The Bath Conspiracy

by Jeanne M. Dams

  I was really ready for a nap, but I saw his point. It’s unthinkable to come to Bath and not see the Roman Baths. So we retrieved our brollies from the stand and went back out into the rain that had plainly decided to stick around until Christmas, and sploshed through puddles over to Bath’s chief attraction.

  NINE

  I was a bit taken aback to enter a modern lobby with efficient young men and women selling tickets. I’m sure I don’t know what I expected, but given that the site was fairly close to two thousand years old, I guess I wanted some sense of antiquity. Nor had I quite expected to be surrounded by crowds of schoolchildren. I said as much to Alan.

  ‘The site is both older and much younger than twenty centuries,’ he said. ‘The hot springs, the only ones on this island, are said to have been worshipped by the Celts. The Romans did come here early in the first century, but almost nothing of what they built is still here. It’s been ruined and rebuilt and restored, and almost everything above ground dates to the eighteenth century or later. And as for the schoolchildren, it’s a very popular place for school outings.’

  ‘Field trips, we used to call them when I was teaching. They were wildly popular with the children. Getting a day out of school was a treat! I’m not sure they actually learned anything. And of course southern Indiana didn’t offer anything quite so interesting as this. Alan!’

  ‘What? Is something wrong?’

  ‘No. It’s just that I thought I saw Sammy over there with that group. They’ve moved on now. It was probably my imagination. Surely he doesn’t go to school.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so. He looks to be in his twenties.’

  ‘And he probably couldn’t cope in a regular school, anyway. Oh, well. Now, what’s first?’ We picked up our guidebook and audio guides and set out.

  Oh, my! I had assumed I was going to see a big pool of hot water. Yes, but so much more than that! Excavations over the centuries have laid bare so much information about the original temple that stood here, and have brought so many artefacts to light, that the site has become a museum of more than two thousand years of local history, some of it pre-Roman. I was fascinated.

  ‘I never liked history much in school,’ I commented to Alan as we studied a model of a temple, perhaps the earliest building on the site, and its surroundings, including the baths. ‘It was dull, just a listing of dates and events that we had to memorize for tests and then thankfully wipe out of our memory banks. This is different. This is real! Real people built all this, and worshipped in this temple and bathed in these waters.’

  ‘Yes, dear.’ Alan’s heard this speech before, and I suppose it’s trite, but it’s quite true. History on a page in a book turns me off, but living history fires my imagination.

  After perusing the model and trying to work out where these buildings might have been, compared to modern Bath, we went on to a display of the pediment of the temple. Not all of it survived through the centuries, but there was enough for the museum people to reconstruct it, and impressive it was. A video animation was playing, showing just what it must have looked like, and we sat down to watch.

  ‘Fierce sort of chap, eh?’

  The man who had sat down next to us on the bench was middle-aged and pleasant-looking, and spoke with a faint Cockney accent. He smiled and pointed to the carved image at the centre of the pediment. It had a fine head of hair (only the hair was made of snakes), and a pair of piercing eyes. ‘Indeed,’ said Alan. ‘And unusual, as well. A gorgon, they tell us, but the gorgons are traditionally female. This one is certainly male, if the beard and moustache are any indication.’

  We talked a bit about mythology. ‘It’s all a bit confusing,’ I confessed. ‘This was a temple to Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom. But I though the gorgons were Greek. And the snakes – wasn’t that Medusa, or am I getting it all mixed with Harry Potter?’

  ‘Mythology has a tendency to mix elements, doesn’t it?’ Alan contributed. ‘The temple was dedicated to Sulis Minerva, adding in Celtic traditions as well, and there were developments and blending of ideas through several centuries. You’re forgiven for getting muddled. I think they sometimes did, too – the chaps who built this place, I mean.’

  ‘Our religion can be a bit off, too, can’t it? Then there’s the Buddhists and them.’ Our companion shook his head. ‘No wonder people give it up, is it?’

  ‘But it’s interesting how many of the basic, core beliefs have persisted across the centuries and even across doctrinal divides,’ I mused. ‘Look at Minerva, goddess of wisdom. Granted, she was responsible for a bunch of other things as well, some not so admirable.’

  Alan chuckled and pointed to a passage in the guidebook. ‘The Greeks called her Athena, and she was also the goddess of war.’

  ‘And then here at the temple, they say, her lot was thrown in with some Welsh dame who ran a fine line in curses,’ said the other man.

  ‘Yes, all that,’ I agreed, ‘but my point is that wisdom has been a quality revered, even worshipped, through the ages. The wisdom of Buddha is quoted again and again. And when we get to Judaeo-Christian thought, wisdom is thought to be a gift of God, especially one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And you can trace the other qualities deserving of worship through mythology into present-day creeds, too. At least I think you can, if you know enough about mythology and modern theology, which I don’t really. The schools in southern Indiana, when I was a girl, didn’t dwell a whole lot on pagan religions.’

  ‘You’re American, then? Me, I’m Simon Caine, from London. You probably guessed that, just like I guessed you were American.’

  ‘Our speech gives us away every time, doesn’t it? I’ve lived in England quite a while, long enough to identify some regional accents, but yes, I’m originally American. Dorothy Martin, and this is my husband Alan Nesbitt.’ Alan looked up from his perusal of the book and nodded an acknowledgement.

  ‘You live here in Bath, or are you here for the culture?’

  ‘Neither, just on holiday, visiting from Sherebury,’ said Alan. We shook hands all round. ‘Are you visiting as well?’

  ‘Oh, I’m a bit of a rolling stone. Staying here for now. I may settle here. Nice town, this. Of course, after London …’ He gave a comic smile and shrug. ‘I’ll be moving on to the next room. Nice meetin’ you.’ He tipped an imaginary hat and left.

  ‘Nice man,’ I commented. ‘Reminds me of London cabbies.’

  Alan nodded. ‘That easy friendliness. I’ve never met with it anywhere else in the world.’

  ‘Ah, that’s probably why he seemed familiar. The accent and the attitude.’

  ‘Perhaps. Although I’ve certainly never met a cabbie who was interested in comparative religion. Now what have we here?’

  We saw artefacts recovered when the baths were excavated over the years. I found some of them amusing. Pointing to a display case, I said, ‘Looks like people have been throwing coins in fountains for millennia. Wonder if any of them got their wishes?’

  Alan was consulting the guidebook. ‘It’s possible there was a little more to it than that. The coins might have been sacrifices to the goddess, or thanks for favours rendered.’

  ‘Or maybe propitiation, if the giver had done something awful and hoped it would be overlooked. Although, come to think of it, I don’t know if the idea of sin and forgiveness entered into the picture back then.’

  ‘Hmm. It was certainly possible to offend the gods of the ancients, and they responded alarmingly, with thunderbolts and earthquakes and the like. They could be appeased with sufficient offerings, I believe, but not by mere repentance.’

  ‘You know a lot more mythology than I do. I do wonder, though, what on earth some poor soul must have done that gold coins were required as tribute.’ I pointed. ‘Or else he was hoping for some whopping favour.’

  ‘Or, as is possible, he was carrying the month’s payroll for the legion that was encamped nearby, and fell into the spring with it. We don’t know enough. But the speculation is interesting,
isn’t it?’

  Besides the coins, various other oddments had been unearthed. There were gemstones, some of them carved, and an unusual brooch consisting of a circle of bronze and a large pin.

  ‘It would probably have been used to fasten a cloak,’ said Alan. ‘The circle goes on top of the cloth. Then the pin goes through the layers and is held in place by the circle.’ He demonstrated with his fingers. ‘Clever, yes?’

  ‘Sure was. And look at the decoration. Are those garnets?’

  Alan took the guidebook from me. ‘Red enamel, it says here. And from the delicacy of the carving, the thing must have been expensive. Thrown in as an offering, one wonders? Or fallen in by mistake when someone took off his cloak to bathe?’

  Then there was the impressive collection of notes inscribed on pieces of metal. ‘Pewter, the guidebook says,’ I murmured. ‘And Alan, they’re curses! Good grief! Somebody lost a pair of gloves and wants the thief to lose his mind and his eyes.’

  ‘You read Latin?’

  I pointed to the translation. ‘Never learned it, but even if I did, I couldn’t manage any of this.’

  Alan was reading further. ‘Some of them were written in a sort of code, anyway, with the letters printed backwards. So that none but the goddess could read them, one supposes.’

  I shuddered. ‘Let’s hope she ignored most of the requests. Idiocy and blindness seems a pretty heavy penalty for stealing some gloves.’

  There was so much to see at the large complex. We ended up, at last, in the large atrium that housed the Great Bath. On this coolish day, steam rose from the water in the vast pool. ‘Olympic-sized?’ I ventured.

  ‘Bigger, I’d say. And water up to the chin, at least. Says here it had a roof, originally.’

  ‘Makes sense. They wouldn’t have wanted rain coming in to cool the water. Alan, what an amazing building and plumbing project for people two thousand years ago!’

  ‘Don’t forget that this is a Victorian reconstruction.’

  ‘I prefer to forget it. I want to think about people in togas and tunics coming here to relax after a visit to the temple. Prayers and a swim. What an idea!’ I leaned over to test the water temperature, but Alan pulled me back.

  ‘Can’t have you falling in, love.’

  ‘Oh, pooh. It’s not deep enough to drown.’

  ‘No, but the water’s polluted, you know. The temperature is ideal for fungal and bacterial growth.’ He pointed out the warning signs that were posted at regular intervals.

  ‘I’ll bet the schoolchildren ignore them.’

  ‘I’m sure their leaders threaten them within an inch of their lives if they do.’

  A warm bath, at that point, sounded wonderful. I was worn out by the time we had walked around the pool and talked with some of the costumed guides, almost too tired to enjoy the gift shop. Almost, but not quite.

  It was very crowded, even more so than on our first visit. The school groups, having been coerced into reasonably good behaviour during their tour, were more than ready to kick up their heels, and their leaders had plainly given up the struggle. The younger children were shouting and pushing; the older ones stood stock-still staring at their phones and blocking the narrow aisles.

  ‘You choose your battles,’ I murmured in response to Alan’s raised eyebrows. ‘They can’t get into too much trouble here, and they’ll get a lecture about courtesy on the way home in the bus. Meanwhile the ones who want to buy something are having a hard time getting to it, which is punishment in itself.’

  ‘Nor can you buy anything, or not easily.’

  With some difficulty in the crowd, I pulled my phone out of my purse and checked the time. ‘It’s after five. They’ll be closing soon, so the kids will be getting herded out in a few minutes. When I can get to that corner, I’d like to take a look at the jewellery. No, not for me,’ I said in response to his look. ‘I hardly ever wear anything except earrings, as you know. But they might have the sort of thing Elizabeth would like for Christmas.’ Alan’s daughter’s taste in clothing and adornment leans toward the unusual and somewhat primitive. I thought that a copy of the brooch found in the spring might be perfect for her, if they had such a thing.

  I was disappointed. When the last of the children had been shooed out and I could get to the jewellery, the collection was sparse and not especially interesting. ‘Never mind, love,’ said Alan, steering me toward the door with a firm hand under my elbow. ‘Christmas is months away, and there will be other shops.’

  ‘Yes, but I had my heart set on something from Bath.’

  ‘We’ll find a pub and a pint and think about it. I’m sure there are jewellers a-plenty in Bath that might stock just what you want.’

  A pint sounded good, especially given my aching feet. Right in the heart of Bath, there was no shortage of pubs, and though they were crowded on a Saturday evening, we managed to find one that was reasonably quiet. We had just sat down with our beer when Alan’s phone rang.

  ‘Drat,’ he said mildly, and answered. ‘Nesbitt here.’ After only a moment or two, he put the phone back in his pocket. ‘Sorry, love. That was Roberts. There’s been an incident at the Baths, and I have to go. Stay here and finish your beer, and I’ll see you back at the hotel.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ I took a long, lovely swallow and stood. ‘Whither thou goest, et cetera.’

  TEN

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked as I hurried along, panting a little as I tried to keep up with his long stride.

  ‘He didn’t say much, only that there’s apparently been a theft of some magnitude from the shop.’

  ‘Another museum shop theft!’

  ‘Perhaps. There could be other explanations. I’m sorry, love,’ he said as I tripped and nearly fell. ‘Am I going too fast for you?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll manage. Go on. What other explanations?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, do I? A good deal of jewellery appears to be missing. That’s all I know.’

  I wanted to pursue the matter. Either it was missing or it wasn’t. But I didn’t have the breath, and I needed to concentrate on where I was going.

  We went straight to the street door entrance to the gift shop. The stolid uniformed policeman at the door stepped forward to bar our entry, but saluted and stepped back when Alan presented his warrant card. Inspector Roberts was just inside, with a little clot of shop employees and police. He took us aside and told us the story.

  ‘They take a cursory inventory at close of business every day, but an exhaustive one on Saturday. Extra employees are on board every Saturday, to deal with the crowds and also for the inventory. The woman assigned to deal with the jewellery saw immediately that the display was decimated, and that the lock was missing.’

  We nodded in comprehension. The case containing the more expensive items had one of those little sliding locks.

  ‘It was, of course, possible that an employee had sold a large number of pieces and simply forgotten to replace the lock. So the till records were checked and the employees questioned. Some items had been sold, of course, but nothing out of the ordinary run for a Saturday.’

  ‘And the lock?’

  ‘Found under one of the display tables.’

  ‘Where it had rolled, or been thrown.’

  ‘Presumably.’ He paused in case we had more questions, and then went on. ‘As a matter of routine, all the employees were searched. I understand that there were no complaints about that.’

  ‘The innocent are usually eager to be proved innocent,’ Alan commented, and I thought about his insistence on our having our fingerprints taken at Stonehenge. ‘And they found nothing, I gather.’

  ‘One chocolate coin, with a bite out of it. And the receipt for it, both together in a pocket. Nothing else.’

  ‘Two questions,’ Alan said. ‘First, have they a list of the missing items?’

  ‘That will take a little longer, I’m afraid. The shop stocks a broad range of fine jewellery and trinkets, and records of purchases must
be carefully checked against sales records and items still in stock.’

  ‘Understood. Second, is anything else missing besides the jewellery?’

  ‘Again, that will take a while to determine. They are going ahead with the usual Saturday inventory, though with some difficulty amidst the chaos, and I understand that so far they’ve uncovered only the usual shrinkage.’

  ‘And do they have any ideas about who might have done this?’ I was tired of letting the men do all the talking.

  Inspector Roberts was polite. If he was unhappy about my sticking my nose in, he didn’t show it. ‘They were inclined at first to blame an employee, though not any one in particular.’

  ‘The business about the lock.’

  ‘Exactly. Only the employees know where that key is kept.’

  ‘There is only the one?’ Alan asked.

  ‘Two. The spare is kept in a safe, in case the one can’t be found and a potential customer is waiting. And before you ask, on the one occasion when that happened, the locks were changed before the shop reopened the next day.’

  ‘So if someone stole the first one, it wouldn’t do them any good later.’

  ‘You’ve got it, Dorothy. And in fact, in that one instance, the “lost” key was eventually found in a washroom, having apparently dropped out of someone’s pocket.’

  ‘But where is it supposed to be kept when the shop is open for business? The one key, I mean, the one that’s in use.’ I thought it ought to have a home. A place for everything and everything in its place, so to speak.

  The inspector sighed. ‘It starts out the day in a drawer under the till, and it should be returned there.’

  ‘Not in the custody of a particular employee?’ Alan frowned. ‘That would seem to be a more prudent plan.’