A New Dawn Over Devon (56 page)

Within thirty minutes a public announcement was posted outside the bank, per regulations, which would, as much as the circulation of the call notices, set the community all the more aflame against Geoffrey's father.

NOTICE OF PUBLIC AUCTION OF ASSETS

IN SATISFACTION OF DEBT

Three weeks from today, on the 26th of March, 1923, at 2:00 in the afternoon at the estate known as Heathersleigh Hall, Milverscombe, Devon, a public auction will be held of all assets on the premises, including approximately 120 acres of land, the building of Heathersleigh Hall, and all its furnishings—to be sold as single lot. Auction will be by sealed bid. No bid less than £14,500 will be accepted.

 99 
Deliverance

Two automobiles drove slowly up the long entry to Heathersleigh Hall. It felt different now that, for a short time at least, Amanda was the owner again. Yet it seemed so empty and lifeless. Not even Sarah or Wenda were present, for Jocelyn had brought both women to the cottage to be with them after Geoffrey's death. Not a voice, not a sound, came from within the old, cold grey stone walls.

The seven walked inside. It was chilly and quiet.

Slowly Amanda walked toward the stairs while Jocelyn went to the kitchen to start a fire and begin preparing tea.

“Where are you going?” asked Stirling.

“I want to see Geoffrey's room again,” Amanda replied.

They climbed the stairs and walked into the room that had belonged to her parents for so many years and in which Geoffrey had died only five days before. Amanda glanced about with a sad smile. The sight was familiar yet distant. It was so silent and sterile. It almost smelled like a hospital ward after the cleaning Sarah and Wenda had busied themselves with after Geoffrey was gone.

They stood several moments in silence.

“Wait . . . what am I thinking!” Stirling suddenly exclaimed in the midst of the solemn atmosphere.

“What?” said Amanda as she turned toward him, jarred by his sudden statement.

“Geoffrey gave me some papers to give to you,” he said. “In the grief over his death and the funeral, I forgot all about them.”

“What were they?” asked Amanda.

“I don't know. He said they were important, that I should guard them with my life, and—what else . . . he said he had found something.”

“Where are they?”

“That's what I am trying to remember,” said Stirling, frantically searching his pockets. “But they're not here—I must have been wearing a different shirt and pair of trousers.”

He paused, thinking hard.

“No—I was wearing my heavy coat. It was chilly that day. I'll run home and see if I can find them.”

“I'm going with you!” said Amanda, following him from the room and toward the stairs. As they went, somehow a sense of urgency came over her. By the time they reached the door, she was as anxious to find the papers as Stirling. “We'll take the Peugeot,” she said. “I'll drive!”

Four and a half minutes later Charles Rutherford's Peugeot, once the talk of the community but now becoming an automotive relic, nearly skidded to a stop on the dirt street in front of the Blakeley home. Now the villagers had something to talk about other than the call notices on their loans—the fact that a dozen of them had nearly been run down by Amanda Rutherford speeding through town.

Stirling ran inside with Amanda on his heels.

“Hello, Agatha . . . Rune,” said Amanda, hastily greeting Stirling's parents.

“What are the two of you—?” began Agatha.

But the brief conversation was interrupted a moment later when Stirling ran out of his room carrying his coat in one hand and fumbling in the pockets with the other.

“Here it is,” he cried. “—Amanda, I've got it!”

He rushed to her and handed her the papers. Amanda sat down in the nearest chair, unfolded them, scanned both the letter and drawing, then calmed herself and began to read.

Two minutes later she glanced up, tears in her eyes from what Geoffrey had written. She had just heard his voice speaking to her from beyond the grave.

“I think we had better get back to the Hall,” she said. “This time you should drive. I don't think I could keep my hands from trembling.”

“Why . . . what did he say?” asked Stirling.

“I will tell you on the way,” replied Amanda, hurrying from the house, while Stirling's mother and father stared after the two, knowing no more what was going on than when they had rushed in.

For the second time in less than an hour, Stirling and Amanda entered the doors of Heathersleigh Hall. But this time they burst through at a run.

“Catharine . . . Catharine!” cried Amanda. “Catharine, where are you—you have to see this!”

Already she was flying up the staircase, Stirling on her heels. Catharine arrived from somewhere on the ground floor, called for Terrill, then chased after her sister.

Catharine caught the other two just as Amanda had reached the second-floor landing and had turned toward the library. Lieutenant Langham's footsteps could be heard behind them taking the stairs two at a time.

“What is it!” asked Catharine as she overtook Amanda.

Amanda paused as she saw the makeshift piece of rug on the floor in front of her. She glanced above her to see Geoffrey's patchwork repair on the ceiling.

“Right there,” she said, pointing to rug and blanket, “—
that's
what it's all about.”

“What are you talking about?” repeated Catharine.

“Do you remember,” replied Amanda, “how George always thought there was another mystery to be discovered about the garret? Even after he discovered the secret room?”

“Of course. He was always sure there was more.”

“It turns out he was right,” said Amanda excitedly. “Geoffrey apparently found out what it was just a few days ago, during that big storm we had.—Look!”

She handed her sister the papers as she opened the library door.

“Where are we going now?” said Catharine, trying to scan them quickly as they went.

“To the garret room.”

“But it's just an empty room.”

“Not if you know where to look.”

“What in the world are you two talking about?” laughed Catharine's husband as he tried to make sense of the conversation.

“Come with us, Terrill,” said Catharine. “You'll see!”

Three minutes later, the four young people, still being led by Amanda, scampered up the narrow circular staircase into the garret room and closed the floor-door behind them.

“And there's no access to this,” said Langham, “other than through that hidden passage?”

“That's right,” answered Catharine. “That's why no one knew about it for years until our brother discovered it.”

“According to Geoffrey's drawing and explanation,” said Amanda, “the board in this corner . . .”

She scooted to the corner on hands and knees and began probing about with her fingers.

“—There, look . . . this end just slipped down!”

“Let me slide it back,” said Stirling, who had just read Geoffrey's directions again.

It slid easier to Stirling's touch than it had to Geoffrey's. A moment later, all four faces were bent down close to each other in amazement over the concealed lock in the floor.

“It's just like the mechanisms in the two cabinets!” said Catharine. “Maggie's great-grandfather must have been a mechanical genius.”

“How does it open?” asked Terrill. “I don't see a key.”

“There isn't one,” said Amanda. “Geoffrey suggested the key ring in the tower.”

“Let's go!” cried Catharine.

They pulled open the trapdoor again, squirmed through the small opening, descended the stairs, then rushed off through the labyrinth, this time to the northeast tower of the Hall. A few minutes later they were on their way back, the key ring jingling in Stirling's hand.

“But all of these keys are accounted for,” said Catharine. “There is the large tower door key, the medium-sized one that unlocks the door in the opposite wall into the hidden passageway, and the small key that opens the hidden panel of the cabinet in the library. There aren't any extras.”

“We'll have to try them,” said Amanda. “Perhaps the same key opens two locks.”

Scrambling up into the garret room, again they knelt down.

“It's obviously not the big one,” said Stirling, looking at the keys and lock. He held the next one down toward the floor.

“No, that couldn't be it either—too big. How about the secretary key?—Here, Amanda, it looks about the right size . . . you do the honors.”

Amanda took the key from Stirling's hand and slowly pointed it down into the lock, then attempted to insert it. It slid smoothly into the mechanism. Slowly she began to turn the key.

From somewhere in the wall facing them, they could hear a metallic click of retracting bolts. In front of them a hidden panel that had been built into the wall measuring some two feet wide by four feet high swung back, revealing a darkened chamber behind it. It had no floorboards, only the back side of lath and plaster from the ceiling below between the joists, and had obviously never been intended to support any weight.

“It's exactly as Geoffrey described it!” exclaimed Amanda. “A tiny vault between the two opposite garret walls.”

Three wood shelves had been built on the wall of the vault and contained various objects, trinkets, a book or two, a tattered blanket, a knife, a spyglass, a pocket watch, and a compass. Evidence was apparent of the leak in the roof above and the hole where the lath work had fallen into the corridor below.

“What's that!” said Catharine. “Look!”

On the lower of the shelves sat what had first drawn Geoffrey's attention as well—an ancient chest approximately a foot long, six inches wide, and nine inches deep, with top rounded from front to back, silverish in color with hammered designs and patterns engraved in the metal.

Stirling reached across with one hand to pick it up.

“It's heavy—I can't lift it!”

Crouching forward, he now lifted the box with both hands and withdrew it into the larger room, where he set it on the floor with a heavy thud.

“You're not going to believe this,” said Terrill, “but that is a Turkish money box. I would recognize it anywhere. I saw one in a museum once. I recognize the engravings.”

“It looks like something out of
The Arabian Nights
!”

“Actually, you're not so far wrong,” said Langham.

“Open it, Amanda!” said Stirling. “What are you waiting for? The Hall is yours now. I presume that means so is that box.”

It fell silent a moment. A sense of awe descended upon them in anticipation of what their eyes were about to see.

Slowly Amanda raised the unlocked latch, then lifted the lid.

Gasps of incredulity and astonishment broke from all four mouths at once.

“Can that possibly be . . . what it
looks
like!” exclaimed Catharine, the first to find her voice.

Terrill reached toward the gleaming sight and picked up one of the coins with which the box was filled, examined it a moment between thumb and forefinger, then tried to judge its weight by tossing it up and down in his hand.

“It's gold all right,” he said. “It looks like a Turkish coin, probably a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century
ducat
. There are legends of Turkish pirate vessels all along the coast down in this part of the country at that time. I would say the history of this chest must be connected with some such activity.”

“But what is it doing
here
?” said Amanda, still incredulous at what sat on the floor before her eyes.

“If this place has been boarded and locked up as long as it appears,” said Langham, “we may never know. It could have been here for more than a century.”

“And it's not
only
gold,” added Catharine, who, after her initial shock at the sight, had plunged her hand straight into the pile of coins. “Look at this.”

She pulled out a small leather pouch which had been buried in the midst of it.

Opening it, she glanced inside.

“Diamonds!” she exclaimed. Carefully she poured out a few of the radiant jewels onto her palm. “I can't believe it!”

More exclamations went around the small group.

Gently Catharine replaced the gems into the pouch and set it back in the chest with the coins.

“What were pirates doing here, Terrill?” she asked.

“They had business with smugglers who brought their merchandise ashore into England all along the coast of Devon and Cornwall.”