Aunt Dimity and the Buried Treasure

by Nancy Atherton

  If Lilian and Mr. Barlow had been behind the war memorial when I’d driven over the humpbacked bridge, it stood to reason that I wouldn’t have been able to see them. Now that I knew where they were, however, I felt an irresistible urge to join them. I pulled the pram from the Rover and set it up as quickly as I could with only one free hand at my disposal. When everything was locked into place, including Bess, I strolled up the cobbled lane to search for the searchers.

  The first person we encountered, however, was Elspeth Binney. Most uncharacteristically, she was on her own. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen one Handmaiden without the other three.

  “Good morning, Elspeth,” I said. “Why aren’t you in Upper Deeping with Millicent, Opal, and Selena? It’s sale day, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid my association with the women you’ve mentioned is over,” she replied stiffly.

  “Since when?” I said, startled.

  “Since yesterday,” she answered. “I’m not an intolerant person, Lori, but there are some outrages that cannot be tolerated.”

  “What happened yesterday?” I asked, and for a moment I came close to regretting my trip to London.

  “My dear friends,” she said, her voice laden with sarcasm, “showed their true colors.”

  “I’m sorry, Elspeth, but you’ll have to be more specific,” I said. “I wasn’t in Finch yesterday, and I haven’t caught up on the news since I’ve been back.”

  As I’d hoped, Elspeth couldn’t resist an invitation to describe the intolerable outrage that had caused her to sever ties with her three closest friends.

  “It was Opal’s turn with the metal detector,” she began. “I came along to support her, as a friend should. Opal elected to scan the part of the green we’d used for our en plein air painting party in September. En plein air,” she explained, “means to paint outdoors.”

  “I remember the painting party,” I said. “If I recall correctly, you . . . lost something, didn’t you?”

  “I lost my palette knife,” she said. “It was on my easel when we went to the tearoom for lunch, but it wasn’t there when we returned. Since I didn’t have another palette knife, I couldn’t complete my painting of the old schoolhouse.”

  “Did Opal find your palette knife yesterday?” I asked, in an effort to move the story along.

  “She did,” Elspeth said in frigid tones.

  “But you weren’t glad to have it back?” I hazarded.

  “I was extremely glad to have it back,” said Elspeth, “but I wasn’t glad to hear the remarks made to me after I said, in all innocence, that my painting of the schoolhouse would have won the blue ribbon at the art show, had I been able to complete it. I wasn’t boasting, Lori. Mr. Shuttleworth has frequently admired my work with the palette knife.”

  “I’m sure he has,” I said soothingly.

  “My so-called friends disputed my claim,” she continued. “Millicent said that I had as much chance of winning a blue ribbon at the art show as she had of winning the London Marathon.”

  “She didn’t,” I said, frowning sympathetically.

  “She did,” Elspeth retorted. “Opal said that my painting looked as though it had been done by a bricklayer using a trowel.”

  “What did Selena say?” I asked avidly.

  Elspeth seemed to choke on her own ire, but after a brief pause, she gallantly soldiered on.

  “Selena,” she replied, “said that the universe had done the art world a favor when it took away my palette knife.”

  “How rude,” I said, while a wicked part of me admired Selena’s wit. “Did James Hobson hear all this?”

  “No,” said Elspeth. “He’d gone off to speak with the vicar. I suppose I should be grateful that I wasn’t humiliated in front of our new neighbor.”

  I was grateful that James hadn’t witnessed another metal-detecting brouhaha. The taunts, hurt feelings, and division that had followed the palette knife’s recovery would have reminded him all too clearly of the pocket watch incident.

  “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such abuse,” Elspeth went on, her voice quavering with indignation.

  “I’m sure you haven’t done anything,” I said, jiggling the pram to let Bess know that I hadn’t forgotten about her. “I’ll bet they were just joking around and it got out of hand.”

  “Hurling insults at a friend may be your idea of humor, Lori,” she said loftily, “but it isn’t mine.”

  “Have they apologized?” I asked.

  “As if I’d accept their apologies,” Elspeth said with a sniff. “No, Lori, I shall never forgive them. Some things are patently unforgivable.”

  For the first time since Elspeth had begun speaking, I felt a real sense of concern. The Handmaidens were known for their spats, but they’d never had a serious falling out. Until now.

  “Will you continue to take lessons from Mr. Shuttleworth?” I inquired.

  “Of course I shall,” Elspeth said. “But I shall take them on a different day, to avoid ignorant and baseless critiques of my knife work.”

  “Good idea,” I said, hoping that a cooling-off period would smooth her ruffled feathers. “They’ll miss you, you know. They’ll come to realize how foolish they were to let a palette knife come between them and one of the most considerate, loyal, and talented friends they’ve ever had.”

  “It’ll be their loss, then,” she snapped. “And they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.” She looked down at Bess, but instead of beaming at her, she seemed to become even more angry. “If that’s one of Millicent’s crocheted caps, I’d check it for barbed wire.”

  With another sniff, she bade me good day and marched across the green. I watched worriedly as she entered the tearoom without her boon companions.

  “It may be a long cooling-off period,” I murmured to Bess, and resumed my walk to the war memorial.

  Nineteen

  Lilian Bunting was scanning a swath of ground closer to the war memorial than the one that had produced Peggy’s glittering hair clip, and she was moving the detector more slowly and methodically than Sally Cook had.

  “Maybe Mrs. Bunting will discover the lost treasure of Finch beneath the village green,” I said to Bess. “I don’t know if Finch has a lost treasure, mind you, but if it does, wouldn’t it be exciting to be on the spot when someone discovers it?”

  Bess agreed that it would be the thrill of a lifetime.

  I doubted that Lilian Bunting was on a mission to recover missing hair clips, but I wasn’t surprised that she was taking a turn with the metal detector. She was a gifted amateur historian with a special interest in village history. Mr. Barlow might rank a handful of tenpenny nails low on the index of desirable finds, but Lilian wouldn’t. She’d regard them as hard evidence of a flourishing building trade in Finch.

  “If Mrs. Bunting finds anything,” I murmured to Bess, “she’ll cherish it.”

  Mr. Barlow stood beside Lilian, his bowed head moving from side to side as he followed the detector’s rhythmic motion. He wore knee pads over his twill trousers, and he’d tucked James Hobson’s red-handled digger as well as the pinpointer into his utility belt. The grass stains on his knee pads suggested that he’d already done some digging.

  “Where’s James?” I called when Bess and I were within hailing distance.

  “He and Felicity are visiting their grandchildren in Upper Deeping,” Lilian replied. “Mr. Barlow kindly offered to act as my mentor in his place.”

  I parked the pram next to the war memorial, released Bess’s harness, and sat her on the leaf-strewn grass with her teething shark. She promptly threw the shark aside and crawled through the rustling leaves to play with Mr. Barlow’s shoelaces. I dutifully retrieved the shark and dropped it in the pram, then strolled over to stand beside Lilian.

  “Has Elspeth been telling you about the unfortunate incid
ent that occurred yesterday?” she asked.

  “Chapter and verse,” I said, nodding. “She’s very upset.”

  “She has every right to be,” said Lilian. “Her friends should be ashamed of themselves.”

  “Maybe they are,” I said. “It wouldn’t help, though. Elspeth’s not in a forgiving mood.”

  “She’ll get over it,” said Mr. Barlow. “She always does.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. “She’ll be awfully lonely without Millicent, Opal, and Selena.” I nodded at the metal detector. “Any luck?”

  “Lots!” Lilian replied, brightening.

  Mr. Barlow tilted his head noncommittally.

  “Before I show you my finds,” said Lilian, “let me show you my little project.”

  She passed the detector to Mr. Barlow—who wisely held it out of Bess’s reach—then took a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of her tweed jacket, unfolded it, and handed it to me.

  “I’ve made a rudimentary map of the green,” she explained, “and I’ve marked the spots where various items have been discovered.” She drew her finger across the map as she continued, “Here are the places where Mr. Barlow found his nails and his coins, and here’s where he discovered Henry Cook’s wedding ring. Here’s where Opal Taylor found Elspeth’s palette knife—but perhaps the less said about that the better,” she added, and hurried on. “Sally Cook found Piero Sciaparelli’s lira here and Mr. Barlow’s hammer—”

  Mr. Barlow grunted irritably.

  “—here,” Lilian went on without missing a beat. “I’ve used the letters of the alphabet to mark the spots. The letters correspond to a separate list I’ve made of the dates and the approximate times of the finds as well as the detectorists’ names and a description of each item.”

  “It’s wonderful,” I said. “Absolutely wonderful.”

  “It’s merely a working copy,” she said modestly. “I intend to make a more accurate map of the green for future use. It will be a work in progress for quite some time, I expect, but when it’s finished, I think it will look well above the display case.”

  “If we ever lay our hands on one,” Mr. Barlow muttered.

  “I’ve added a few letters of my own this morning,” Lilian said, pointing to a cluster of letters behind the circle she’d drawn to represent the war memorial. “K through M are mine.”

  “Show and tell?” I requested.

  While Lilian refolded her map and slipped it into her pocket, Mr. Barlow opened a pouch on his utility belt and pulled from it three rusty horseshoe nails and a silver coin.

  “Mr. Barlow tells me that the horseshoe nails were hand-forged,” said Lilian. “Horseshoe nails are notoriously difficult to date, but I think it would be fair to say that they were made before the local blacksmith shut up shop in 1952.”

  “And the coin?” I queried.

  “It’s a 1965 English florin,” Lilian informed me.

  “We called it a two-bob bit,” said Mr. Barlow.

  “As you can see, it has the head of our present queen on the obverse,” said Lilian, “and the Tudor rose on the reverse, surrounded by shamrocks, thistles, and leeks, the symbols of the United Kingdom.”

  “Another good coin lost to ruddy decimalization,” said Mr. Barlow.

  “Your finds will be a fine addition to the museum,” I said to Lilian. “Are you done for the day?”

  “Not at all,” she replied. “We were about to uncover another mysterious object when you and Bess arrived.”

  Bess had finished dribbling on Mr. Barlow’s shoes and taken off for parts unknown. I trotted after her, scooped her up, and held her while Lilian took charge of the metal detector. She moved it confidently over the patch of grass at her feet, and it immediately emitted its mournful wail.

  “There, I think, Mr. Barlow,” she said unnecessarily.

  Mr. Barlow was already on his knees. He cut out a neat square of turf and scanned it with the pinpointer, but the grassy plug was apparently metal free. The pinpointer responded, however, when he dipped it into the hole.

  “There’s something in there, all right,” he said.

  He dug carefully with his hands until he uncovered a ragged bit of ribbon that appeared to be attached to a medal of some sort. He sat back on his heels and, having learned James Hobson’s trick of the trade, withdrew a small squirt bottle from another pouch on his belt.

  Mr. Barlow shielded the ragged ribbon in his fist while he rinsed the medal with water, then got to his feet and held it in his cupped palm for Lilian and me to see. The medal was bronze colored, with a raised image of a winged female figure on one side. Though the ribbon had deteriorated badly, I could still make out the vestiges of its vertical rainbow stripes.

  “It’s a Wilfred,” Mr. Barlow announced.

  “What’s a Wilfred?” I asked.

  “It’s a sardonic nickname British soldiers gave to the Victory Medal they received at the end of the First World War,” Lilian explained, leaning in to look more closely at her find. “Three campaign medals were issued at the end of the Great War. Returning soldiers named them after characters in a comic strip that was popular at the time: Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred.”

  “My uncle had all three,” said Mr. Barlow, “but this”—he nodded at the medal resting in his palm—“is a Wilfred. It should have a name impressed on it. Let me see. . . .” He pulled a magnifying glass from yet another pouch on his belt and used it to examine the Victory Medal’s serrated rim.

  “I hope the name is still legible,” said Lilian. “It would be a privilege to return the medal to the soldier’s family. Can you see a name, Mr. Barlow? Mr. Barlow?” she repeated more sharply. “Is something wrong?”

  Mr. Barlow had turned his head to one side, pursed his lips, and closed his eyes, as if reading the name on the medal had shaken him. He groaned softly, then slipped the magnifying glass back into its pouch and handed the medal to Lilian.

  “It’s Dave Dillehaye’s,” he said. “Poor bloke must’ve buried it here, next to the memorial.”

  “Who is Dave Dillehaye?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen the surname on a headstone in the churchyard,” said Lilian, “but it isn’t preceded by Dave or David. And there’s no one by that name listed on the war memorial.”

  “I need to sit,” Mr. Barlow said heavily.

  He headed for the wooden bench in front of the memorial. Lilian laid the metal detector on the ground and scurried to catch up with him. Bess and I followed in their wake.

  “Come to the vicarage,” Lilian urged Mr. Barlow as he lowered himself onto the bench. “Let me make a cup of tea for you. You’ve clearly had a shock.”

  “I’ll be fine in a minute,” he said. “It’s a sad story, is all. Saddest one I know. I heard it from Mr. Whitelaw. He was the parish sexton before me.”

  “Teddy and I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Whitelaw,” said Lilian. “We came to St. George’s after he’d passed away.”

  “Mr. Whitelaw had the story from Mr. Meacham, the sexton he replaced.” Mr. Barlow rubbed the back of his neck, then let his hands rest limply in his lap. “Seems that Dave Dillehaye was the only child of a couple who’d come to Finch to work as farm laborers. They lived in a ramshackle cottage on the edge of the village, and no one had much to do with them because they weren’t from around here. Dave quit school early and worked alongside his mum and dad until he went off to war.”

  “He must have survived,” said Lilian, giving the Victory Medal a puzzled glance.

  “He came back in one piece,” Mr. Barlow allowed grudgingly, “but he was broken inside—inside his head, I mean. Post-traumatic stress, they call it nowadays. Back then, it was called shell shock, and Dave never got over it. He lived with his parents until they died, then stayed on alone in their cottage.”

  Bess stretched her arms out to Mr. Barlow, and he took her
from me, holding her to his shoulder and patting her back as he spoke, as if he found comfort in comforting her.

  “A neighbor looked in on Dave not too long after his mum died,” Mr. Barlow said wearily. “Found him hanging from a rafter in his bedroom. The vicar refused to bury him in the churchyard with his mum and dad, but Mr. Meacham put him as close to them as he could.”

  “Are you saying that there’s a grave beyond the churchyard’s boundaries?” Lilian asked, looking nonplussed.

  “I can take you to it, if you like,” said Mr. Barlow.

  “Please do,” said Lilian.

  Mr. Barlow showed no signs of wanting to be rid of Bess, so I pushed the pram after him as he led Lilian and me to St. George’s churchyard. He turned left when he reached the lych-gate, followed the churchyard’s low stone wall around the corner, and stopped a few yards short of the next corner. The weed-covered spot where he stopped was indistinguishable from the rest of the rough pasture that bordered the wall.

  “Dave’s buried here.” Mr. Barlow jutted his chin at the ground, then pointed to a weathered headstone just inside the wall. “His mum and dad are over there.”

  He passed Bess to me, bent low, and separated the weeds to reveal a stumpy, square block of lichen-covered stone.

  “Vicar wouldn’t let him have a proper headstone,” said Mr. Barlow, “but Mr. Meacham put the block there anyway and carved Dave’s dates in it.” He touched the stone, then straightened. “The villagers wouldn’t put his name on the war memorial, on account of the way he died. But Mr. Meacham reckoned that Dave gave his life for his country, same as those who were shot dead on the battlefield. And I reckon he was right.”

  For a moment there was no sound, save for the whisper of wind in the cedars. Lilian bowed her head, and Mr. Barlow gazed grimly at the weed-covered grave. Bess, as if sensing the somber mood that had settled over the grown-ups, nestled her head against my neck and remained quiet. I thought of the Battle of Britain boys and their visible scars and said a silent prayer for those whose war wounds could not be seen.

  “Were Mr. Dillehaye’s next of kin notified of his death?” Lilian asked.