Quite Decent Uncle to that of Glorified Uncle. He said:
"Look here, Gherkins, we don't know how many of these blighters
there'll be, so you must be jolly smart and do anything I say sharp, on
the word of command--even if I have to say 'Scoot.' Promise?"
Gherkins promised, with his heart thumping, and they sat waiting in the
dark, till suddenly a little electric bell rang sharply just over the
head of Lord Peter's bed and a green light shone out.
"The library window," said his lordship, promptly silencing the bell by
turning a switch. "If they heard, they may think better of it. We'll
give them a few minutes."
They gave them five minutes, and then crept very quietly down the
passage.
"Go round by the dining-room, Bunter," said his lordship; "they may
bolt that way."
With infinite precaution, he unlocked and opened the library door, and
Gherkins noticed how silently the locks moved.
A circle of light from an electric torch was moving slowly along
the bookshelves. The burglars had obviously heard nothing of the
counter-attack. Indeed, they seemed to have troubles enough of their
own to keep their attention occupied. As his eyes grew accustomed to
the dim light, Gherkins made out that one man was standing holding
the torch, while the other took down and examined the books. It was
fascinating to watch his apparently disembodied hands move along the
shelves in the torch-light.
The men muttered discontentedly. Obviously the job was proving a
harder one than they had bargained for. The habit of ancient authors
of abbreviating the titles on the backs of their volumes, or leaving
them completely untitled, made things extremely awkward. From time to
time the man with the torch extended his hand into the light. It held a
piece of paper, which they anxiously compared with the title-page of a
book. Then the volume was replaced and the tedious search went on.
Suddenly some slight noise--Gherkins was sure _he_ did not make it; it
may have been Bunter in the dining-room--seemed to catch the ear of the
kneeling man.
"Wot's that?" he gasped, and his startled face swung round into view.
"Hands up!" said Lord Peter, and switched the light on.
The second man made one leap for the dining-room door, where a smash
and an oath proclaimed that he had encountered Bunter. The kneeling man
shot his hands up like a marionette.
"Gherkins," said Lord Peter, "do you think you can go across to that
gentleman by the bookcase and relieve him of the article which is
so inelegantly distending the right-hand pocket of his coat? Wait a
minute. Don't on any account get between him and my pistol, and mind
you take the thing out _very_ carefully. There's no hurry. That's
splendid. Just point it at the floor while you bring it across, would
you? Thanks. Bunter has managed for himself, I see. Now run into my
bedroom, and in the bottom of my wardrobe you will find a bundle of
stout cord. Oh! I beg your pardon; yes, put your hands down by all
means. It must be very tiring exercise."
The arms of the intruders being secured behind their backs with a
neatness which Gherkins felt to be worthy of the best traditions
of Sexton Blake, Lord Peter motioned his captives to sit down and
despatched Bunter for whisky-and-soda.
"Before we send for the police," said Lord Peter, "you would do me a
great personal favour by telling me what you were looking for, and
who sent you. Ah! thanks, Bunter. As our guests are not at liberty to
use their hands, perhaps you would be kind enough to assist them to a
drink. Now then, say when."
"Well, you're a gentleman, guv'nor," said the First Burglar, wiping
his mouth politely on his shoulder, the back of his hand not being
available. "If we'd a known wot a job this wos goin' ter be, blow me
if we'd a touched it. The bloke said, ses 'e, 'It's takin' candy from
a baby,' 'e ses. 'The gentleman's a reg'lar softie,' 'e ses, 'one o'
these 'ere sersiety toffs wiv a maggot fer old books,' that's wot 'e
ses, 'an' ef yer can find this 'ere old book fer me,' 'e ses, 'there's
a pony fer yer.' Well! Sech a job! 'E didn't mention as 'ow there'd be
five 'undred fousand bleedin' ole books all as alike as a regiment o'
bleedin' dragoons. Nor as 'ow yer kept a nice little machine-gun like
that 'andy by the bedside, _nor_ yet as 'ow yer was so bleedin' good at
tyin' knots in a bit o' string. No--'e didn't think ter mention them
things."
"Deuced unsporting of him," said his lordship. "Do you happen to know
the gentleman's name?"
"No--that was another o' them things wot 'e didn't mention. 'E's a
stout, fair party, wiv 'orn rims to 'is goggles and a bald 'ead. One o'
these 'ere philanthropists, I reckon. A friend o' mine, wot got inter
trouble onct, got work froo 'im, and the gentleman comes round and ses
to 'im, 'e ses, 'Could yer find me a couple o' lads ter do a little
job?' 'e ses, an' my friend, finkin' no 'arm, you see, guv'nor, but wot
it might be a bit of a joke like, 'e gets 'old of my pal an' me, an'
we meets the gentleman in a pub dahn Whitechapel way. W'ich we was ter
meet 'im there again Friday night, us 'avin' allowed that time fer ter
git 'old of the book."
"The book being, if I may hazard a guess, the _Cosmographia
Universalis_?"
"Sumfink like that, guv'nor. I got its jaw-breakin' name wrote down on
a bit o' paper, wot my pal 'ad in 'is 'and. Wot did yer do wiv that
'ere bit o' paper, Bill?"
"Well, look here," said Lord Peter, "I'm afraid I must send for the
police, but I think it likely, if you give us your assistance to get
hold of your gentleman, whose name I strongly suspect to be Wilberforce
Pope, that you will get off pretty easily. Telephone the police,
Bunter, and then go and put something on that eye of yours. Gherkins,
we'll give these gentlemen another drink, and then I think perhaps
you'd better hop back to bed; the fun's over. No? Well, put a good
thick coat on, there's a good fellow, because what your mother will say
to me if you catch a cold I don't like to think."
So the police had come and taken the burglars away, and now
Detective-Inspector Parker, of Scotland Yard, a great personal friend
of Lord Peter's, sat toying with a cup of coffee and listening to the
story.
"But what's the matter with the jolly old book, anyhow, to make it so
popular?" he demanded.
"I don't know," replied Wimsey; "but after Mr. Pope's little visit
the other day I got kind of intrigued about it and had a look through
it. I've got a hunch it may turn out rather valuable, after all.
Unsuspected beauties and all that sort of thing. If only Mr. Pope had
been a trifle more accurate in his facts, he might have got away with
something to which I feel pretty sure he isn't entitled. Anyway, when
I'd seen--what I saw, I wrote off to Dr. Conyers of Yelsall Manor, the
late owner----"
"Conyers, the cancer man?"
"Yes. He's done some pretty important research in his time, I fancy.
Getting on now, though; about seventy-eight, I fancy. I hope he's more
honest than his nephew, with one foot in the grave like that. Anyway,
I wrote (with Gherkins's permission, naturally) to say we had the
book and had been specially interested by something we found there,
and would he be so obliging as to tell us something of its history. I
also----"
"But what did you find in it?"
"I don't think we'll tell him yet, Gherkins, shall we? I like to keep
policemen guessing. As I was saying, when you so rudely interrupted
me, I also asked him whether he knew anything about his good nephew's
offer to buy it back. His answer has just arrived. He says he knows
of nothing specially interesting about the book. It has been in the
library untold years, and the tearing out of the maps must have been
done a long time ago by some family vandal. He can't think why his
nephew should be so keen on it, as he certainly never pored over it
as a boy. In fact, the old man declares the engaging Wilberforce has
never even set foot in Yelsall Manor to his knowledge. So much for the
fire-breathing monsters and the pleasant Sunday afternoons."
"Naughty Wilberforce!"
"M'm. Yes. So, after last night's little dust-up, I wired the old boy
we were tooling down to Yelsall to have a heart-to-heart talk with him
about his picture-book and his nephew."
"Are you taking the book down with you?" asked Parker. "I can give you
a police escort for it if you like."
"That's not a bad idea," said Wimsey. "We don't know where the
insinuating Mr. Pope may be hanging out, and I wouldn't put it past him
to make another attempt."
"Better be on the safe side," said Parker. "I can't come myself, but
I'll send down a couple of men with you."
"Good egg," said Lord Peter. "Call up your myrmidons. We'll get a car
round at once. You're coming, Gherkins, I suppose? God knows what your
mother would say. Don't ever be an uncle, Charles; it's frightfully
difficult to be fair to all parties."
* * * * *
Yelsall Manor was one of those large, decaying country mansions which
speak eloquently of times more spacious than our own. The original late
Tudor construction had been masked by the addition of a wide frontage
in the Italian manner, with a kind of classical portico surmounted
by a pediment and approached by a semi-circular flight of steps. The
grounds had originally been laid out in that formal manner in which
grove nods to grove and each half duly reflects the other. A late
owner, however, had burst out into the more eccentric sort of landscape
gardening which is associated with the name of Capability Brown. A
Chinese pagoda, somewhat resembling Sir William Chambers's erection in
Kew Gardens, but smaller, rose out of a grove of laurustinus towards
the eastern extremity of the house, while at the rear appeared a large
artificial lake, dotted with numerous islands, on which odd little
temples, grottos, tea-houses, and bridges peeped out from among clumps
of shrubs, once ornamental, but now sadly overgrown. A boat-house,
with wide eaves like the designs on a willow-pattern plate, stood at
one corner, its landing-stage fallen into decay and wreathed with
melancholy weeds.
"My disreputable old ancestor, Cuthbert Conyers, settled down here when
he retired from the sea in 1732," said Dr. Conyers, smiling faintly.
"His elder brother died childless, so the black sheep returned to the
fold with the determination to become respectable and found a family.
I fear he did not succeed altogether. There were very queer tales as
to where his money came from. He is said to have been a pirate, and
to have sailed with the notorious Captain Blackbeard. In the village,
to this day, he is remembered and spoken of as Cut-throat Conyers. It
used to make the old man very angry, and there is an unpleasant story
of his slicing the ears off a groom who had been heard to call him 'Old
Cut-throat.' He was not an uncultivated person, though. It was he who
did the landscape-gardening round at the back, and he built the pagoda
for his telescope. He was reputed to study the Black Art, and there
were certainly a number of astrological works in the library with his
name on the fly-leaf, but probably the telescope was only a remembrance
of his seafaring days.
"Anyhow, towards the end of his life he became more and more odd and
morose. He quarrelled with his family, and turned his younger son out
of doors with his wife and children. An unpleasant old fellow.
"On his deathbed he was attended by the parson--a good, earnest,
God-fearing sort of man, who must have put up with a deal of insult
in carrying out what he firmly believed to be the sacred duty of
reconciling the old man to this shamefully treated son. Eventually,
'Old Cut-throat' relented so far as to make a will, leaving to the
younger son 'My treasure which I have buried in Munster.' The parson
represented to him that it was useless to bequeath a treasure unless he
also bequeathed the information where to find it, but the horrid old
pirate only chuckled spitefully, and said that, as he had been at the
pains to collect the treasure, his son might well be at the pains of
looking for it. Further than that he would not go, and so he died, and
I dare say went to a very bad place.
"Since then the family has died out, and I am the sole representative
of the Conyers, and heir to the treasure, whatever and wherever it is,
for it was never discovered. I do not suppose it was very honestly come
by, but, since it would be useless now to try and find the original
owners, I imagine I have a better right to it than anybody living.
"You may think it very unseemly, Lord Peter, that an old, lonely man
like myself should be greedy for a hoard of pirate's gold. But my whole
life has been devoted to studying the disease of cancer, and I believe
myself to be very close to a solution of one part at least of the
terrible problem. Research costs money, and my limited means are very
nearly exhausted. The property is mortgaged up to the hilt, and I do
most urgently desire to complete my experiments before I die, and to
leave a sufficient sum to found a clinic where the work can be carried
on.
"During the last year I have made very great efforts to solve the
mystery of 'Old Cut-throat's' treasure. I have been able to leave much
of my experimental work in the most capable hands of my assistant, Dr.
Forbes, while I pursued my researches with the very slender clue I had
to go upon. It was the more expensive and difficult that Cuthbert had
left no indication in his will whether Münster in Germany or Munster in
Ireland was the hiding-place of the treasure. My journeys and my search
in both places cost money and brought me no further on my quest. I
returned, disheartened, in August, and found myself obliged to sell my
library, in order to defray my expenses and obtain a little money with
which to struggle on with my sadly delayed experiments."
"Ah!" said Lord Peter. "I begin to see light."
The old physician looked at him enquiringly. They had finished tea,
and were seated around the great fireplace in the study. Lord Peter's
interested questions about the beautiful, dilapidated old house and
estate had led the conversation naturally to Dr. Conyers's family,
shelving for the time the problem of the _Cosmographia_, which lay on a
table beside them.
"Everything you say fits into the puzzle," went on Wimsey, "and I think
there's not the smallest doubt what Mr. Wilberforce Pope was after,
though how he knew that you had the _Cosmographia_ here I couldn't say."
"When I disposed of the library, I sent him a catalogue," said Dr.
Conyers. "As a relative, I thought he ought to have the right to buy
anything he fancied. I can't think why he didn't secure the book then,
instead of behaving in this most shocking fashion."
Lord Peter hooted with laughter.
"Why, because he never tumbled to it till afterwards," he said. "And
oh, dear, how wild he must have been! I forgive him everything.
Although," he added, "I don't want to raise your hopes too high, sir,
for, even when we've solved old Cuthbert's riddle, I don't know that
we're very much nearer to the treasure."
"To the _treasure_?"
"Well, now, sir. I want you first to look at this page, where there's a
name scrawled in the margin. Our ancestors had an untidy way of signing
their possessions higgledy-piggledy in margins instead of in a decent,
Christian way in the fly-leaf. This is a handwriting of somewhere about
Charles I's reign: 'Jac: Coniers.' I take it that goes to prove that
the book was in the possession of your family at any rate as early as
the first half of the seventeenth century, and has remained there ever
since. Right. Now we turn to page 1099, where we find a description of
the discoveries of Christopher Columbus. It's headed, you see, by a
kind of map, with some of Mr. Pope's monsters swimming about in it, and
apparently representing the Canaries, or, as they used to be called,
the Fortunate Isles. It doesn't look much more accurate than old maps
usually are, but I take it the big island on the right is meant for
Lanzarote, and the two nearest to it may be Teneriffe and Gran Canaria."
"But what's that writing in the middle?"
"That's just the point. The writing is later than 'Jac: Coniers's'
signature; I should put it about 1700--but, of course, it may have
been written a good deal later still. I mean, a man who was elderly in
1730 would still use the style of writing he adopted as a young man,
especially if, like your ancestor the pirate, he had spent the early
part of his life in outdoor pursuits and hadn't done much writing."
"Do you mean to say, Uncle Peter," broke in the viscount excitedly,
"that that's 'Old Cut-throat's' writing?"
"I'd be ready to lay a sporting bet it is. Look here, sir, you've been
scouring round Münster in Germany and Munster in Ireland--but how about
good old Sebastian Munster here in the library at home?"
"God bless my soul! Is it possible?"
"It's pretty nearly certain, sir. Here's what he says, written, you
see, round the head of that sort of sea-dragon:
"Hic in capite draconis ardet perpetuo Sol.
Here the sun shines perpetually upon the Dragon's Head.
[Illustration: THE DRAGON'S HEAD
Liber V.
1099
DE NOVIS INSVLIS,
quomodo, quando, & per quem
illæ inuentæ sint.
Christophorus Columbus natione Genuensis, cùm diu in aula regis
Hispanorum deuersarus fuisset, animum induxit, ut hactenus
inacceslias orbis partes peragraret. Pet à rege, utuoto suo non
deesset, futurum sibi & toti Hisp
]
"Rather doggy Latin--sea-dog Latin, you might say, in fact."
"I'm afraid," said Dr. Conyers, "I must be very stupid, but I can't see
where that leads us."
"No; 'Old Cut-throat' was rather clever. No doubt he thought that,
if anybody read it, they'd think it was just an allusion to where
it says, further down, that 'the islands were called _Fortunatæ_
because of the wonderful temperature of the air and the clemency of
the skies.' But the cunning old astrologer up in his pagoda had a
meaning of his own. Here's a little book published in 1678--Middleton's
_Practical Astrology_--just the sort of popular handbook an amateur
like 'Old Cut-throat' would use. Here you are: 'If in your figure you
find Jupiter or Venus or _Dragon's head_, you may be confident there
is Treasure in the place supposed.... If you find _Sol_ to be the
significator of the hidden Treasure, you may conclude there is Gold, or
some jewels.' You know, sir, I think we may conclude it."
"Dear me!" said Dr. Conyers. "I believe, indeed, you must be right. And
I am ashamed to think that if anybody had suggested to me that it could
ever be profitable to me to learn the terms of astrology, I should have
replied in my vanity that my time was too valuable to waste on such
foolishness. I am deeply indebted to you."
"Yes," said Gherkins, "but where _is_ the treasure, uncle?"
"That's just it," said Lord Peter. "The map is very vague; there is no
latitude or longitude given; and the directions, such as they are, seem
not even to refer to any spot on the islands, but to some place in the
middle of the sea. Besides, it is nearly two hundred years since the
treasure was hidden, and it may already have been found by somebody or
other."
Dr. Conyers stood up.
"I am an old man," he said, "but I still have some strength. If I can
by any means get together the money for an expedition, I will not rest
till I have made every possible effort to find the treasure and to
endow my clinic."
"Then, sir, I hope you'll let me give a hand to the good work," said
Lord Peter.
* * * * *
Dr. Conyers had invited his guests to stay the night, and, after the
excited viscount had been packed off to bed, Wimsey and the old man
sat late, consulting maps and diligently reading Munster's chapter
"_De Novis Insulis_," in the hope of discovering some further clue.
At length, however, they separated, and Lord Peter went upstairs, the
book under his arm. He was restless, however, and, instead of going
to bed, sat for a long time at his window, which looked out upon the
lake. The moon, a few days past the full, was riding high among small,
windy clouds, and picked out the sharp eaves of the Chinese tea-houses
and the straggling tops of the unpruned shrubs. 'Old Cut-throat' and
his landscape-gardening! Wimsey could have fancied that the old pirate
was sitting now beside his telescope in the preposterous pagoda,
chuckling over his riddling testament and counting the craters of the
moon. "If _Luna_, there is silver." The water of the lake was silver
enough; there was a great smooth path across it, broken by the sinister
wedge of the boat-house, the black shadows of the islands, and, almost
in the middle of the lake, a decayed fountain, a writhing Celestial
dragon-shape, spiny-backed and ridiculous.
Wimsey rubbed his eyes. There was something strangely familiar about
the lake; from moment to moment it assumed the queer unreality of a
place which one recognises without having ever known it. It was like
one's first sight of the Leaning Tower of Pisa--too like its picture
to be quite believable. Surely, thought Wimsey, he knew that elongated
island on the right, shaped rather like a winged monster, with its two
little clumps of buildings. And the island to the left of it, like the
British Isles, but warped out of shape. And the third island, between
the others, and nearer. The three formed a triangle, with the Chinese
fountain in the centre, the moon shining steadily upon its dragon head.
"_Hic in capite draconis ardet perpetuo_----"
Lord Peter sprang up with a loud exclamation, and flung open the
door into the dressing-room. A small figure wrapped in an eiderdown
hurriedly uncoiled itself from the window-seat.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Peter," said Gherkins. "I was so _dreadfully_ wide
awake, it wasn't any good staying in bed."
"Come here," said Lord Peter, "and tell me if I'm mad or dreaming. Look
out of the window and compare it with the map--Old Cut-throat's 'New
Islands.' He made 'em, Gherkins; he put 'em here. Aren't they laid out
just like the Canaries? Those three islands in a triangle, and the
fourth down here in the corner? And the boat-house where the big ship
is in the picture? And the dragon fountain where the dragon's head is?
Well, my son, that's where your hidden treasure's gone to. Get your
things on, Gherkins, and damn the time when all good little boys should
be in bed! We're going for a row on the lake, if there's a tub in that
boat-house that'll float."
"Oh, Uncle Peter! This is a _real_ adventure!"
"All right," said Wimsey. "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest, and all
that! Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of Johnny Walker! Pirate expedition fitted
out in dead of night to seek hidden treasure and explore the Fortunate
Isles! Come on, crew!"
* * * * *
Lord Peter hitched the leaky dinghy to the dragon's knobbly tail and
climbed out carefully, for the base of the fountain was green and weedy.
"I'm afraid it's your job to sit there and bail, Gherkins," he said.
"All the best captains bag the really interesting jobs for themselves.
We'd better start with the head. If the old blighter said head,
he probably meant it." He passed an arm affectionately round the
creature's neck for support, while he methodically pressed and pulled
the various knobs and bumps of its anatomy. "It seems beastly solid,
but I'm sure there's a spring somewhere. You won't forget to bail, will
you? I'd simply hate to turn round and find the boat gone. Pirate chief
marooned on island and all that. Well, it isn't its back hair, anyhow.
We'll try its eyes. I say, Gherkins, I'm sure I felt something move,
only it's frightfully stiff. We might have thought to bring some oil.
Never mind; it's dogged as does it. It's coming. It's coming. Booh!
Pah!"
A fierce effort thrust the rusted knob inwards, releasing a huge spout
of water into his face from the dragon's gaping throat. The fountain,
dry for many years, soared rejoicingly heavenwards, drenching the
treasure-hunters, and making rainbows in the moonlight.
"I suppose this is 'Old Cut-throat's' idea of humour," grumbled
Wimsey, retreating cautiously round the dragon's neck. "And now I can't
turn it off again. Well, dash it all, let's try the other eye."
He pressed for a few moments in vain. Then, with a grinding clang, the
bronze wings of the monster clapped down to its sides, revealing a deep
square hole, and the fountain ceased to play.