Aunt Dimity and the Buried Treasure

by Nancy Atherton

  “That’s my hammer!” Mr. Barlow exclaimed.

  Sally sighed and moved on. She was clearly on the lookout for bigger game.

  Mr. Barlow took the hammer from James and studied it closely.

  “That’s my hammer, all right,” he said, nodding.

  “The hammer you accused me of stealing?” Dick inquired waspishly.

  “I never accused you of stealing it,” Mr. Barlow retorted. “I just wondered when you planned to return it, is all. Seems a reasonable thing to wonder, seeing as you borrowed the ruddy thing five years ago.”

  “You as good as called me a thief,” Dick persisted.

  “No, I didn’t,” Mr. Barlow said stoutly. “Must be your guilty conscience talking.”

  “I don’t have a guilty conscience,” Dick snapped, “because I’m not a thief.”

  “What would you call a man who borrows things and doesn’t return them?” Mr. Barlow shot back.

  James plugged the hole in a somewhat slapdash manner and stood.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, but before he could deliver his pocket watch speech, Sally cut him off.

  “Stop your bickering, you two!” she hollered. “I’ve found something else!”

  Fifteen

  The men’s raised voices had masked the metal detector’s wail, but Sally’s shout rang out loud and clear. Mr. Barlow and Dick Peacock put their argument on hold and joined the rest of us as we clustered around another seemingly innocuous patch of grass.

  James was already at work with the digger. As he utilized the pinpointer and probed the soil with his fingers, I felt the same thrill of anticipation I’d felt during his demonstration. The small oblong object he extracted from the hole was grimier than his tatty brooch had been, but its anonymity only increased my sense of infinite possibilities.

  “A trick of the trade,” James said, pulling a small squirt bottle from his utility belt. “Water reveals what mud conceals.”

  He stood, and his rapt audience leaned in as he washed away the soil clinging to Sally’s most recent discovery. As the mellow autumn sunlight touched the object’s glittering surface, I was struck by a dizzying wave of déjà vu. In an instant, I was back in my attic, gazing in horror at the gap behind Aunt Dimity’s leather trunk, while a row of glittering bloodred eyes peered at me from the shadows.

  “Aunt Dimity’s bracelet,” I said under my breath.

  “Pardon?” said Lilian.

  “Nothing,” I said absently, and leaned in further.

  I couldn’t tell what the oblong object was, but I could see that it was gold colored and inset with tiny garnetlike gems in a pattern that looked startlingly familiar.

  “W-what is it?” I asked unsteadily.

  “A hair clip,” Sally answered, sounding bored to death. “A spring-loaded hair clip.”

  I stared at her, taken aback by the speed of her reply.

  “A hair clip?” I said. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” said Sally. “I must have seen it a hundred times. It’s Peggy Taxman’s. She won it at the fair in Upper Deeping years ago, when she was still Peggy Kitchen. You could win all sorts of cheap baubles at the fair. Peggy won most of hers at the coconut shies. No surprise there. She had arms on her like a stevedore.”

  “It was a traveling fair,” said Mr. Barlow, as if Sally’s words had stirred a distant memory. “Came to Upper Deeping once a year, in the spring. Madame Karela’s Fair, it was called.”

  “Best bull’s-eyes on the planet,” said Dick, smacking his lips. “And the best candy floss.”

  “I liked the rides,” said Opal. “The roundabout, the swing boats, the dodgems—”

  “Don’t forget the helter-skelter,” Millicent put in with a demure titter. “The boys always tried to look up our skirts when we slid down the helter-skelter.”

  “I didn’t,” said Mr. Barlow. “I was too busy winning my spurs at the Wild West shooting gallery.”

  “I won a giant gorilla at the shooting gallery,” said Selena. “Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Barlow. I was quite a good shot. I knew how to compensate for the misaligned sights.”

  “I knew they tampered with the sights!” Mr. Barlow expostulated, looking chagrined.

  A pleasant hum filled the air as my neighbors shared stories about Madame Karela’s traveling fair. James seemed to relax as a flood of nostalgia overtook the hammer controversy.

  “A fortune-teller told me I’d meet a tall, dark stranger,” said Sally. “She meant Henry, naturally.”

  “She must have seen a long way into the future,” Millicent commented, giving Sally a skeptical glance.

  “What do you mean by that?” Sally demanded.

  “I mean that you and Henry met two years ago,” Millicent replied, “but the fair hasn’t been to Upper Deeping in decades.”

  “Fortune-tellers prey on the simple-minded,” said Dick. “It’s a well-known fact.”

  Sally bristled, and James, sensing another brouhaha brewing, held the hair clip out to her.

  “It’s not worth much, Mrs. Cook, but it’s a pretty thing,” he said. “Some might say that the decoration was inspired by ancient Celtic jewelry, but the use of gold and red combined with the symmetrical, interlacing pattern of abstract zoomorphic forms reminds me of the Anglo-Saxon artifacts on display at the British Museum.”

  He might as well have spoken in Anglo-Saxon. The villagers greeted his remarks with looks of polite incomprehension, then nodded amiably at him and resumed their reminiscences. I, on the other hand, heard an alarm bell ring in the back of my mind.

  Aunt Dimity’s bracelet was no cheap fairground prize. It seemed absurd to think that it could be a priceless Anglo-Saxon artifact, but I couldn’t deny that James had described its characteristics with uncanny precision. If I closed my eyes, I could see the intricate, interlacing pattern of garnets gleaming in the gold setting. In retrospect, I could even see the “abstract zoomorphic forms” James had mentioned, writhing like stylized snakes across the bracelet’s surface.

  “James,” I said, as the alarm bell continued to ring, “are you referring to the Sutton Hoo ship burial exhibition?”

  “I am,” he replied, looking pleased. “Have you seen it?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “I’ve seen it,” said Lilian, “and I agree with you, James. Whoever designed Peggy Taxman’s hair clip must have been inspired, albeit remotely, by Anglo-Saxon design.”

  “Did the Anglo-Saxons make jewelry?” I asked.

  “Anglo-Saxon hoards and burial sites almost always contain jewelry,” said James. “Their craftsmen made pendants, rings, bracelets, brooches . . .” He smirked slightly as he held the hair clip at arm’s length. “As far as I’m aware, however, they did not make spring-loaded hair clips.”

  Lilian chuckled, and I forced a smile.

  “What would happen,” I said, keeping my voice light, “if we discovered an Anglo-Saxon hoard?”

  “You’ll find a detailed answer in the brochures I brought along to the demonstration,” said James, “but the simple answer is: You’d have to report your find to the proper authorities or risk receiving a severe penalty. Treasure found on English soil belongs to the Crown, you see. If you pocketed an ancient artifact made of gold or silver, you’d be nothing more than a common thief.”

  Mr. Barlow’s voice broke through my tangled thoughts.

  “Someone’ll have to return the hair clip to Peggy,” he said.

  “I’ll take it to her,” Elspeth said bravely. “She might be willing to donate her glass case to our museum if she has something to display in it.”

  “Good luck,” said Mr. Barlow, without sounding the least bit hopeful.

  As Elspeth sallied forth on what the rest of us regarded as a suicide mission, Sally handed the metal detector to James.

  “Done for
the day?” he inquired.

  “I’d better be,” she said, “or there won’t be anything left for the next person to find. Thank you, James. I’ve enjoyed my little poke-about.”

  “Don’t forget to bring Piero’s lira to Mrs. Sciaparelli,” said Lilian.

  “Piero’s lira?” Millicent said alertly.

  “The first item I detected this afternoon,” Sally informed her. “Come to the tearoom, and I’ll show it to you.”

  Our metal-detecting party dispersed. Mr. Barlow, Dick Peacock, and the remaining Handmaidens followed Sally to the reopened tearoom. James, Lilian, and I, having witnessed the discovery of Piero’s lira, went our separate ways, James to Ivy Cottage, Lilian to the vicarage, and I, my thoughts racing, to my husband’s office.

  I entered Wysteria Lodge to find Bess asleep in her pram and Bill on a conference call with a pair of quarrelsome clients in Andorra. I checked Bess’s diaper automatically, then sat on the leather sofa Bill used primarily for power naps and fidgeted restlessly until he ended the call.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, studying my pensive expression. “Did Sally find my real wedding ring buried in the village green?”

  “I almost wish she had,” I said, and rose resolutely to my feet. “I need to see the Sutton Hoo exhibition at the British Museum, Bill, and I need to see it now. Would you please bring it up on your computer?”

  “No problem,” he said, looking intrigued.

  I crossed to stand behind him while he tapped a few keys on his desktop, then watched in dismay as he scrolled through the striking images that popped up on the screen.

  “Do those Anglo-Saxon trinkets remind you of anything?” I asked.

  His eyes widened as comprehension dawned.

  “They remind me of the bracelet you found in the attic,” he said. “The bracelet Badger gave to Aunt Dimity. Similar materials, colors, decorations . . .” He craned his neck to look up at me. “You’re not suggesting that Aunt Dimity’s bracelet came from an Anglo-Saxon burial mound, are you?”

  “I may be suggesting just that,” I said, and before he could make fun of me for going off the deep end, I added firmly, “Hear me out.”

  I walked around to the front of the desk, sat in the chair reserved for clients, and began to assemble the thoughts that had triggered my alarm bell.

  “Dimity told me that Badger looked like a man who did outdoor work,” I said. “Her exact words were: ‘He was fit and trim and very brown, and he had a gardener’s strong, rough hands.’”

  Bill rested his forearms on the desk and nodded for me to go on.

  “Dimity was deeply impressed by Badger’s intelligence,” I continued. “She didn’t think he could be an ordinary jobbing gardener because, and I quote, ‘He had the accent and the vocabulary of a well-educated young man.’”

  “If he hadn’t been well educated,” Bill reasoned, “he wouldn’t have been able to converse knowledgeably about so many subjects.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “He talked about all kinds of things with Dimity—art, music, literature, architecture. He helped her to broaden her cultural horizons, and he couldn’t have done that unless his own cultural horizons were pretty broad to begin with.”

  “Makes sense,” said Bill. “Go on.”

  “Badger was a regular at the Rose Café,” I said, “so he must have lived or worked or lived and worked in Bloomsbury. What’s the biggest attraction in Bloomsbury?”

  Bill glanced at his computer screen, then looked at me.

  “The British Museum,” he said.

  “The repository of the world’s greatest collection of Anglo-Saxon artifacts,” I said as emphatically as I could without waking Bess. “What if Badger wasn’t a gardener, Bill? What if he was an archaeologist?”

  Bill pursed his lips thoughtfully.

  “Archaeologists tend to work outdoors,” he acknowledged. “I imagine they have strong hands, and they’d have to be well educated. The British Museum sponsors excavations, and Badger would be an apt nickname for a man who’s involved in excavations.”

  “An archaeologist would oversee the stuff that came out of his excavations, wouldn’t he?” I said. “He’d make sure it was being processed properly, and he’d probably have a say in how it was displayed. So he’d be in and out of the museum all the time.”

  “I suppose so,” said Bill.

  “What if Badger worked for the British Museum?” I said urgently. “What if . . .” I took a steadying breath, then went on in a stage whisper, as if I were afraid of being overheard by the museum police. “What if Badger stole Aunt Dimity’s bracelet from the British Museum?”

  “It’s a big leap,” Bill said slowly, “but young men in love have been known to do crazier things.”

  “The bracelet could be the tip of the iceberg,” I said. “Who knows how many irreplaceable treasures Badger took home with him?”

  “I suspect someone at the museum would have noticed if he’d emptied a storage room into his briefcase,” Bill said dryly.

  “Okay,” I said, backing down. “Let’s stick with the bracelet. If it was found on English soil, it belongs to the Crown. Taking it from the British Museum would be like picking the queen’s pocket!”

  “I doubt that Her Majesty would have him drawn and quartered,” said Bill.

  “He could end up in jail, though,” I said earnestly. I looked down, then shook my head. “To tell you the truth, I don’t much care about what happens to Badger.”

  “I know,” Bill said gently. “You care about Dimity.”

  “She respected and admired Badger,” I said. “In her own way, she loved him. She still thinks of him as the kind, wise man who gave her a sense of direction when she was rudderless. By tarnishing his name, I’ll be tarnishing one of her most precious memories.” I clasped my hands together tightly and leaned forward on the desk. “If I’m right, then the man who helped Aunt Dimity to find her purpose in life was nothing more than a common thief.”

  There was a pause during which my words seemed to linger in the air. Bess made a snuffling noise, Bill gazed into the middle distance, and I wished more fervently than ever that I’d left the garnet bracelet in the attic.

  “Are you going to share your suspicions with Dimity?” Bill asked.

  “No,” I said. “Not until I have something more substantial to tell her. That’s why I have to speak with Adam.”

  “Adam Rivington?” said Bill, looking confused. “My driver?”

  “Your driver,” I said, “is studying Anglo-Saxon archaeology.”

  “Is he?” said Bill.

  “Typical,” I said scornfully. “You don’t know the first thing about Adam, do you?”

  “I know that he’s honest, clean, polite, punctual, levelheaded, and able to find his way around London,” Bill replied. “What else should I know?”

  “It’s lucky that one of us takes an interest in people,” I said, rolling my eyes. “For your information, four generations of Adam’s family have lived in Bloomsbury. His great-grandfather witnessed the zeppelin raids, and his grandfather was an air raid warden during the Blitz. Furthermore, he takes his coffee black, he doesn’t like to share his desserts, and he has a girlfriend named Helena.”

  “I’ll burn it into my memory,” said Bill. “Especially the part about desserts. I’m not sure how it relates to the subject at hand, but—”

  “I haven’t gotten to the relevant part yet,” I interrupted. “Because I take an interest in people, I also learned that Adam’s parents work at the British Museum and that he hopes to work there after he gets his postgraduate degree. He knows a lot about the museum’s collection of Anglo-Saxon treasures. He may know if something went missing from the collection a long time ago. With his family connections, he may even know of thefts that were hushed up. It’s worth finding out.”

  “You won’t share y
our suspicions with him, will you?” Bill asked.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Adam offered to give the boys and me a guided tour of the Sutton Hoo exhibition. I’ll ask him to give me a preview tour—or you’ll ask him for me—so I can decide whether Will and Rob will find it as riveting as he does. While he’s pointing out his favorite pieces, I’ll slip in a few questions about thefts and robberies and the pilfering of national treasures.”

  “He’ll think you’re planning a heist,” said Bill.

  “I’ll be subtle,” I assured him. I sat back in my chair and frowned. “If I could find Badger, I’d ask him outright if he stole the bracelet.”

  “An unusual conversation starter,” Bill observed.

  “One I may never use,” I retorted. “Until Badger turns up—if he ever does—I’ll have to rely on Adam Rivington. He’s the only Anglo-Saxon expert I know.”

  “I’ll call Adam right now and convey your wishes to him,” said Bill. “Can you get to the British Museum on your own?”

  “Piece of cake,” I said. “You don’t mind another day of Daddy duty, do you?”

  “Piece of cake,” he echoed airily.

  As he reached for the phone, Bess stirred. I went to crouch beside her as she clenched and unclenched her tiny fingers, smacked her rosy lips, and opened her velvety brown eyes. It was a sight I never tired of seeing.

  “Done,” Bill said a moment later. “Adam will meet you at ten o’clock tomorrow morning at the British Museum’s south entrance.”

  I had no idea which entrance was the British Museum’s south entrance, but I would have eaten dirt before I admitted as much to my husband. If he could run our household without my help, I told myself, I could find the south entrance without his.

  “Excellent,” I said as I checked Bess’s diaper again.

  “Adam refused to accept his usual fee,” Bill said.

  “Pay him anyway,” I said, straightening. “He’d like to show me the exhibition out of the goodness of his heart, but he’s working his way through school. He needs the money.”

  “I’ll see to it that he gets paid,” Bill promised.