THE PRIOR'S VENT
"Stay where you are, Watkins," I commanded. "Let me have that torch,
Nikka."
I turned it on the over-mantel. An efficient kit of burglar's tools
reposed on the mantel-shelf under the carven group of dancing monks,
ale-horns and tankards waving aloft. The figure in the middle of the
group had a comically protruding belly that seemed to waggle as the
light played on it. But what interested me was the small flexible
saw that was still fixed in the base of the panel above the dancing
monks.
"Do you see what our friends were up to?" I asked. "That fellow
Toutou has a keen mind. He is somebody to be reckoned with. He saw
what none of us saw, even after we had worked out the cipher."
"What did he see?" asked Nikka.
For answer I switched the light on to Lady Jane's verse:
[Illustration: Lady Jane's verse]
Whenne thatte ye Pappist Churchmanne
Woudde seke Hys Soul's contente
He tookened up ye Wysshinge Stone
And trodde ye Prior's Vent.
"He saw that," I answered. "And he jumped to conclusions from it.
He knew, as we knew, that there is something concealed in this house,
probably in this room. And he thought that that verse would not have
been placed just there unless there was a reason for it."
"By Jove, I believe he was right!" exclaimed Hugh.
Nikka propped a chair against the mantle-piece, and climbed on to the
shelf. The panel had been sawed through on both sides and part of
the bottom.
"Go ahead," said Hugh. "It's ruined anyway. But I swear I don't see
how there can be an opening in back there that wouldn't sound hollow
when you rap over it."
While I held the light on the panel Nikka sawed away, and in fifteen
minutes he had it detached from its beveled frame.
"Come up here, Hugh, and help me with it," he said, as he withdrew
the saw, and Hugh climbed to his side.
They found a thin chisel in the burglar's kit, and with this Hugh
gently pried the panel loose.
"It has a stone backing," cried Nikka disappointedly, as it came away.
In fact, we all experienced a profound feeling of disillusionment
when Watkins received the panel in his arms, and the empty area of
stonework was revealed, about four feet long and three feet high.
"Too bad," said Hugh, jumping down. "Especially as we could have
gotten a body through an opening that size."
There came a yell of triumph from Nikka, and Watkins, whose eyes had
been straining at the opening, shouted:
"There is something there, your ludship!"
Nikka was digging furiously with the chisel at what looked to be a
dark stone in the very center of the empty area.
"It's an inner wood panel," he grunted over his shoulder. "I can
feel something behind it."
There was a splintering noise, and the "stone" fell apart. Behind it
was a shallow recess, perhaps nine inches square, completely filled
by a rusty iron box. Nikka levered the box out, and handed it to
Hugh.
"Your ancestress was a clever old person," he commented, dropping
beside us on the couch. "Fancy her figuring that the inner panel
would prevent the recess from sounding hollow when it was rapped."
The box was about three inches deep. It was unlocked, and Hugh
lifted the cover without difficulty. Inside were two papers, very
brittle and yellow from the heat of the chimney. The first was a
torn fragment from a household account book:
"Septr. ye 2nde, 1592.
"Paid Conrad of Nurmburgge ye Germanne masonne:
item, for sealinge ye Olde Cryptte belowe ye Priors
House: item, for ye engine for ye Priors Vent:
item, for ye pannellinge in ye Gunneroom £17 s9 d4
item, two boxes of Flanders iron s7
----------
"Accompte £17 s16 d4"
And below this was written:
"And I sent Hyme forth of ye Vilage thatte Hee might not have Chaunce
to talk howbeeit Hee ys clousemouthed and Hath littel Englysh."
It was impossible not to laugh at the invincible determination of
Lady Jane.
"What did she do with the second box?" I suggested.
"Probably used it in another mystery," chuckled Nikka. "What's the
other paper, Hugh?"
"It's the real thing! Great Jupiter, see what Toutou missed!"
And he spread the second paper on his knee. It was short and to the
point:
"To Hymne thatte hath Witte to rede Mye riddel. Presse atte ye One
time ye Sfinxes headde and ye Monkes bellie. So wil ye Flaggin drop
in ye Dexter side of ye Harth. Thatte whych you Seke you shal
Discovour in yts proper Place.
"JANE CHESBY."
I flashed the electric torch on the mantle-piece. "Ye Sfinxes
headde" was in the very center of the row of Turks' heads, and veiled
women that was sculptured along the edge of the stone mantle-shelf.
"Ye Monkes bellie" was the bit of carving that protruded from the
center of the bibulous group that had upheld the panel bearing Lady
Jane's verse.
"I've pressed both of those more than once," I protested.
"But not both at once," answered Nikka.
He bounded up, and drove his two hands, palm out, against the
projections. There was a muffled thud in the fireplace. I sank on
my knees, and trained the electric torch inside. On the "dexter," or
right-hand side, in the rear, yawned a hole some two feet square.
I crawled through the ashes, and thrust the torch over the rim.
There was a sharp drop of three or four feet, and then the beginning
of a flight of stairs, heavily carpeted with dust. A damp, earthy
odor smote my nostrils. The others crawled in beside me. Even
Watkins pulled his nightshirt around him and stuck his head in as far
as he could get.
"Ever seen that before, Watty?" asked Hugh, backing out.
"Never, your ludship."
The valet's face was a study.
"Is late ludship, Mister Hugh, was frequently in the 'abit of being
alone, as I daresay you know. But 'ow in the world could 'e have
found it, your ludship, if he didn't find out first about that?"
Watkins nodded toward the gaping hole in the over-mantle.
"I'm damned if I know," admitted Hugh. "Maybe we'll find out. By
the way, how do you suppose you close the Vent?"
Nikka fingered the two projections, and the moment he applied
pressure the flagstone slapped up into place.
"There's some counterweight arrangement," he said. "The fellow who
designed this was a master-mechanic."
"Evidently," agreed Hugh. "Well, you chaps, we are another
mile-stone farther on the road, but the first thing we have to do is
to get the corpus delicti safely underground."
"Right," assented Nikka, "But we need clothes and food. You can't
tell what we may run into."
For the first time I looked at myself, and burst out laughing at the
spectacle I presented. My pajamas were torn to shreds, and I was
smutted from head to foot with soot and ashes. Hugh and Nikka were
little better. Watkins was as immaculate as a man in his night-shirt
may be.
"Very well," said Hugh. "Then Jack had best go upstairs and wash,
while Watkins gets dressed and fetches our clothes. In the meantime,
Nikka and I can be disposing of our friend here."
We adopted this plan, and Watkins also volunteered to tell cook to
start breakfast. The curtains had been close drawn over all the
Gunroom windows, and I was amazed to perceive on leaving it that the
sun was rising.
When I came downstairs twenty minutes later, Hawkins the butler,
carrying a large tray, was knocking on the Gunroom door.
"I'll take it," I told him. "You go back to the kitchen like a good
fellow, and keep the maids quiet."
I knocked for several minutes without result, and finally set the
tray down, and banged the door with both fists.
"All right! All right!" called a strangely blanketed voice. "Who is
it?"
"Jack!"
Feet scuffled inside, and the door was jerked open by Hugh, rather
dusty and cobwebby.
"We were out under the Park," he explained. "We took that Gypsy down
safely, and I came back ahead of the others on the chance you might
be trying to get in. There's a regular passage, Jack. It seems to
go on and on. We didn't have time to follow it very far."
He set the table, which I had overturned, on its legs, and I brought
in the tray. Then Nikka and Watkins emerged from the fireplace,
blinking owlishly, and we three drew chairs up to the table, and
Watkins served breakfast as deftly as though we had not departed a
hair's-breadth from the ordinary routine of life.
"Have you had breakfast yet, Watty?" asked Hugh.
"No, your ludship."
"Sit down, then, and eat."
Watkins looked like a man instructed to undress in Piccadilly.
"Beg pardon, your ludship--"
"Sit down, man."
"But, your ludship--"
Hugh pointed to a chair.
"Damn it, Watty," he said severely, "bring that chair up, pour
yourself some coffee and eat."
Watkins complied with an air of outraged decorum.
There was a knock on the door.
"Who's that?" said Hugh.
"It should be 'Awkins with the quick-lime, your ludship," answered
Watkins, hastily pushing back his chair. "'E had to 'ave it brought
from the stables."
"Take it from him, Watty--and then come back here and finish your
breakfast."
"Why quick-lime?" I asked, as Watkins received a bulky,
whitish-powdered sack through the half-opened door.
"We can't very well dig a grave in stone," was Nikka's grim comment.
Watkins dropped the sack on the hearth, and returned to his
breakfast. He wanted very much to quit with one cup of coffee, but
Hugh ordered him back and insisted that a man who had work to do
required not less than four slices of toast and three eggs.
"Bloated I'll be, your ludship," protested the valet. "Oh, if you
will 'ave it!"
"I will," said Hugh. "You are going to be on guard here, Watty,
while we are gone. Have you your automatic? Right O! Don't let
anybody in."
He took the electric torch, and dropped the sack of lime down the
hole in the fireplace. We climbed after it, one by one. The first
stairs were extremely steep and the roof was so close that we had to
stoop; but after we had descended perhaps fifteen feet, they turned
to the right and the roof lifted to a little more than six feet.
"This is where the passage strikes off from the house," remarked Hugh.
The stairs continued to descend for another fifteen or twenty feet,
and then straightened out. At the foot of the last step lay the body
of the Gypsy. Hugh was carrying the lime-sack, so Nikka and I picked
up the dead man, following Hugh, who lighted the way with the torch.
The passage was beautifully built, with an even floor, and wide
enough for one man to walk comfortably. Despite a damp odor, it was
not muddy, and there must have been some means of ventilation, for
the air was reasonably fresh. According to a compass on Nikka's
watch-chain, it trended across the Park towards the ruins of the
Priory.
The Gypsy's body was a clumsy load to manage in so confined a space,
and we halted every two or three hundred feet to rest. We estimated
that we had walked a kilometer when we noticed a gradual upward slope
in the flooring. The passage turned a corner, and the light of
Hugh's torch was reflected on the rusty ironwork of what once had
been a massive door.
Of the wood only a pile of dust remained, cluttered about the broken
lock; but the great hinges still stretched across the path, upholding
a ghostly barrier of bolted darkness. We deposited the dead Gypsy on
the floor, and helped Hugh to bend back the creaking iron frame.
Beyond loomed a vast emptiness, a spreading, low-roofed chamber,
studded with squat Norman pillars that marched in dim columns into
unseen depths.
The torch scarcely could penetrate the heaped-up shadows, but as our
eyes became accustomed to the room's proportions we realized that we
stood on the threshold of a mausoleum similar to the one in which we
had seen Lord Chesby laid to rest. Hugh stepped across the stone
sill of the doorway, and swung the light back and forth between the
pillars. Suddenly it glinted on metal.
We all pressed closer, staring at the picture that took shape under
the white glare. On a stone shelf lay a skeleton in armor. The
peaked helmet had rolled aside from the naked skull, but the
chainmail of the hauberk still shrouded trunk and limbs. Next to it
lay a smaller skeleton, clad in threads of rich vestments. There was
a twinkle of tarnished gold cloth, a fragment of fur. A bygone Lord
of Chesby and his lady!
"We are intruders in this place," I exclaimed. "It doesn't seem
right, Hugh."
My voice rolled thunderously from roof to floor and wall to wall and
back again, and the pillars split the echoes into parodies of words.
"Intruder--derr-rr-r--whirr-rrr-rr-r! Place--pla-aay-ayy ay-ay!"
"One feels indecent in being here," agreed Nikka.
Hugh frowned down upon the two skeletons.
"They wouldn't mind," he said. "We have a reason for coming."
And while the echoes had their will with his declaration, he led us
slowly around the circuit of the chamber.
Niche followed niche. On shelf after shelf lay the bones of men and
women whose bodies had rotted ages ago. On one moldered the skeleton
of a man in clerical raiment, with what had been a miter on his
skull, some cadet of the house who had entered the Church.
Halfway around we came to another shelf that held two skeletons. The
inner, obviously a woman's, thrust its poor bones through the
tattered fabric that robed it. The man wore an immense pot-helmet of
the early type, with eye-holes and nasals drilled in the fashion of a
cross. His chainmail was very finely-woven, and included mail shoes
that had collapsed pathetically on crumbled bones. His gauntleted
hands were clasped on the hilt of a long, two-edged sword, which lay
upon his chest with the point between his feet. His left arm
supported a kite-shaped shield that revealed traces of color beneath
the over-lying dust.
On his chest, just above the clasped hands, was an iron box identical
with the one which we had found behind the panel of the over-mantle,
the second of the "two boxes of Flanders iron" which Conrad had
furnished to Lady Jane.
Hugh switched his torch on the base of the shelf. In rough, angular
Gothic characters we spelt the inscription:
Hic Jacet
Hugh Dominus Chesbiensis
et
Edith Domina Chesbiensis
"The first Hugh!" exclaimed Hugh with a note of awe in his voice.
And indeed, it must have been a moving experience to view the flimsy
relics of those two from whose loins he, himself, had sprung through
the resistless life impulse prevailing over time and death down the
procession of the centuries.
He hesitated a moment, and then reached out reverently and removed
the iron box from the mailed breast. Handing the torch to me, he
raised the dingy cover. Inside was a chest of ebony, bound with
silver, sound and whole. It was unlocked. As Hugh lifted the lid, a
sheet of paper fluttered out and Nikka caught it. Across the top was
engraved "Castle Chesby," and it was covered with fine, cramped
writing.
"It's Uncle James's record," said Hugh. "After the exultation of
plumbing the mystery to be murdered like a dog! Poor old chap!"'
The note or record was whimsically brief and undated:
"Last Thursday evening, in studying Lady Jane's doggerel on the back
of the Instructions, I suddenly perceived the cipher. It occurred to
me that the verse on the over-mantel in the Gunroom must have some
connection with this, and after several days' examination, I fell
upon the secret. I say fell, advisedly. In my interest in the task,
I had shut myself up, and refused luncheon, tea and dinner, and
finally, late in the evening, I sank against the mantle-shelf, weak
and half-fainting. My hands, groping for support, struck the
sphinx's head and the monk's stomach. I felt them give, heard the
flagstone fall. After that hunger was forgotten. I descended the
chimney stairs and found my way here, the first Chesby to traverse
the Prior's Vent since that singular old ancestress of mine so
effectually concealed it, and with it, the clue to the treasure. I
do not see now how I can fail to find the treasure, but I shall leave
the missing half of the Instructions, together with this note, in
Lady Jane's chest, so that, if I should fail, the information may be
available for Hugh.
"JAMES CHESBY."
"This was what he tried to tell--at the last," said Hugh.
His voice choked.
"Poor old chap!"
"There is something peculiar about his finding the secret in one way
and our finding it in another so shortly afterward," I said.
"The soothsayers of my people would call it a sign, a premonition,"
replied Nikka, with a melancholy smile.
"Of what?"
"Of the removal of whatever curse or inhibition has prevented the
discovery of the treasure up to this time."
"Well, two men have died already since this last search was begun,"
answered Hugh, fumbling in the chest. "And who knows how many others
have been killed on its account?"
He drew out a bundle wrapped in decaying velvet cloth. Within was a
wrapping of silk, and under all a folded blank sheet of parchment
enveloping two other documents. One was a parchment, tattered and
worn, which had evidently been much handled. It was jaggedly cut at
the top as though by a dull knife or some other instrument. Its
surface was crowded with the same intricate Black Letter script in
mediæval Latin as comprised the Instructions in the Charter Chest.
The writing was badly faded, and a number of words in the lower
right-hand corner had been smudged by dampness at some remote time.
The second document was a pencilled translation of the first in James
Chesby's handwriting:
"The Great Palace--or as some call it, the Palace of the Bucoleon--is
over against the Hippodrome and the Church of St. Sophia. In the
Inner Court, which fronts upon the Bosphorus, there is a door under
the sign of the Bull. Beyond the door is a hall. At the end of the
hall there is a stair. At the foot of the stair there is a gate.
Pass through the gate into the atrium which is off the Garden of the
Cedars. In the Garden is the Fountain of the Lion. From the center
of the Fountain take four paces west toward the wall of the atrium.
Then walk three paces north. Underfoot is a red stone an ell square.
Raise the ................................................
"... farewell, my son, and forget not the monks of Crowden Priory and
the plight of Jerusalem.
"Thine in the love of Christ and the Sainted Cuthbert,
"HUGH."
Beneath this Lord Chesby had scrawled:
"The missing portion is not essential. Below the stone is the
treasure. That seems certain."
We looked at one another, hardly able to believe our senses. The
thing had appeared so difficult, so unattainable. And now it was
almost within our grasp--or so we reasoned in the first flush of
confident anticipation.
"It's a question, of course, whether any portion of the Palace of the
Bucoleon remains," Nikka pointed out.
"But Uncle James seemed to have no doubt of that," answered Hugh.
"Do you remember, Jack?"
A wild shout bellowed from the mouth of the passage, roared and
clanged like a trumpet-blast and was shattered by the echoes.
"Your lud'--Mis' Jack! Mis' Nikka!"