Lessons in Discovery (24 page)

example of how such a thing might be done.

“It would as well.” Mr. Stewart slapped his son’s back.

“Well it seems like we need to get back to the key words again.”

A double groan made all the men turn around. Mrs. Stewart

and her daughter, hopeful that their menfolk had given up on

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these codes forever, had arrived bearing a bottle of champagne. At the merest mention of key words they turned tail, taking the bottle off somewhere they could be alone and quiet with it. Jonty swore afterwards that the words
papers
,
stick
and
backside
had been distinctly audible from some female voice in the corridor.

It was Orlando who solved it, although not without a little

cheating. He’d almost given up when he observed Ralph thrashing

out a grid with the code word Johan Breton. The name seemed so

apt it amazed him that it didn’t work, until he purloined the idea and turned the grid over, six-by-four rather than four-by-six. The first few intelligible words emerged within minutes. “I’ve done

it,” he said, with surprising calm given how worked up they all

were.

The effect on the rest of the room couldn’t have been more

devastating had he shouted at the top of his voice.

Jonty looked up, a glorious smile spreading over his face,

making him resemble one of the ecstatic cherubs that were to be

found adorning the more fanciful parts of the local church.

“You’re a seven days’ wonder, Orlando, truly. And does it tell us all?”

“Seems like it.” He felt rather drawn and nervous, as he

always did at the end of a case when only the last few threads

were left to be drawn together.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense. People have wanted to

know the truth for years. Read it out, man.” It was all Mr. Stewart could do to stop himself reaching over and tearing the paper from Orlando’s hands.

Orlando began to read, slowly and carefully, letting the

import of each sentence sink in before he went on to the next. The letter spoke of betrayal, jealousy and anger; of the sole person one relied on letting one down. The picture became clearer as the

listeners heard the confession about what had transpired. “
Out of
the blue he alone prov’d to be a worthy helper. Man is fickle,
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Charlie Cochrane

more so even than woman. Except my lady, she has always been
constant, despite the picture she presents to the world. I’ll cleave
to her always, even if she seems to be another’s. But he cannot
have her now.”

Jonty took a sharp intake of breath at this. He’d started to

have an inkling of the true tale as soon as this last letter was being read and the next line corroborated it.

“The details changed; yet the outcome has remain’d. My

steps were ordained, as I have always sworn they were. Charles
Shaa is now dead and I must plot my new course.”

There was more, of course, enough to answer most of their

questions, and when Orlando finished reading the four men sat

quietly, taking in all that they’d heard. “I think it’s just about conclusive, assuming the Woodville Ward wrote this note—and it

seems to be in his hand—that we have a solution.”

Jonty concurred. “Wraps things up nicely, gentlemen. We’re

clear now whodunit and whoitwasdunto.” He smiled at his father.

Ralph resembled a cat that had been locked in the dairy.

“And while we’re still short of establishing the whereabouts of

two of the four, we can conclusively identify the body in the

well.”

“Indeed.” Orlando was tired but content. “And we know

where Charles Shaa is, don’t we?”

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“Orlando, there are a few things I never returned to you.”

They were back in Cambridge, both looking forward to the

prospect of returning to work, the anticipation of which no

amount of potential encounters with dunderheads could spoil.

They’d been taking breakfast up in Jonty’s set when he produced

a wooden box, which turned out to be an old sea chest that one of his great-great-great uncles had used when he was a midshipman.

This splendid object now served a multitude of storage uses under Jonty’s bed. Inside was an Aladdin’s cave of delights, all carefully wrapped in tissue or silk.

“I took some of these from your room that evening after

you’d taken your tumble. Didn’t want to risk you finding them

just out of the blue.”

Orlando remembered with a shiver just what had happened

when he’d been given an inkling about the exact state of their

prior relationship. He was grateful, although not surprised, that Jonty had the wit and sensitivity to have taken away some of the more obvious clues. “Thank you,” he said simply, fingering

through the eclectic collection.

There were a surprising number of notes and letters, for

almost all of which he recalled the provenance—the letter from

Helena which had come to Jersey, several notes from Jonty,

including the scrap of paper that just said
Idiot XXX
, although one item puzzled him. “I don’t remember this.” He held up a scrap of paper that just said
Tell him.

Charlie Cochrane

“Ah,” said Jonty, “you won’t remember that. It’s from

Mama to me. She slipped it into my hand that day she came to

lunch, just after your memory loss. She was insistent that I let you know that we’d been more than friends—it was one of the things

that prompted me into such precipitate action regarding, well,

certain revelations
. Thought I’d made a pig’s ear of it, but it turned out all right in the end.” He looked up at his lover. “Didn’t it?”

“
All right
is the understatement of the year.” Orlando smiled and organised his treasures into their proper places, all now

remembered. He’d already found the spare key to Jonty’s room

and re-affixed it to his own key ring, then came at last to a

handsome photograph in a silver frame. It was of the pair of them, taken in a studio in London, at Easter, 1906. It was nothing

incriminating to look at from the front, but on the back it bore a message of such an unambiguous nature that no one could have

read it and been in any doubt that Jonty adored his friend. “I

wondered where that had got to, when I went into my set last

evening. Thought I’d mislaid it. It’ll go straight back on the wall.”

“Don’t you like the rugger team I replaced it with?” Jonty

grinned.

“Do you know, I suspected all along that something was

wrong. The mark on the wall behind that other picture made it

plain that a different one had hung there before.”

Jonty ruffled his lover’s curls. “Such a genius for

detection…”

Orlando had a sudden recollection. “Did you read any of

those letters—the ones from your mother to me, I mean?”

“Of course I didn’t. I just assumed that they were all

potentially explosive, Mama being so fond of you and liable to get a bit maudlin when she writes.” He raised an eyebrow, assumed

his best inquisitor’s face and continued, “What did those letters contain that you’re so eager for me not to see?”

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Orlando swallowed hard. “If I told you, your dear mama

would spifflicate me. Suffice to say it shows credit only to

yourself and her but must remain a secret.” He smiled with self-

satisfaction. “Nice to have things I know and you don’t, for once, after the best part of two months always being the one who knew

nothing.”

“We’ve found out an awful lot these last few weeks, haven’t

we? Not just about ourselves.” Jonty held up the Woodville Ward

papers. “Today’s the day we make it all official.”

“How much of a surprise do you think it will prove in the

end? Do you think the Master had any idea?”

“Not in the least, nor his sister—for once her heightened

perceptions won’t have got to the crux of things. It’ll be a treat to see their faces.”

Orlando smiled. “It will indeed. Another treat to round off

the holidays.”

The little graveyard at Swavesey was cold but not

unpleasant. The slush had completely melted away, leaving no

indication except the bent and snapped branches that there had

been three feet of snow just a week or so before. The party stood around the small monument that marked the final resting place of
Johan Breton, merchant, and his beloved wife
, a Georgian Breton’s inscription replacing the now much-eroded original.

Jonty’s cheeks glowed in the cold air, but not unhealthily;

Orlando was keeping a close eye on him to ensure that all traces of illness had finally gone. Dr. Peters wore a thick fur-lined coat and his sister one that bore its fur on the outside. All of them were hatted and gloved, like any sensible soul should be for an East

Anglian winter.

“Dr. Coppersmith,” the Master began, “you promised us if

we came here we would be given the solution, as you gentlemen

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Charlie Cochrane

understand it, to the Woodville Ward’s disappearance. I don’t see any evidence of it in a draughty burial ground.”

Jonty pointed to the monument. “It’s under your feet, sir. Or

rather, he is. The Woodville Ward.”

Ariadne Peters caught the drift first. “He’s buried here? In

another man’s grave?”

“Indeed.” Orlando touched the memorial, the words first

written there now illegible. “Johan Breton doesn’t lie here with his wife; Charles Shaa does.”

“Then who was down that well? And what becomes of all

those high-blown theories?” The icy breath reflected the frostiness of the words the Master spoke.

“They disappear like so much smoke in the wind. Breton

was down the well and Shaa put him there, with the aid, we

believe, of a man called Stephen who also subsequently vanished.

I would lay good money that he’s in some other cistern awaiting

discovery.”

“That’s the last thing I would have believed.” Peters looked

from one man to the other. “You have proof?”

“Some. Perhaps we could repair to the local hostelry and

explore it.” Jonty airily waved towards the little pub along the lane. After one last long look at the grave, the party made its way there, ordered hot food and hotter drinks, then found a large table near the fire.

“The translations are all made and have each been checked

by Dr. Stewart’s brother-in-law.” Orlando had brought the

documents with him in a neat cardboard file, tied up with ribbon.

He offered to bring them out at intervals to illustrate their points, although Dr. Peters insisted that no such verification was needed.

If Coppersmith said something, he no doubt had the evidence to

back it up. “It’s a story of paranoia to begin with.”

Jonty took up the tale. “Shaa had become convinced that he

was being spied upon, possibly by a man called Stephen who

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worked at Elizabeth Hall. It turns out that he was correct, but not in his attribution of the culprit—a student called Isaac Gaveson, at least we think he was a fellow student, was watching him on

behalf of the king.”

“Not King Richard’s followers?” Ariadne Peters was

determined to have her idol’s name cleared once and for all.

“No,” Orlando assured her, “not Richard, but his great rival.

What the motive could be would be a matter of speculation at this point and therefore out of our remit.”

Peters smiled ruefully, his still-handsome face softening and

mellowing. Plenty a female head turned when the Master of

Bride’s was in high humour and the mellow light from the fire

enhanced his fine profile. “So we may have solved one riddle but we’ll have given those who speculate another one or two to

dabble in.”

“Indeed, sir.” Jonty smiled as the hot toddies arrived. There

was a tale to tell and they required something to help them

through the tribulation. “Shaa had hatched a plan to rid himself both of Elizabeth Hall and his nemesis at the same time. He would kill Gaveson and put his body down the disused well. He’d drape

it in his own jewellery and break its arm—with Breton’s help—

ensuring that if the body was found it would be assumed to be

Shaa. That would give him time to escape and begin a new life at sea, alongside his devoted friend Johan Breton.”

“And did he not care for the tears of his patroness? Could he

have been so callous as to not have left her a word?” The Master was as fierce in his affection for Elizabeth as Richard Stewart had proved to be.

“Our impression is that the Woodville Ward, fond as he was

of women, had little time for the queen. We did think at one point that he referred to her as
my lady
in his letters but our opinion on that has changed.” The Master looked puzzled, but Jonty didn’t

see fit to enlighten him yet.

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Charlie Cochrane

“Some of the key questions we needed to answer were why

these letters had been coded, why they had been kept, how ones

addressed to Breton had appeared among them.” Orlando finished

his toddy, putting down the glass on the oaken table with

theatrical emphasis. “We believe, based on what Shaa himself

wrote, that he wanted someone in the future to know what had