Carver's Quest (34 page)

‘His Greek is certainly more workmanlike than elegant,’ Adam acknowledged. He patted a leather-bound book that was resting on a round walnut wine table by his chair. ‘I have
read the Munro edition you lent to me.’

‘And you found nothing further to pique your curiosity?’

‘No, I could find no references to treasure or to anything else that might have excited Creech’s interest. But you said yourself that you had found nothing in Munro’s volume.
What of the older edition, the Aldine? Did you read that again?’

‘I did, but there is nothing beyond that enigmatic reference to the golden treasure that lies hidden where the ancient kings buried it. The one you saw when you came to
Cambridge.’

‘So, we are at a dead end.’ Adam was disappointed. He had hoped so much that Fields might have something new to tell him. ‘There is nothing more to be learned from
Euphorion.’

‘I would not go so far as to say that.’ Fields was almost hugging himself with delight.

‘You have discovered more of our mysterious author?’

‘I have done more than that. I have located another manuscript.’ The professor looked about the room with the air of a man expecting a hidden audience to reveal itself and burst into
sudden applause. ‘I sent a telegraph to an old friend in Athens. Professor Masson at the French School there.’

‘He knew of another manuscript?’

‘He did not. He is an archaeologist. His interest lies in the Eleusinian Mysteries. He believes that he has found a shrine to Demeter on the road from Athens to Eleusis.’ Fields
waved a hand in dismissal of his friend’s archaeological concerns. Shrines to Demeter, he seemed to suggest, were pretty small beer in comparison with what he and Adam were chasing.
‘But he made enquiries on my behalf. And he is of the opinion that there is another manuscript of Euphorion’s work in the Greek National Library.’

‘And it is one that is unknown outside Greece?’

‘There can be no doubt about it. Scholars in the West know of three manuscripts only. One is in the Harleian collection in the British Museum. Another is in Paris. The third belongs to Sir
Granville Tukes of Tukes Hall in Buckinghamshire. It has been in the family for at least a century and a half. If Masson has really found another, it is a new one.’

‘Although Palavaccini may have known of it in the sixteenth century?’

‘That is certainly a possibility.’

Adam took a muffin from a plate that Quint thrust unceremoniously in front of him. He placed it on a toasting fork and pointed it towards the flames of the fire.

‘And yet this manuscript that your friend has located must have been in Athens for some time?’

‘Not necessarily. You forget that the modern Greek state has been in existence for a few decades only. The National Library is also a young institution. The Euphorion manuscript must have
only come into its possession recently.’

‘So where was it before that?’

The professor shrugged. ‘Who can tell?’ he said. ‘A monastery library, perhaps? They will have some record in the National Library of its provenance, I assume. I am not sure
that it is of any great import. It is enough that it is there now.’ He paused. ‘I do believe that muffin is toasted more than adequately for consumption.’

Adam, who had forgotten his toasting duties while thinking of the manuscript, pulled the fork from the fire. He scrutinised the muffin impaled on it.

‘I have allowed it to burn.’

‘It will serve its purpose.’ The professor seemed untroubled by the muffin’s blackened state. Lifting it off the fork, he helped himself to the butter and honey that Quint had
set out on the small table beside his chair and began to eat it with apparent relish.

‘There is but one way to learn more of this mysterious manuscript that Louis Masson has unearthed,’ he said between mouthfuls, spraying crumbs carpetwards. ‘And that is to
travel to Athens and inspect it.’

‘I do not see how that is easily possible.’ Adam was surprised by the professor’s sudden enthusiasm for another journey to Greece. He was not even sure he wanted to leave
London in the near future. He had returned to his photography and his dark room was filling up with plates awaiting his attention. Nor had he lost all hopes of meeting once more with Emily
Maitland. ‘We cannot drop everything and make our way across Europe in pursuit of one manuscript.’

‘Why not? The long vacation is nearly upon us. What better way for me to spend my time than in journeying to Greece in search of mysterious manuscripts? The college would be only too
delighted if I could unearth some others that were equally unknown.’

‘It is a long journey to make on what might turn out to be a wild goose chase.’ Adam continued to sound doubtful.

‘Nonsense, my boy. We can be in Athens within ten days if we so desire,’ Fields said. ‘If we make our way to the south of France, we can take the steamer from Marseilles to
Malta. And then on to Athens. Or we could go by rail to Trieste and then join an Austrian ship to Greece.’

‘That would probably be cheaper.’

‘But the Malta route would be more convenient and comfortable. And I am inclined to think that convenience and comfort should trump expense.’ The professor leaned forward, dripping
butter from the muffin he was eating onto the lapels of his jacket. His eyes were shining with excitement. ‘Shall we go? The two of us? And the bold Quintus, of course. It will not be so
challenging an expedition as the one we made in sixty-seven but – who knows? – the results may prove more rewarding.’

Fields’s enthusiasm for the journey he proposed was oddly infectious. Adam, who had been about to recite a list of objections to the plan, began instead to consider its benefits. Within
the hour, it had been decided. The two of them, with Quint in tow, would depart for Athens as soon as the long vacation began.

A
s Adam and Cosmo Jardine entered the Café Royal, the artist was telling his friend of some social excursion he had made the previous
evening.

‘The champagne tasted like varnish and as for the girls…’ He grimaced.

‘As bad as that?’ Adam asked.

‘Worse.’

They made their way to one of the tables.

‘There’s that fellow Gilbert,’ Jardine said, nodding towards a florid and heavily moustached man in his early thirties who was sitting nearby with a group of other men.

‘Should I know him?’ Adam asked.

‘He writes lyrics and one-acters for German Reed – the musical entertainments in the Gallery of Illustration, that theatre just around the corner. If you recall we saw one together
last year. Some nonsense about haunted castles in Scotland and pictures coming to life and stepping out of their frames. Was it entitled
Ages Ago
? Something like that.’

The moustachioed gentleman inclined his head ever so slightly in response to Jardine’s greeting.

‘He knows you, it would seem,’ Adam remarked.

‘I was introduced to him at Gatti’s the other night.’

‘I remember the piece we went to see now. Nonsense, as you say, but enjoyable nonsense.’

‘Gilbert is a talented man. No doubt the world will hear more of him before long.’

A waiter materialised at their table. He took their orders for coffee and disappeared as swiftly and silently as he had arrived.

‘So this is to be our last meeting for a while,’ Jardine said. ‘Before you shake the dust of England from your feet for several months?’

‘Yes, Fields has arranged it all. As soon as the long vac is upon him, we travel once again to Greece.’

‘And which of the beauties of ancient Hellas draws you there this time?’

‘We go to Athens. Whether we travel further depends on what we find there.’

Jardine raised his eyebrows questioningly.

‘We shall be on the trail of lost manuscripts,’ Adam said. ‘Of this writer Euphorion I have mentioned. Fields has an acquaintance in the French School at Athens who claims to
have seen a manuscript of which Cambridge scholarship knows nothing.’

‘I thought that anything of which Cambridge scholarship knew nothing was scarcely deemed knowledge.’ The young painter crossed his arms behind his head and leant back against his
seat. ‘Well, it is not a journey I envy. Although I shall be sorry to see you go. London is a dreary enough place as it is in the summer.’

‘You will have no distractions. There will be no excuses for not finishing
King Pellinore and the Questing Beast.
’

‘True. Although I seldom find it difficult to fashion an excuse for not working. But I shall miss the mysteries which seem to have followed you around town in the last month: the maiden in
possible distress; the men murdered just as you were eager to converse with them.’

‘I fear that they must all remain mysterious, Jardine.’ Adam sounded sombre and downcast. ‘The maiden in possible distress, together with her mother, has disappeared from
Brown’s.’

‘She deserted you on the dance floor at Cremorne, did she not?’ the painter remarked, with the slightest hint of malice in his voice.

‘Not quite on the dance floor,’ Adam said defensively. ‘We spent some time together. We talked of several inconsequential subjects. We danced. And then she said that she must
return to Brown’s before her mother returned from Lombard Street. We walked together to the gate where the cabs gather. As you can imagine, I offered to accompany her back to her
hotel.’

‘Of course. The very least a gentleman could do. But she spurned your offer?’

‘She did. “I’m not in the least bit afraid of a London cab by myself,” she said, and before I could make any reply, she had climbed into one. In truth, she all but jumped
into it and shouted for the cabbie to take her to Albemarle Street. She disappeared in the general direction of town within seconds.’

Adam was only slightly ashamed of himself for providing this largely fictional account of Emily Maitland’s departure. Cosmo’s curiosity about the young woman was obvious but his
friend felt little urge to satisfy it. He was so far from understanding Emily’s motivations himself that he had no desire to tell Jardine any more and then be obliged to listen to the
discourse on the fickleness and unpredictability of women that the painter would inevitably give.

‘So Cinderella had to flee the ball.’ Cosmo continued to probe for further information.

‘And long before midnight’s witching hour. It was barely seven in the evening. The gardens were only beginning to grow busier.’

‘This capricious belle of Cremorne left you none the wiser as to her reasons for seeking you out in the first place?’

Adam shook his head. The ghostly waiter shimmered into view again, served them with their coffee and departed.

‘You have visited Brown’s in the days since?’

‘Twice. I was there only yesterday.’ In truth, Adam had been to Albemarle Street more than twice since the meeting at Cremorne but he was embarrassed to admit to his friend how
frequently he had haunted the hotel in hopes of catching a glimpse of Emily. Indeed, he was shy of admitting even to himself how eager he was to see her again. ‘But they are no longer there.
I can only assume that they must have done as Miss Maitland suggested that they might and travelled to Switzerland.’

Jardine took a silver cigarette case from his pocket. He selected a cigarette, tapped it gently on the case and put it in his mouth. The waiter, miraculously reappearing from whatever spectral
limbo he inhabited when his services were not required, held out a match. Jardine sucked in smoke from the first pull on the lit cigarette and blew it out. He nodded his thanks to the waiter, who
left them once again.

‘Meanwhile the dead men are doing no talking,’ the artist said.

‘Indeed not. The police inspector in charge of investigating their deaths, who is either one of the greatest fools in Christendom or a man of subtle and devious wisdom – I cannot
decide which – appears to have convinced himself that Creech was killed in the course of a bungled robbery. Quint believes that he is interested only in pinning the murder on somebody.
Anybody would do and this man Stirk has simply been singled out as the unfortunate sacrificial lamb.’

Jardine shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that, in this wicked world, Quint’s theory might well be true.

‘And the other man?’ he asked.

‘The inspector seems to care little for the fate of poor Jinkinson. He was associating with villains and received much what he deserved for doing so. That appears to be the police opinion
on the matter.’

‘But you have not been content with the police view of the killing.’ Jardine blew out smoke again and sipped at his black coffee. ‘You tell me that you have played the intrepid
explorer and ventured into the city’s most abandoned and desolate regions. With Quint as your improbable Virgil, you proved a latterday Dante and descended into the pits of hell in search of
news of the lost soul of this fellow Jinkinson.’

‘If you consider Holywell Street and the Palace of Westminster to be the pits of hell,’ Adam said.

‘Oh, I do. Particularly Westminster.’

‘Certainly one of its inhabitants seems to have played the very devil with at least one poor woman.’

‘I would be astonished if only one of the members of the House had proved a devil with the women.’

‘Well, there is but the one of whom I know. As you say, doubtless there are plenty of others. But I am sure it was Garland who ruined Ada.’

‘The woman your late friend Jinkinson was seeing?’

‘The very one. I am convinced that she was Garland’s maid and that he seduced her. Then he turned her out of his house.’

‘And Jinkinson was employed by Creech to find her.’

‘Jinkinson discovered a great deal about Garland’s women. He located the pied-à-terre where Garland kept the actress he visited. He told me about that love nest himself. But
he omitted to mention Ada.’

Adam now reached over to extract a cigarette from his friend’s case which was still lying on the table. Before he had completed the manoeuvre, the waiter was there again, holding a flaming
match. The man was certainly earning his tip.

‘Was this enquiry agent tupping the girl himself, do you suppose?’ Jardine asked.