Toad in the Hole (21 page)

My eye darted to the partially collapsed ceiling, the walls, and more slowly to the floor. I scrambled backward. Travis pulled me back before I got through the door. “There aren’t any bodies buried in here, at least above ground. This is history, I can just smell it.”

That’s not how I’d describe it, but I kept quiet. I wasn’t thrilled with the thought of hanging out above someone’s bones, but it was a slightly better option than getting drenched. I had too many soggy layers on and shed the woolen jacket and my helmet.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I squeezed water out from my shirttails. “Taking off wet clothes.”

“Have you found the amethyst, is that why you’re being all coy?”

“No, but we have to be close,” I said.

After placing my gear in a corner near a window, away from the center of the mausoleum I sat down on a mildewed wooden bench that creaked beneath my weight. My cold fingers had lost their agility and I began fumbling with my shoelaces.

Travis settled himself next me and took over untying my laces. “What makes you think so?”

“We’re at Allerton. There has to be something around from the painting that will give us a clue.”

The rain quieted. Hugging my knees, I wiggled my toes.

“Better?” he asked.

“I can’t feel them,” I confessed.

His face inched toward mine. “You’re freezing,” he said, and lightly kissed my lips.

I hadn’t prepared and primped for this moment. Deep down, I didn’t think it would come. Sleeping with Travis was what I thought I wanted, but now, I knew better. He meant more to me than a passing lover. He was the person in whom I confided my innermost secrets. No longer a conquest, he’d become a dear companion, the kind that you’re lucky to ever find. I trusted him with my life. Don’t get me wrong, the two of us being naked would be amazing, but afterward could be a big, awkward, end-of-everything disaster. It wasn’t something that might necessarily happen right away, but over time, there was a chance that he’d resent me for not respecting his personal choice. I couldn’t risk losing him, now or in the future. When our lips pulled apart and we stared point blank into each other’s eyes, we both knew in that instant it was friendship that the kiss had cemented.

THE RAIN TAPERED TO a drizzle and that final burst of sunlight before dusk shone in the windows, casting splashy rays on the floor. Taking soggy clothes off is easier than putting those same clothes back on. Wet clothes in wet conditions wasn’t exactly comfortable and I’d conceded that with Ahmed and the police nearby, it was time to put this night behind me.

“What’s next?” Travis asked.

“Find a phone and get a ride to GG’s,” I suggested.

Standing sideways in the doorway he surveyed where he’d been digging. “First let me show you what I found.”

“The tombstone?” I asked wondering how anyone could get excited over dirt and bones.

He held out a hand and I obliged. At the plot he’d uncovered, I bent down on my knees and indulged his hobby by feigning interest.

“Look at this stone. Probably from a local quarry, it’s been chiseled by hand,” he said as he brushed dirt and grass that covered the words. “Sturdy 1440-1457.”

“Sturdy? That doesn’t sound like an eighteenth-century name.” I stood up and dusted off my knees. “How did you find this stone?”

“Look around. There’s more than one.”

I’m usually perceptive about my surroundings and couldn’t figure out how I missed seeing all the low-lying headstones. “Ewe.” Hesitantly, I went up to one that read
Hardy. Playful and loyal
and I laughed. “Travis, this cemetery is rude. Come look at this.”

Travis, I noticed, walked counterclockwise around the top to the headstones. He leaned over my shoulder. “Some of the headstones are blank, either unmarked or worn over time.” He read another one, “Jakke, your paws left prints on our hearts. 1942-1951.”

“Paws?” I shouted.

“This is pet cemetery. The graves are so small, I should’ve guessed,” he said.

“Creepy,” I said, eager to hightail out of there. “Why are there so many pets buried by Allerton Castle?”

“I don’t know, maybe they had a fox hunt and a bunch of beagles met an untimely demise.”

“Foxhunt?”

“It’s not an implausible theory.”

“There was a horse in the painting. Look for a big plot.”

“Horse size?” Travis said.

“Exactly.” I began reading the stones embedded in the grass. “Talbot, Marshall. Travis!” I shouted, and we stared at on another both knowing there was only one place in here where the jewel could be.

Back inside the mausoleum Travis rubbed the cobwebs and grime away from the base of a stone vase that stood unpretentiously in a nook. We both read the inscription. “Walzy’s Way 1927-1936.”

“Nine years,” Travis said. “That’s not a good run for a horse.”

“Does the vase open?”

Travis muscled the top, but it was sealed. I offered him my pike.

“This is trespassing and destroying private property. We could get arrested, you know.”

I bit my cheek.

Handing the pike back to me, Travis spit into hands and rubbed them together to give it another go.

“Maybe it doesn’t pull off. Try twisting. Righty tight lefty loosey.”

He stopped lifting and wrenched it anti-clockwise. We both heard a grind and a pop noise before a puff of dust wafted in the air.

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” he said.

“Go on,” I said. “Reach in.”

“Oh no. I couldn’t. This is your chase.”

“There’s ashes in there. Dead horse or whatever Walzy’s Way was. You’re the mortician in the making. Consider this one field practice. You’ll thank me later.”

Travis shook his head. “This is your moment. You need to do the honors.”

I peered inside the urn and saw gray dust, similar to the stuff you shovel out of the fireplace. That’s what I told myself as my hand sank into the soot.

“Feel anything?” he asked.

My arm disappeared up to my elbow and I swirled my fingers, siphoning through chunks of unidentifiable and ash. “Ohhh,” I said, as my fingers siphoned lumpy bits.

“What?”

“I’m not sure; there are hard bits in here.” Pushing deeper, I couldn’t suppress a wry grin from beaming on my face.

“You found it? Show me.”

My chalky forearm emerged. Travis’s forehead nearly touched mine as I unclenched my fist. “There she is.”

“Are you sure it’s a gem. It looks like a rock you might find in a river bed.”

“If you were in an urn for fifty-something years, you’d look a bit crusty too.” I rubbed it on my shirt tail to remove some of the soot that encrusted it.

It was a euphoric moment.

“Hold it right there,” a stern British voice scolded. Three uniformed police officers holding flashlights stepped into the mausoleum. They all wore navy blue nylon raincoats and baseball caps with a checkered braid.
This wasn’t good
.

“You two are trespassing.”

Travis looked to me.

They had us on that technicality. Up until this moment, my tour of England had been like a scavenger hunt, and after all we’d been through, if there was somewhere I could’ve hidden the amethyst I would’ve considered it. I knew it wasn’t mine, but I’d been injured, frozen, drenched, and scared shitless in the hunt. I felt like I had a claim to it and wanted to clean it up and admire it for a while—show it off to GG and Edmond at least.

“Inspector Maxwell Muldane with Scotland Yard,” the leader said, and flipped an ID that I didn’t bother reading. “Ms. O’Brien, Mr. Howard, I need you both to come with me to the station.” He reached out a hand, “Ms. O’Brien, I’ll be having that gem you just dropped into your pocket.”

I’d broken into a mausoleum and as appearances went, it looked as though I was about to swipe a gem I was pretty sure belonged in the scepter at the Tower.

“Are you arresting us?” I asked.

“That, O’Brien, remains to be seen and depends on your cooperation.”

“Do we get a phone call?” Travis asked.

“You’re not in the States,” the detective said without flexing anything but his mouth.

Inspector Muldane reached out a hand and I released the lofty gem to him.

“It’s a beauty,” I mumbled.

Slipping it into a baggy, then an inside zip-pocket of his coat, he didn’t examine it, just replied, “Indeed.”

Outside the mausoleum, near the castle driveway I could see two patrol cars and that damned black Range Rover. Clearing my throat, I asked, “How long have you three been here?”

Without looking at Travis, I felt the heat of his face flare.

“Long enough,” Inspector Muldane said.

NOTE TO SELF

Contemplating my prowess versus the lure of a cemetery.

Amethysts are fickle stones. One minute you have them in the palm of your hand, the next they find a new owner.

S
mugglers
C
ove

C
upping my hand, I fanned the air on top of the bowl of goo toward Travis’s nose. “Eat up,” I said.

“Oh Rachael,” Edmond said. “If you make him eat those jellied eels, he’s not going to keep them down. I doubt anyone could keep them down. They look disgusting.”

I didn’t really plan on making him eat the chunks of eel that floated in yellow-tinted gelatin, but he didn’t know that.

GG lifted a dainty cocktail fork. “Really. You three need to expand your taste buds and try something that’s not deep fried or cooked to death on the grill.” Poking the eel, she landed a piece on her fork and popped it into her piehole. The corners of her lips curled in a smile and she moaned, “Ummmm,” as she chewed.

She was a showman.

“Argggg,” we all gasped. Cringing, I turned and looked out the window of The Ship Inn, a pub nestled at the base of the cliffs of Robin Hood’s Bay. We’d spent the morning exploring Whitby Abbey, its adjoining cemetery, and the cobblestone town of touristy knick-knack and fudge shops. On our journey south toward GG’s Yorkshire home, we’d stopped for lunch in the infamous smugglers town where a network of subterranean passageways were said to exist.

Travis couldn’t bring himself to take a bite of the eel. I didn’t expect that he would. For someone studying Mortician Science, he was surprisingly squeamish about the food he consumed.

“I’m not going to miss the cuisine in this country,” Travis said.

Once the whole cemetery bust and Scotland Yard questioning had passed over, I’d enjoyed what was left of our vacation. Staying at my grandmother’s century-old stone cottage turned out to be as amazing as I’d imagined. Down a long drive, in the middle of nowhere England, I did notice the motion sensor at the gate, and the security system control box in a kitchen nook. We were safe there.

The four of us castle-crawled through North Yorkshire, Northumbria, and all the way up to Edinburgh. We walked Hadrian’s Wall, and if some building ruins were left after being sacked and pillaged by the Romans or the Vikings, we’d visited it. In between all our running around, we helped GG clean some paintings she brought out of storage before hanging them on the walls to give her holiday home a fresh look. Once we agreed to the terms of friendly wagers, I broke down and played Travis in backgammon most evenings.

“I can’t believe it’s our last day,” I said.

GG snubbed out a cigarette. “I have some news.”

Mid-sip of his pint, Edmond leaned into the table. “Regarding?”

“The amethyst Rachael and Travis discovered.”

Coyly, as though I wouldn’t notice, Travis pushed his jellied eel aside. “What kind of news?”

“I have it from a connection in London.”

For mid-afternoon there was a steady crowd inside the pub. The chatter and laughter muffled our conversation. “Scotland Yard?”

“Other sources, dear. The gem in the urn. It was real. It’s been cleaned and inspected and I imagine it will be re-set in the royal scepter.”

“Does it belong to England? I mean do the Turks have any claim to it, or was Ahmed Sadid on a personal treasure hunt?” I asked.

“My dear, England has never had—nor does it need—permission for the treasures she keeps. With the fake removed and replaced by the real gem, the most important thing for the Brits is that there’s no chance of disgracing the crown with the story of the Duke of Windsor planting a fake amethyst into the scepter before he abdicated. Nice and tidy, this whole to-do has been put to bed.”

“He had Wallis; he’d made his decision to leave the royal life behind. Why’d he do it?” Edmond asked.

“Maybe he was practical joker,” Travis said.

Edmond leaned back and crossed his arms. “That’s a lot of trouble to go through for a practical joke.”

“If it was a practical joke, he never came clean. Took the laughs to the grave,” I said.

GG stared off at the choppy sea beyond the glass windows. Straightening her napkin, she said, “It’s my guess that there must have been rifts, threats going on within his inner circle and at court. No one around him could have been all too pleased with him having an affair with a married woman.”

“It’s not like that sort of thing never happens. I don’t see what the big deal was,” Travis said.

Edmond let out a throaty humph. “A divorcée and American.”

Tapping her cigarette case with a soft shell pink polished nail, GG said, “My guess is simple. He removed the amethyst and hid it as an insurance policy. To make sure he and Wallis would be left alone.”

“Why didn’t he remove the big one? The Cullinan diamond?” Travis asked.

Edmond leaned forward. “Fake diamonds are easier to discover than fake amethysts. He wanted something that would nettle his adversaries, not send them into a complete tizzy.”

Pulling the slim plastic tab, GG crumpled the cellophane packaging from a fresh pack of smokes. “I’ve been trying to put my finger on how the Turks and Scotland Yard knew we were here.”

The drumming of Edmond’s fingers danced on the table. “Sneaky Turks don’t let anything go. Those buggers have been after that stone since it was unearthed back during the Crimean War.”