Repeat Business
Page 25
“You know who the thieves were, do you not?”
“I believe so, but I have been more fortunate in this matter than you, Watson. I know one thing you never learned. If I am right, then Mr. Hilton Soames and his grandmother will receive a most pleasant surprise quite apart from the button-box you will be able to return to her tomorrow. But before we do so, I wish to make an examination of the button-box. I think there may be more to it than is easily visible.”
And with that he took up the box, emptied it of its contents, and began to poke and pry gently at all aspects of the pieces where they joined. There was no sound, but of a sudden a portion of the inner lid came open and Holmes muttered in satisfaction.
“I thought so. Look here, Watson. A secret cavity; there is nothing within, but I think there once was. It was the contents of this cavity the thieves sought.”
“How did they know it was there? Do you know?”
“I believe so. All we have to do is ask a last question or two of Mr. Hilton Soames, and I must check some papers at the University library. I saw them when I was researching some early English charters there last. With a sight of that to refresh my memory, and the answers I seek, all the threads shall be in my hands.”
We departed the hotel mid-morning the next day, and took a cab to the University where Holmes paused at the library to ask for certain documents that he perused carefully. We then gathered up Soames and went thence to his grandmother’s small house. Her joy when I produced her button-box was extreme.
“I knew you could do it, Mr. Holmes. I was sure a man like you would succeed where the police would not even look. But who stole it from me and why?”
Holmes spoke to her grandson. “When I was here some months ago you had three pupils, each working towards the Fortescue Scholarship. One attempted to cheat and then in a fit of conscience resigned from the attempt. Tell me of the two who remained; which of them gained the valuable scholarship?”
Soames shook his head. “Both and neither, sir. In the end they were so closely marked on all their work that it was decided to share the scholarship between them.”
“How is it that neither can afford the University without the Fortescue?”
“Miles McLaren is a brilliant scholar; he has vast amounts of knowledge in many areas, some quite exotic, but he is completely undisciplined and will not work. Nor are his family wealthy, since I fear that the family trait of gambling has lost them most of their estates over the generations.”
“What are the exotic areas of which you speak?”
“He loves antiques and knows something about many periods; he also enjoys history and has often spent time when he should have been working in looking up obscure and rare papers at the University library.”
“What of your other scholar?”
“Daulat Ras is Indian of the highest caste. His father was once a ruler and a fanatic, or so I am told, on the family’s history, but through a rebellion of his subjects he was cast down. The family has some money, but not enough to keep the lad at St. Luke’s for the time required for him to qualify. Both had sufficient money to pay their first year; the Fortescue will allow them to complete their second year and a half of their third. Both however, wish to continue for the third and fourth years.”
Mrs. Soames piped up. “Now, sir, we have answered your questions. Do you answer mine. Who stole my button-box and why?”
Holmes reached for the box and manipulated it so that the hiding place opened within the lid. “Your box was stolen for the buttons it held, not in the body of the box, but within this hiding place.” Both Soames were staring at the box incredulously. “I believe that your family’s name for the box arose, not because you used it for buttons after you were given it, but because it was given to your family first to hold safe and secret a very special set of buttons.
“If there is one thing I have learned over and over, it is that family legends hold truth in them, but equally, that that truth may be confused and obscure even to the family who tell the story. This button-box is not English to begin with. Some noble in this land would never have given it to a Soames. It is of Indian work and no more than two hundred years old. It appears English because the maker copied an English sailor’s sea chest.
“Now, much further back in history there was a Soames who was valet to King Charles the First. I cannot prove this sequence of events, but it is my belief that the valet passed letters between his imprisoned king and the king’s son. In gratitude for the kindness, and before King Charles was taken out to die, he cut a set of buttons from the clothing he would leave behind him and gave them to the valet. These were retained in the family as a treasure.
“Some generations later a Soames visiting India came into possession of the button-box, being shown its secret and deciding that it should be used for the keeping in secret of the set of buttons. I think it was for that that it was named the button-box. Since using it for other buttons would hide its other purpose, it was so used and that usage continued.
“Tell me, was not your great-grandfather slain when he was only a young man?” Soames and his grandmother both nodded. “So, the secret was lost. This box became just the family button-box and no more. However, there is another secret. In the University library there lies an early English Charter covering all Universities that existed at that time. In that the second Charles has written a brief paragraph which is obscure to any who do not know the reason.”
Holmes took from his pocket a piece of paper and read slowly: “And further to scholarships listed, if any shall come with a set of the buttons once owned by my dear father and present them to any University, then shall that man or any other he shall designate, be free of whichever University he please for the period of five years in total. Such a time he being free also to break or change at his own choosing.”
He looked at Soames. “As I understand it, that can be construed to mean that the man who produces this set of buttons is free to attend any University of his choosing for five years and all expenses must be borne by that University. He may also as it says, ‘break or change the period.’ In other words, that five years may be split between two or even three persons. Your pupils apart did not know enough to utilize the information, but I believe one spoke to the other and together they decided to steal the button-box.”
Mrs. Soames glared. “You mean the Indian knew about the hiding place in my box, that it was possibly from his family when mine received it? And that other man read about King Charles and then about the charter, so they decided to steal my button-box to make sure they could stay at St. Luke’s?” Holmes nodded. “What will you do to them, and—” in something of a wail, “what about the buttons?”
“Do not fear for them. What would it profit Ras and McLaren to flee? No, they will stay waiting for the right time to produce their plunder and buy themselves time to study without cost. We have only to approach them correctly and they will yield up their loot, tamely, I believe, so long as there will be no prosecution.”
And the thieves did so once it was put to them what they had done and a search of their rooms uncovered the priceless buttons. I saw them once before they were taken to the Soames’ family bank and deposited there. Upon that sight I realized why they had been kept secret originally. The set of twelve was of fine gold, each centered with the monarch’s crest, and that centered again with a fine diamond. The edge of each button was outlined with a ring of small sapphires.
To be found in possession of those before the Second Charles ascended the throne would have been death for valet Soames. Afterwards, he may simply have cherished the last memento he had of his fallen King. None of us can be sure; it was all too long ago.
Ras and McLaren were not charged with the robbery of Mrs. Soames. However, their scholarship was stripped from them and where they went after that I do not know. It was Holmes who had the last word on them some weeks after we had returned to his rooms in London.
“The true folly on their part was the open robbery o
f Mrs. Soames, and that they would have used the King Charles buttons to fulfil the charter. How could they explain their possession of them? Whereas had they stolen the button-box quietly from the Soames’ house, abstracted the buttons, returned the box, and made arrangements to sell the King Charles buttons privately to some American millionaire who would remain silent, they would have obtained sufficient money to have paid their required time at the University twice over—and would have been most unlikely to have been caught—or even suspected.”
With which conclusion, and needless to say, I agreed. Holmes was right in another thing as well. Neither of us ever wishes to hear the words ‘button-box’ again, nor have I any wish to see one. The Soames’ button-box has been sufficient to last us our remaining years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LYN McCONCHIE started writing professionally in 1990, and since then has seen thirty-one of her books published in several genres, including nonfiction, as well as 250+ stories covering a similar range. Lyn was a long-time friend of Andre Norton, in whose worlds she wrote seven science-fantasy books, three of which won New Zealand’s Sir Julius Vogel Award. She has also won awards for her short stories, including six Muse medallions from the International Cat Writers Association.
Lyn owns a small farm in New Zealand’s North Island—where she breeds colored sheep, and has free-range geese and hens. She shares her 1872 farmhouse with 8,000 books and her Ocicat, Thunder. Her humorous nonfiction DAZE series, chronicling life with her friends, farm, and livestock, which began with the publication of Farming Daze in 1993, continues with the seventh book, Rustic (and Rusted) Daze, published in early 2013.
Lyn’s credits and blog can be found at:
www.lynnmcconchie.com