The Kaiser's Gold

by Bill Kitson

  We went across the beck and entered the cabin, where Eve and Barbara insisted I sit down whilst they helped Brian prepare our drinks. Once the kettle was on the gas, Brian looked across the room. ‘How are you feeling, Adam?’

  ‘I’m OK; just a bit of a sore head, that’s all.’

  Eve, who hadn’t been inside the cabin before, was looking around her eyes widening with surprise as she saw just how comfortable it was. ‘You did all this yourself?’ she asked Brian.

  He nodded, before revealing his plan. ‘Actually, it’s given me an idea. I’m thinking of building some more, along the banks of Thorsgill Beck. This part of the forest is rarely seen by anyone apart from perhaps me and Barbara, or Zeke Calvert, and it’s so picturesque I thought it would be a great location for some holiday cabins. I could rent them out for campers, or for adventure expeditions, anglers, birdwatchers, you name it.’

  ‘That sounds like a great idea,’ Barbara agreed.

  Once the kettle boiled, Brian brought me a mug and sat down alongside me. ‘Are you ready to tell us what happened back there? It seemed very odd, the way things turned out. One minute Bartlett was threatening you; the next he was a gibbering wreck. And that was before the woman died. I know he was talking, but I couldn’t hear a word of what he said because of the noise from the waterfall. So what exactly did go on?’

  I took a deep breath, gathering both my thoughts and my courage before launching into what many would regard as a preposterous tale. I’d known all along I would have to explain sooner or later. It might as well be sooner, before my nerve failed me and I bottled it up.

  ‘I now believe I understand the final part of Everett Latimer’s cryptic rhyme,’ I told them. ‘When he went to bury that gold in the bell pit he discovered something else. Something that had been buried there since long before the gold had been created. Something that had lain undisturbed for centuries, possibly millennia.’

  I watched them exchange glances, and smiled as I interpreted their thoughts. They were obviously wondering how much damage the blow to my head had caused, for me to be talking so wildly. I hastened to reassure them. ‘It’s all right, I’m not wandering. What I’m about to tell you isn’t the result of concussion. The problem is that events in the bell pit have been difficult for me to come to terms with, let alone describe to someone else. If I hadn’t been given advance knowledge of the subject, I don’t think I could even begin to explain it. Understanding what lay behind what Bartlett saw, or thought he saw, in there doesn’t help me to come up with a rational explanation, because I don’t believe one exists.’

  I paused and took a sip of my tea before continuing. ‘Bartlett was threatening me with the revolver, but suddenly his attention was distracted by something in front of that heap of rocks where I believe Everett Latimer hid the gold.’ I hesitated for a second. ‘What he saw was the children.’ I looked at the disbelief on their faces but continued, ‘He knew the story, because I repeated the legend to him as we were walking through the forest. I was only trying to scare him; to put him off his guard, nothing more than that. I had no idea it would seem like a prophecy come true such a short time later. I even explained that the children only appear shortly before someone dies, and that they usually only appear to somebody closely connected to the victim.’

  ‘You’re saying that Bartlett saw the three children?’ Brian’s voice reflected his obvious surprise.

  ‘He did; and I had no trouble believing him, because he described them almost exactly as you had done. He mentioned their torn clothing, the blood that was spattered all over them, the piteous, haunted expression on their faces. He pointed them out to me, but when I turned to look, all I could see was the heap of stones, some wispy grass and the escarpment alongside the falls. What really spooks me is that within minutes of the apparitions manifesting themselves to Bartlett, his partner in crime had been killed in a very sudden and violent manner. How you explain that? I’ve no idea, because I certainly can’t find a logical explanation for it.’

  ‘You believe that Bartlett actually saw the children; the ones described in the skipping rhyme?’ Eve asked. I nodded. ‘But I thought they only appear to locals, or people with local connections?’

  ‘Perhaps Bartlett’s quest for the gold qualified him as having a local connection,’ I told her. ‘Or maybe it was the location that overrode the normal rules.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘I mean that I believe that when the stones that Everett Latimer carefully piled up so they spelt out his initials are removed, we will not only find the gold there, but also the bodies of those three dead children. Remember the rhyme? The location of the gold was described as “sleeping with those who are free from sin”. I believe the children lie behind that wall of stone.

  As the others dwelt on this, I asked Brian, ‘How did you rescue Eve and Barbara?’ I thought it was time to change the subject before I was asked any further questions for which I had no answer, and for which, as far as I could tell, there was no logical explanation.

  ‘It was all fairly simple. It went even better than I’d hoped. I knew the cottage had two entrances. In addition to the front door, there’s another one round the back. So I waited until you had been gone a few minutes and then I sneaked up to the front door and poured petrol over it. I set fire to the door and then waited by the rear entrance. Sure enough, the Moore woman came dashing out a few minutes later. She was going too fast to spot the danger before it was too late. I knocked her out, tied her up and dumped her in the back of your car; then went inside for the girls. Once I’d freed them and got them out of the cottage, we set off for the police house. Oh, by the way–’ Brian smiled apologetically,‘–I owe you a fire extinguisher. I used the one from the Range Rover to put out the blaze on the front door. Fortunately, the door’s made of oak, so it should repair easily enough.’

  Barbara took up the story. ‘After we’d explained what was going on to Mrs Pickersgill, Brian brought us into the forest after you. We had to frog-march the woman between us. We must have looked really odd, with Eve and me dragging the woman along, and Brian toting a collection of traffic cones. However, we made really good time.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Brian added, ‘so good that we were watching you even before you reached the stepping stones. And the rest of it, you know.’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  A week passed, during which little happened beyond a spate of interviews with DI Hardy and his colleague, interspersed with the tedious but necessary process of making statements. During the first of these, Brian showed Hardy his grandfather’s memoir and we explained the connection between Bartlett and Harold Matthews. It was then that Hardy insisted this particular item be omitted from any statements. ‘If word got out about the possible existence of treasure and the media got hold of it, there might be the biggest gold rush since the Klondike. The forest would be overflowing with prospectors.’

  In a later interview, Hardy revealed that they had sent the revolver to a ballistics expert for checking. ‘It was manufactured by Webley and Scott and is quite old. Judging by the date, I’d say it could have been issued to Bartlett’s grandfather when he received his commission.’ He grinned and added, ‘The ironic part is that Bartlett couldn’t have harmed you with that weapon unless he’d clubbed you over the head with it. The firing mechanism had been disabled.’

  Hardy also provided the answer to a question that had been puzzling me ever since the dramatic events in the forest. ‘Why were Bartlett and Moore prepared to reveal their identity?’ I asked. ‘I can understand that they intended to kill us, but supposing we’d left a message for someone giving details of where we had gone, and who with? They only had three of us under their control. How did they intend to silence the other one?’

  ‘The answer is that they had no intention of hanging around for anything such as that to become a problem. Bartlett has been talking freely, and from what he’s told us it seems that they started out with the intention o
f their identity remaining secret. That was why they went to so much trouble to set Trevor Matthews up as the scapegoat. However, events over which they had no control overtook them. I’m not speaking of Latimer’s dramatic reappearance after everyone believed him to be dead, although that certainly didn’t help.’

  Hardy sipped the tea that Eve had made, and after setting the mug down carefully, leaned forward in his chair. ‘Bartlett’s company was already in serious financial trouble before they started this. The firm had been hit very badly by the property slump in the mid-seventies and had been teetering on the brink of collapse ever since. In order to dig himself out of the mess and stave off the threatened insolvency, Bartlett took on a contract that should have been extremely lucrative. If that had worked out, perhaps none of the rest of this would have happened. We’ll never know. Unfortunately, the contract that should have saved Bartlett’s bacon had quite the opposite effect. There were severe penalty clauses written into it, and when he failed to meet the completion deadline these were invoked. My colleagues in Leeds went to Bartlett’s business address at my request, only to be greeted by the receivers who had been put in by the company’s creditors.’

  ‘That explains why he was so desperate to get hold of the gold,’ Eve remarked, ‘he wasn’t interested in the estate at all. But it doesn’t explain the motive for Charles Lewis’s murder.’

  ‘Eve’s right,’ I added. ‘Nor does it explain why Ursula Moore was so keen to go along with Bartlett’s scheme.’

  ‘Lewis’s murder resulted from his own greed more than anything. He wanted money, and Ursula Moore was his preferred source of income. In other words he was blackmailing her. Not only over her affair with Bartlett, but because she’d represented a series of clients who she got acquitted of all sorts of crimes There were assault cases, robberies, and biggest of all, a property swindle which involved grants, amongst other things. There were forged planning consents and a lot of other financial irregularities, and she managed to secure the acquittals by bribing or threatening witnesses and jurors alike. The person she chose as her intermediary to pass the money to the people she’d suborned was Lewis. To be fair, I don’t think she could have made a more disastrous choice. That flash car Lewis drove was supposed to be part of his reward for services rendered, but from what Bartlett told us, Lewis only considered it to be a down payment. Eventually, his demands got too exorbitant for them to pay.’

  Hardy took another swig of his tea. ‘According to Bartlett, they met with Lewis on the day of the murder to try and reason with him, but the argument got heated and when Lewis threatened to go to the Law Society, Moore stabbed him. Unfortunately for her, Armstrong and Veronica Matthews witnessed the murder whilst they were having a little afternoon delight in his cottage across the beck. Instead of silencing a witness to the bribery allegations, Moore laid herself open to blackmail because of the murder. When Armstrong approached her for money; he and Veronica Matthews had to die as well. We found the murder weapon, hidden at Brent Cottage. It had blood that matched all three victims on it, and the only prints were those of Ursula Moore.’

  Hardy drained his mug before concluding. ‘With Bartlett’s company about to go bust, and Moore likely to be disbarred, or worse, there was nothing to keep them in this country. We discovered documents in Moore’s flat that showed they intended to disappear and set up home in South America. That’s what’s known in police circles as “doing a Ronnie Biggs”. What they didn’t bargain for was coming up against you two and Brian Latimer. As a result of what Bartlett told us in his confession, our colleagues in Leeds have already made several arrests. I think the detectives want to adopt you.’

  He looked at me, then at Brian, before asking, ‘What can you tell me about this other matter Bartlett has been on about? He keeps asking if we’ve found the children. The ones covered in blood.’

  Over a month had passed since the death of Ursula Moore and the arrest of Derek Bartlett. I was working on a new manuscript, whilst Eve was wrapping Christmas presents. My thought processes were disturbed when the phone rang. Eve answered it, and then told me, ‘It’s Brian on the line. He wants to know if we’re busy tomorrow. I said I didn’t think so. They’re going to excavate for the gold, and he’d like us to go along.’

  When we arrived at the waterfall the following day, it seemed that Brian wanted more than merely our presence. I glanced around the bell pit after helping Eve down the steep side. If it had seemed crowded the last time I was there, it was even more so now. Brian introduced a string of officials from various government departments who all had a vested interest in the treasure, plus several archaeologists. ‘They want me to begin removing the stones to start the dig,’ Brian told me, ‘but I’ve decided that the task should go to you.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘Because you deciphered the rhyme. If you hadn’t worked out where the gold was buried, we’d not be here today.’

  ‘There’s no proof the gold really is here,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s only guesswork. Everett could have been playing an elaborate prank.’

  Brian grinned. ‘That’s the other reason I want you to do it. I’ve told everyone you were the clever clogs who worked out the clues, so if it proves to be a hoax you’ll be the one with egg on your face.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Brian. Thanks a bunch.’

  I began work, conscious of my audience which included several cameramen. I removed a few stones, passing them to willing assistants who stacked them at the far side of the bell pit. As I worked, I became aware of the musty, slightly unpleasant odour from within the recess that lay behind the wall of rock.

  After I’d taken about a dozen small boulders from the pile, one of the archaeologists suggested we should take a look inside before continuing with what might prove to be a fruitless task. He held out a torch, and I scrambled up the cairn and shone the light inside.

  There, as I’d hoped, were the stout wooden boxes I knew would contain the treasure. The torch beam moved as I straightened up to inform the others of my discovery and I stared in horror at what it now revealed. Beyond the crates, in a neat line, there were three sets of skeletal remains, their skulls propped against the rear of what was a small cave, as if they had lain there to go to sleep. The small stature of the skeletons told me all I needed to know.

  Expert analysis would later confirm that the remains were those of three children who had been between the ages of eight and twelve years old at the time of their death. The tests also established that the remains dated from somewhere in the region of a thousand years ago, which would have placed them at around the time of the Viking incursions, or possibly the Norman conquest of Britain. Although all flesh and tissue had long since gone, post-mortem examinations revealed that all three had been murdered, their throats cut with such violence that the marks of the blade were visible via notches on their bones.

  St Mary’s Church in Elmfield was packed to overflowing long before the service was scheduled to start. After Eve and I took our places in the front pew alongside Brian and Barbara, I took the opportunity to look around the building, which I’d never been inside before. I’d seen it when driving past of course, and had frequently marvelled at such a large church being built to service so small a community. It was typical of many constructed by the Normans following the invasion of 1066, although St Mary’s was on a grander scale than most. Equally unusual for a country church was the fact that St Mary’s boasted a lady chapel.

  It was to this building that Barbara and Brian had been brought when they were christened, and here that they worshipped as children. It seemed appropriate that the adventure in which they had been so closely involved should end here.

  Many of those attending that day were locals, but they would not have filled the church, let alone caused some to stand, or to remain outside. Their numbers had been swelled by the hordes of media representatives and those merely curious to observe proceedings.

  The events within our little community had gone from local headlines t
o national and then to international, and the focus of the media’s attention was centred on the most bizarre aspects of the case which had swept us all along with it.

  I’m not sure which of the reporters it was who had latched onto the story. I suppose any of those prepared to stand in the bar of the Admiral Nelson and buy a few rounds of drinks might have been rewarded by it. However, once the strange tale was backed up by the discoveries close to the Silent Lady, there was no holding the media back.

  The story of the Kaiser’s Gold, as the press dubbed it, was fascinating enough in itself. The return of Brian Latimer and his subsequent decision to donate his share of any wealth found on his land to charities working in Africa made for more sensational headlines. However, even these paled into insignificance once the greatest mystery became known.

  My thoughts as I looked around the church centred on the insoluble puzzle of the children whose remains were now shielded by three simple coffins that had been placed at the front of the church. The vicar, a young and enthusiastic parson, walked slowly forward to commence the ceremony. He had approached Brian beforehand to request his input regarding the content of the funeral. The resulting service was simple but immensely moving. When it was over, Brian and I assumed our positions along with the funeral directors to act as pallbearers for those poor unfortunate souls as we carried them to their final resting place.

  After the coffins had been lowered into position alongside the flowing waters of Thorsgill Beck, and the vicar gave the Benediction, we moved away. After leaving the churchyard, I looked back. Beyond the throng of mourners, media, and onlookers, I could see the three graves, illuminated by the pale winter sunshine. I shuddered, still affected by my encounter with things I could not explain.