The Plantagenet Mystery

by Victoria Prescott

  ‘That sounds like the copy I sold a few months ago,’ said the dealer.

  ‘Really? Can you tell me where you got it?’

  ‘From a sale in London. A library from a big house in the county was being sold off. Ashleigh Manor. Most of it wasn’t very interesting, as I recall. I bought a few small lots that contained books of local interest that I knew I could sell on fairly easily. You’re the second person to enquire after that particular book,’ he added. ‘I shall begin to wish I’d put a higher price on it!’

  ‘Did you know the other person? Was it a man or a woman?’

  ‘A man. And no, I didn’t know him.’

  ‘Did you tell him who you sold the book to?’

  ‘Certainly not. I would never give out information about customers. I think I just said it was someone with a personal interest in the family, so it was unlikely she’d be interested in selling the book.’

  That was probably enough to identify Emily as the purchaser, if anyone was determined to track down the book, Rob thought. He thanked the bookseller and left the shop.

  The bookseller had said the library at Ashleigh had been sold. Rob wondered about the house. Was it still standing? Had it been replaced by some Georgian or Victorian mansion? Had twentieth century taxes and death duties caused it to be abandoned, perhaps to become derelict, to be demolished and replaced with modern housing? He turned into the reference library and headed for the local history section.

  Sir Thomas Mildmay’s house, with substantial nineteenth century additions, was still there, or had been as recently as ten years ago, when the book Rob was looking at had been published. The most recent owner was a Lord Somerden. The illustration in the book showed a solid, unpretentious country house, built of brick and local stone. Not the house of a man who had notions of grandeur. Was that where Richard Plantagenet’s account of himself had been hidden? It seemed likely, but how would one begin to search for it, even supposing it was still there? Even getting to Ashleigh would be a problem for him, Rob realised; it lay deep in the countryside, remote from any bus route or railway station. He photocopied the pages and set out for home.

  Chris was still at his house. Rob leaned against the wall, recounting what he had learned, as Chris worked.

  ‘I think we should go to Ashleigh, have a look round,’he finished.

  ‘You’re spending a lot of time on this, considering you don’t believe in it,’ Chris remarked. ‘Here, hold this here.’

  Rob steadied the cupboard as Chris unfastened the bolts that fixed it to the wall.

  ‘It’s a puzzle. I want to know the solution.’ Rob did not believe in the story of an unknown bastard of Richard III living out his life secretly as a bricklayer. But both Edward and Catherine Finch had believed it, and someone had wanted that book badly enough to try to steal it from Emily. Those handwritten notes seemed to be the only unique thing about it.

  ‘So, what about going to Ashleigh?’ he said.

  ‘How long would it take? I don’t want to take time away from here. And what d’you expect to find there?’

  ‘If we – or somebody – is looking for this secret document, the house seems a good place to start. It was being built at the time. I think it’s quite likely they’d have hidden it there. It would have been easy for Sir Thomas or Richard Plantagenet to do it without arousing any suspicion.’

  ‘Why hide it at all?’ said Chris. ‘Why not just get rid of it, if it was so dangerous?’

  Rob thought that if he had been in Sir Thomas Mildmay’s place he would have done the same. He could not have destroyed the only evidence of what really happened. Maybe, by hiding the document, and telling his family, Sir Thomas hoped to make it possible one day for the truth to be known.

  If it was true, Rob reminded himself. He was a serious academic historian; he should not let himself be carried away by a romantic story.

  ‘And why’s this all happening now?’ Chris was saying. ‘That writing’s been in that book for more than two hundred years, you said?’

  ‘I can guess why now,’ Rob said. ‘Until recently, it was in the library at Ashleigh, probably inaccessible to anyone else. But the whole thing was sold off a little while ago. Someone must have had a reason to think there was something special about the book, and thought that now they had a chance to get their hands on it. Somehow they didn’t manage to get it at the sale, but they found out that Emily bought it, so they’ve tried to get it from her. And as for why? An illegitimate son of Richard III that no-one knew about before? One who survived the Tudors’ elimination of all the Yorkist heirs? If it’s true, and there’s proof of it, it’d be a major discovery.’

  It would probably only be of interest to people with a deep interest in Richard III; it would barely be worth a footnote in academic texts. But still, it would be a discovery.

  ‘Look, if you’ll drive us out to Ashleigh to have a look round, I’ll pay for the petrol, and help you out on the house for as many hours as we’re out,’ he said. Chris was right; it was fanciful to think that just going to Ashleigh would achieve anything. But there did not seem to be any other avenue of enquiry left. And Rob’s curiosity was piqued; he wanted to see the place.

  They drove out to Ashleigh the next day through the winding lanes, Rob navigating, Chris muttering and cursing narrow roads and blind corners. The outskirts of the city gave way to countryside, rising in the gentle green folds of the chalk downs. Rob looked about him with appreciation. These were the same downs, sometimes the same houses, perhaps even the same fields, that the people he studied had worked and walked over centuries ago.

  He was recalled to the present by Chris speaking his name; they had reached a junction and Chris wanted to know which way to turn. Rob hurriedly consulted the map.

  ‘Left here, then right in about a mile.’ He folded the map and threw it onto the shelf above the dashboard.

  ‘No sign of Homer, I suppose?’ he asked, when Chris had made the turn.

  ‘No. I talked to his cousin again. Even his mum doesn’t know where he is.’

  ‘Isn’t she worried?’

  ‘No. She thinks he might’ve gone to his dad. She doesn’t know where he is, but she thinks Wayne does. Anyway, she’s not going to ask the police to start looking for him, when she doesn’t know what else they might dig up. Ryan – his cousin – thinks he’s probably pissed off the big boys this time, and he’s lying low somewhere.’

  Just before the Manor, they passed the church, a flint building with a low, square tower. As was common in the county, it stood isolated, the Manor the only building within sight. The church was now disused, Rob had discovered in his research on Ashleigh. ‘A small, mean structure,’ a Victorian guide to the county had said.

  At the entrance to the drive leading to the house were several boards, one announcing a luxury country hotel and restaurant opening the following year, the others advertising the builders, architects and other contractors working on the project. Other notices ordered all visitors to report to the site office and warned of a twenty four hour security patrol. Chris steered the van on to the grass verge opposite the entrance and switched off the engine.

  ‘What now?’ he said.

  ‘Now we go and have a look.’ Rob opened the passenger door and jumped down. He crossed the quiet lane and stood, just inside the gates. When Chris joined him, Rob led the way along the short drive to the open sweep at the front of the house. Much of the building was obscured by scaffolding. On one side was a couple of cabins, one with a notice identifying it as the site office, and some portable toilets.

  ‘Is that it?’ said Chris, looking at the rather unattractive building facing them.

  ‘No, that’s the nineteenth century part. They must have made this the new front of the house when they built it,’ Rob said. He moved off to his left. Around the corner of the building, forming a wing running at right angles to the newer part, was Sir Thomas Mildmay’s house of the 1540s. The house was two storeys, built of brick. On one side of the door wer
e two rows of mullioned windows, one above the other. On the other side, nearest to the nineteenth century part of the house, one row of double height windows.

  ‘That’s probably the great hall,’ said Rob. ‘That’s where Sir Thomas would do his formal entertaining. Those smaller windows on the other side were probably the parlour – his private room.’

  ‘Not much of a place, is it?’

  ‘Well, the Mildmays weren’t all that wealthy. And it didn’t pay to be too grand in Henry’s time. He might think you were getting too powerful, and have your house – and your head, too.’

  ‘The work’s pretty good, though,’ said Chris, going up for a closer look. ‘It’s not easy to lay these handmade bricks evenly. Reckon some of them were laid by this Plantagenet bloke?’

  ‘If he existed!’ said Rob.

  ‘So what now?’ said Chris, stepping back to look up at the house.

  ‘Well, the house was being built, or just finished, when the document was hidden – supposedly. You’re a builder – where would you hide something if your life maybe depended on it staying hidden?’

  ‘Somewhere it wouldn’t be disturbed. In the roof, or under the floor, or bricked up in the wall somewhere. And if that’s what they did, I’d say we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of finding it. Anyway, a bit of paper won’t have lasted all this time, hidden away under the floorboards or somewhere, will it?’

  ‘It might. It’d depend what conditions it’s been in. Whether it’s damp, for example. But it was probably parchment, not paper at all. That’s much more likely to have survived.’

  ‘Parchment? I thought that was just a fancy word for paper. What’s the difference?’ Chris asked.

  ‘Parchment is animal skin, scraped clean and used for writing. Paper back then was made of linen, so – ’

  ‘Hey!’

  They turned to see who was calling. A uniformed security guard was approaching, his red hair vivid against the dark autumn colours of the grounds.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ he demanded.

  ‘Just having a look round, mate,’ Chris said.

  ‘This is private property. You’ll have to leave.’

  ‘He's looking for a job,’ said Rob, suddenly inspired. ‘We saw the sign at the gate, thought we’d come in and see if there's anything going.’

  ‘That's your van parked outside, then? Well, there’s no-one here today. If you give me your name and number, I can leave a note for the boss to call you, if you like.’

  ‘Er, no, that’s OK. I can come back tomorrow,’ said Chris.

  Although the guard’s suspicions seemed to have been eased, it was clear he intended to see them off the premises. They allowed him to walk them back to the lane; he stood and watched as they drove away.

  A mile or so away from Ashleigh, Rob spotted a large pub, advertising Sunday lunches.

  ‘Pull in here, let’s get some lunch,’ he said. Chris swung into the car park and pulled up, the van looking incongruous next to the 4x4s and family saloons already parked there. While they were sitting with their drinks, waiting for their roast dinners to be brought to them, Chris said,

  ‘You dropped me in it back there. Now I’ll have to go back tomorrow, or it’ll look iffy. That bloke probably took the van’s number, they could track me down.’

  ‘Why would they? Anyway, why don’t you want to go back? I thought it was a good idea. You need a job, and it’s a perfect opportunity to get in there and have a look round.’

  ‘I need a job, yeah, but I’ve never worked on an old place like that. Modern stuff, that's all I know.’

  ‘It won’t all be old stuff. If it’s going to be a hotel, they’ll need to put in bathrooms and modern electrics and so on,’ Rob pointed out.

  ‘It’s not my sort of thing. It’s not as if I’ll ever be able to go there when it’s finished.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever go there, either,’ Rob said. ‘I’m not likely to have that kind of money. But it’s a job, and a chance to have a look around.’

  ‘And what d’you expect me to look for? We don’t know if this paper or parchment ever existed, we don’t know if it was hidden in the house, we don't know if it’s still there, and we haven’t got a clue where to start looking!’

  ‘You’re the one who thought we should try to solve this ourselves, instead of telling the police what we know,’ Rob reminded him. ‘Have you got any better ideas?’

  ‘I thought you should try to solve it. I didn’t mean you to drag me into it!’

  ‘You dragged yourself into it. Whose idea was it to kidnap Jason?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, all right. But I don’t see how me going to work there will help find this paper, or parchment, when we don’t know where to look, or even if it’s still there. For all you know, someone might have found it years ago.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll have to look into that – see if there are any family papers,’ said Rob.

  When they had finished eating they moved to the bar for coffee, as there was a large family party waiting to sit down. Rob struck up a conversation with the landlord.

  ‘I see the manor house is being done up. It’s been empty for a while, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. The old Lord Somerden died last year. Before that, he was in a home for a few years, since his wife died. Must be – oh, around five years since anyone lived in the house, and they only lived in a corner of it before that. My wife used to go and do a bit of cooking and cleaning for them, just to help out, when they got so they couldn't manage for themselves. That was before I was made redundant and we bought this place. We’ve been here nearly six years; I was at the – ’

  Rob steered the conversation away from the landlord’s redundancy.

  ‘So who’s the new Lord Somerden? Did he inherit the house with the title?’

  ‘It’s the old lord’s brother. A good bit younger than him – but that’s not saying a lot, since the old lord was over ninety, I think. The old lord only had daughters. I think there are some grandsons – my wife knows all about it – but of course they couldn't inherit the title. The new lord got the house, but I don’t know how that worked – whether it went with the title or not.’

  ‘So is it Lord Somerden – the new one – who’s having all the work done?’

  ‘Well, I never heard that it was sold, so I suppose so.’

  The landlord’s wife, when she emerged from the kitchen after the lunchtime rush was over, was able to tell them a little more.

  ‘The new lord, he worked in the City, I think. I don’t remember ever seeing him here before the old lord died. I don’t mean they’d quarrelled, or anything. Just that they weren’t close. They were half brothers, you know. Their father was married twice, and there was around twenty years between them, I think. Henry, the old lord, he had his wife and daughters and grandchildren, so.... But why do you want to know all this?’

  ‘I’m a local historian. I’m researching some of the old county families,’ said Rob.

  ‘Did you want to see the church? There are some old tombs and memorials in there. We’ve got the key.’

  ‘Not today, thanks. What I’d really like to know is whether there are any old family papers, maybe going back hundreds of years.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. You’d need to ask the new lord.’

  Perhaps they would have to, Rob thought.

  Over the next couple of days, searches of the catalogues at the Wynderbury record office and on the internet quickly established that no papers from Ashleigh had ever been deposited. Rob wondered if the family papers might have been included in the library sale. He returned to the secondhand bookshop where he had learned of the book sale.

  ‘Was it only books being sold? No early manuscripts?’

  ‘Not that I recall,’ the bookseller said. ‘But manuscripts aren’t an interest of mine, so I might not have noticed. I think I still have the catalogue here somewhere, if you’d like to see it.’

  ‘Ye
s, I would, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  While the dealer rummaged in the storeroom at the back of the shop, Rob browsed the shelves. There was a paperback biography of Richard III that looked well researched. Rob took it and a couple of other books to the counter. He probably could have found them cheaper elsewhere, but he reckoned he owed the man something for his time and cooperation.

  When the catalogue was produced, the bookseller’s memory proved to be accurate; there had been no manuscripts included in the sale. Rob made a note of the name of the auctioneers who had handled the sale, on the off chance that the family papers had been sold separately, returned the catalogue to the bookseller, paid for his books and left.

  He telephoned the auction house, sticking to his story of being a local historian with an interest in Ashleigh and families who had lived there. After some delay and transferring from one office to another, he was eventually connected to the person who had dealt with the sale of the library. She confirmed that they had not sold any collections of papers from Ashleigh.

  ‘They might have been sold privately, of course, or through some other house, but I never heard anything about any papers, and I had quite a lot of contact with Lord Somerden. I think I’d have heard about it, if he’d been selling any family papers,’ she said. Rob thanked her, and ended the call. Another dead end.

  He reported his findings to Chris.

  ‘People sell old papers? What, letters and stuff?’

  ‘Yes, and accounts, legal papers, anything really.’

  ‘Who’d want to buy them?’

  ‘Well, the record office might, if it was an important local collection. And American universities often buy collections of papers. We might have to see if we can get in touch with Lord Somerden and ask him if there are any papers.’

  Claire telephoned that evening.

  ‘Dad’s flown over from Spain. He’s going to take Auntie Emily back with him for a bit. You know he and Mum have got a villa out there? So she won’t be at your class on Friday.’

  Rob was relieved. He had not decided what to tell Emily about the book and the writing in it, and was uncomfortable with the idea of returning the book to her as long as there was the slightest possibility of another attempt to steal it. Claire seemed to be thinking along similar lines.