not so efficient as you, Inspector! You can see the scissors in the museum at Avebury: incidentally, they are the oldest scissors ever found in England.’
*
‘May I explain just what I want to do?’ Revers said. ‘There seems to be some sort of cavity underneath the hole that your excavators started to dig. It may be a fault of some sort in the structure of the ground, which, perhaps, slipped for some reason, and caused the stone to fall. The whole of this mound is, presumably, artificial. I must discover if there is such a fault, and, if so, how far it extends.’
Dr Arbolent bowed. ‘I shall be glad to have the police do my digging for me,’ he said.
Revers thought the remark in poor taste, but ignored it. He got down into the pit and asked one of the constables to give him a crowbar. With this he poked round the heel of the stone until he found a spot where the bar went through. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘There’s certainly a hole of some sort here.’ A constable joined him, and, prodding with the crowbar, they marked off a square that seemed to cover the solid edges of the hole. The other constable then climbed down, and the two men started digging. Dr Arbolent said nothing, but leaned over the edge of the pit, watching every movement.
It was a hot, windless day, and the constables stripped to the waist. As they dug, it became evident that they were uncovering a shaft that did not go down vertically, but extended under the stone at an angle of about sixty degrees. Dr Arbolent gave a little gasp of excitement, jumped into the pit, seized a spade from one of the constables and began to dig himself. Revers let him: the man could do with a rest, anyway.
Dr Arbolent was now doing most of the digging himself. As he was digging round an existing hole rather than digging into it, the depth increased quickly. The chalky earth at the edges came away easily. Revers was impressed at the efficient way in which the archaeologist – unlike the constables, fully dressed – handled a spade: long archaeological practice, he supposed.
The shaft hole was now deep enough to get into. Dr Arbolent put down his spade and started to let himself over the edge. ‘For Heaven’s sake be careful,’ Revers said. ‘We don’t know how far down it goes, and we need a torch.’
‘I know just what to expect,’ Dr Arbolent replied. ‘It is exactly as I thought, almost too good to be true. And of course I have a torch. It will not go down far – three or four feet below the heel of the stone. It is my discovery, and I must certainly be the first to enter it. Come, man, give me a hand.’
Revers was not at all sure what to do. He did not want anyone to go into the cavity or small chamber that clearly extended underneath the stone before he had a chance to look at things for himself. But he was supposed to cooperate with the archaeologists, and he did not want to be obstructive. If there was anything of archaeological value to be found, it might be important for the undisturbed site to be examined first by a specialist: it was detective work of a sort, but he could not claim to be that sort of detective. He decided to let Dr Arbolent go down first if he wanted to, but not by simply sliding into the hole.
‘Look, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t let you go down just like that. You may know what you expect to find, but none of us really knows how far down that shaft extends – it may be exceedingly dangerous. You may certainly be the first to enter it if you wish, but we must let down a weighted line to see if we can reach bottom, and then we shall need a ladder.’
‘I have both line and ladder with the equipment in our Land Rover,’ Dr Arbolent said. ‘Armitage, will you go and get them?’ He sat down, and to Revers’ relief he seemed prepared to accept the situation reasonably.
George Armitage went off. He was away about five minutes, but it seemed a long time. The digging had stopped, and Revers asked, ‘What do you expect to find, sir?’
‘What do I expect – ? Well, you will soon see, Mr Police Inspector. As before, I’m not altogether sorry to have you with me. There will be a great sensation, but with a police witness nobody can say that I didn’t find what I think I am going to find.’
Armitage came back carrying an extending aluminium ladder, with hooks at one end, and a coil of light line that looked like, and, indeed, was a marine lead-line, with metre-marks instead of fathoms. Dr Arbolent shone his torch down the shaft: it looked as if it went down about eight feet but, owing to the angle, it was impossible to be sure. Armitage let down the lead-line, and, sure enough, it stopped running out around two and a half metres. The constables fixed the ladder: with no good edge, like a wall, to take the hooks, it didn’t hold very well, so they tied a length of rope to the top rung and the two of them gripped it. Dr Arbolent, again showing remarkable agility for his rather paunchy build, climbed down holding the torch. He disappeared under the heel of the stone. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Revers called. There was no answer, and Revers began to climb down. Then in a voice squeaky with excitement, Dr Arbolent half-screamed. ‘It’s here, it’s here! Everything’s here! And . . . and . . .’
Revers continued to climb down. The shaft did stop at the foot of the ladder, leading into a small chamber, apparently walled with stone. There was not quite room to stand upright. Dr Arbolent was crouched over what looked like an earthenware wine jar, once two-handled, but with one handle broken off. He shone his torch on the broken handle, and said, in the same high-pitched squeak, ‘Do you see that? It’s pure early Villanovan, very early. Only we shall have to give it a new name, because it isn’t Villanovan. It’s here, in England!’
Revers was fogged by all this, but saw no reason to damp the archaeologist’s elation. ‘I’m sure it’s very interesting, sir,’ he said. ‘May I have your torch a moment?’
Dr Arbolent was so pleased that he forgot to stand, or rather crouch, on his dignity, and handed over the torch. Revers shone it round the little chamber. The fall of the stone had crushed in one side of the shaft – that was the earth they had been digging through. For the rest, the place seemed fairly intact. The existence of such a hollow under the huge stone might, perhaps, explain its fall, though it would need more detailed examination. Whatever the chamber was, it was man-made: there was no obvious fault in the structure of the mound on which the stone stood, and the chamber did not seem to extend beyond the base of the stone. Revers wanted to get the archaeologist out of the way. ‘Do you want to take out the jar?’ he asked.
‘Yes. But you must be very, very careful, because it is priceless. Do you remember what Schliemann said when he found a gold mask in the tomb at Mycenae – “I have gazed on the face of Agamemnon!” You, Mr Inspector, are looking at the mortal remains of an ancestor of the Etruscan Kings of Rome. And he lived in England! This will re-write all ancient history! So come, let us lift the jar.’
‘If you care to go up, sir, I’ll get my officers down to lift the jar.’
‘No, Mr Inspector, we must do it ourselves. But we need someone on the ladder to hold the torch.’ Raising his voice, he called, ‘Armitage, Armitage, come down.’
George Armitage climbed halfway down the ladder, and Dr Arbolent handed him the torch. ‘Hold that,’ he said, ‘and as we come up, make way for us. Then stand at the top ready to take the jar.’ To Revers he said, ‘It will not be very heavy. You take the top, and I shall follow you holding the bottom and guarding it against a fall.’
He was right: the jar was not particularly heavy, but Revers found it awkward to grasp. However, he got his left arm round it, just above the broken handle, and found that he could take the weight. Using his right hand for the ladder, he began to climb. Dr Arbolent clasped the foot of the jar to his chest, and together they went up slowly. There was not far to go. As soon as Armitage could reach down to take the top of the jar, Revers wriggled free and got out of the hole. Then he assisted Armitage to lift the jar clear, and they put it gently on the soft earth at the lip of the shaft.
In daylight, the jar, made of a greyish earthenware, was more like a large flower pot than a wine jar. It had a domed lid, and above the broken handle was some incised lettering
Dr Arbolent was still wildly excited. ‘Can you read that?’ he asked.
‘It looks a little like very early Greek, but I can’t make out that widely spaced initial M,’ said Armitage.
‘It is not Greek, and it is not M,’ said Dr Arbolent. ‘It is early, very early, Etruscan, and what you call M is the sibilant S, or sometimes Sh, also to be found in early Phoenician. This is a funeral jar, containing, I would suppose, ashes, though sometimes these jars were interred empty, the ashes being buried elsewhere to protect the dead against enemies who might try to use the ashes for hostile spells. The name here is “SARQUIN”. Do you see how significant that is? Could it not easily become “TARQUIN”? But I have much to do. Mr Inspector, I shall require from you a statement – you can get one of your policemen to witness it – setting out plainly the circumstances in which I discovered the jar. Armitage, I want you to measure and photograph the chamber. I could not see very well by torchlight, but I think there are some inscriptions on the walls. You will need Tilley lamps from the camp, and get that photographer woman to work – I can never remember her name, but you know who I mean – the fair girl who did photographs at the barrow. Then—’
Revers interrupted him. ‘You must forgive my saying so,’ he remarked mildly, ‘but I am investigating a death that as yet is unexplained. I have yet to discover why the stone fell as it did.’
‘I should have thought it was perfectly obvious,’ Dr Arbolent snapped. ‘Young Clayton brought it on himself. Did you not see that one of the timber supports he used was broken? He did not know, of course, that there was a chamber underneath the stone, though I warned him to expect one. He put in the support badly, the stone shifted slightly as he excavated, and finally broke the support and fell. It is a pity he was there when it fell but these things happen and there is nothing to be done about it now.’
‘There is an inquest to be held,’ said Revers, ‘and the Coroner will want to know what Mr Clayton was doing here apparently in the middle of the night.’ He said nothing about the puzzle of the broken support.
Dr Arbolent was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘You must not think me heartless, Mr Inspector. Indeed I am sorry for young Clayton, but one human death is of small account beside the greatest archaeological discovery of all time. I had forgotten the inquest; though I have been summoned to attend it. Do I really have to go?’
‘Your evidence will be required for identification,’ Revers said. ‘We have not so far been able to trace any relatives, and although there will also be evidence from Cambridge, it is necessary to obtain some additional evidence where identification is not by a near relative. But tomorrow’s proceedings will be formal only – they will not take long. There are many more inquiries to be made, and the inquest is likely to be adjourned.’
‘It is a very great nuisance. Can you send a car for me?’
Before Revers could reply, Armitage broke in, ‘I don’t think you need trouble the police, Dr Arbolent. I shall be going to the inquest myself, because Paul Clayton was my friend. I have my own car at the camp, and I can easily pick you up.’
‘I suppose that will do,’ Dr Arbolent said ungraciously. ‘But you must get me back as quickly as possible. There is one other thing that is very important: nobody here must say a word about what we have discovered. It will be announced fully in the Sunday Examiner – until then it must remain secret. Have I your word on this Mr Inspector?’
‘I must report to my superiors, and what is decided about publicity is a matter for them,’ Revers said. ‘But I do not envisage any police statement about the archaeological side of events here.’
‘There had better not be – you will get into serious trouble if there is. I have many friends in high places.’
Revers had to bite his tongue, but he managed not to reply to this.
*
Stephen Boyce did not consider himself a particularly successful man. He had a chair at a university, which was something, but it was a fairly minor university, and given that one led a blameless academic life for long enough it was difficult not to be Professor of something or other somewhere in the United States. In his better moments he reckoned that he did, on the whole, a useful job, helping at least a few of the youngsters of the Middle West to feel that there could be more to life than hogs and corn and real estate; in less good moments he suspected that the whole effort of trying to persuade students who were far more interested in dates and baseball to read Donne was pretty futile. Treating himself to a bath before setting off for dinner with Sir Cyril Caponet he thought back to his brave days at Oxford. He had been a considerable success then, nearly getting a rowing blue, and being regarded as a highly promising scholar in seventeenth century English literature. Well, the great work on the metaphysical poets remained unwritten. Marriage, and paying doctors’ bills during the long ill-health of Miriam’s parents made every cent that could be earned by hack-work, and taking any vacation job that offered, more important than seventeenth century scholarship. Now his parents-in-law were dead, and this English vacation was the first real break that he and Miriam had had in years. Could he, perhaps, start thinking of the metaphysicals again? Cyril Caponet, who had been something of a scholar of the same period, would be sure to ask him what he had done. Would he ever, now, do anything? At least there was Juliet. She was a bright girl; maybe she would do something.
Miriam Boyce was not troubled by such thoughts. She was frankly delighted at the prospect of going to dinner with an English baronet.
Caponet Hall was about three miles out on the Avebury side of Marlborough and the drive didn’t take long. If you looked closely at it you could see that much of the brickwork needed pointing, and that the window frames needed paint, but Miriam did not look closely. The gracious old home was everything she had been expecting, and the door was opened by a manservant. Although they didn’t have new dresses, she and Juliet had done their best, and Miriam thought that as a family they looked all right. Stephen, with his greying hair, was really quite distinguished, though Miriam had a pang of affectionate pity in thinking how tired he looked.
They were taken into a lovely big room with tapestry panels on the walls. Sir Cyril greeted them warmly. ‘By George, Stephen, it was good of you to remember me,’ he said. ‘I’m delighted to see you after all these years.’ Miriam wondered whether she ought to curtsey to Lady Caponet, decided that she had forgotten how to do the curtsey that she had been taught in a dancing class when she was about ten, and shook hands instead. There was another man with the Caponets. Sir Cyril introduced him, ‘This is Dr Ragmund Arbolent, the archaeologist,’ he said. ‘He is staying with us while supervising some excavations near Avebury.’
Dr Arbolent gave a stiff little bow. Juliet said, ‘Oh, Dr Arbolent, but I’m so proud to meet you. I’m doing archaeology, and I’ve read your book on the Etruscans.’
Dr Arbolent looked pleased. ‘Which of my books?’ he asked.
