The Vulture of Sommerset

by Stephen M. Giles

  ‘I am being careful,’ said Milo, his green eyes locked on the large picture window behind Whitlam. ‘And I know what I am doing.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Whitlam put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and tried to catch his eyes. ‘Lad, is everything all right? If you don’t mind my saying, you don’t seem like your normal self.’

  ‘Everything is fine, Whitlam. Is that all?’

  The old lawyer seemed lost for words. Then he said, ‘Well, if you won’t tell me what the money was for then yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘I’ll see you next month, then.’ Milo turned to leave then stopped suddenly. ‘Oh and Whitlam . . .’

  ‘Yes, lad?’

  ‘My cousins are not to know about this, is that understood?’

  The door slammed shut before the old lawyer could summon a reply.

  THE WALL KNOCKS BACK

  ‘Father, have you missed me greatly?’

  Isabella and Nathanial were riding through a field of blue poppies astride two magnificent Arabian horses. Flick, who ran the Sommerset stables, had saddled a chestnut gelding by the name of Oasis for Isabella and a black mare called Empire for Nathanial. They had circled the eastern side of the estate and were now cantering towards the parterre – Isabella was keen to show her father the lily pond which formed the centrepiece of her favourite garden at Sommerset.

  ‘I’ve missed you enormously, princess!’ Nathanial looked over at his daughter, trying desperately to frown (but alas his forehead was completely frozen). ‘You have no idea how much it hurts me every time I see your picture in the newspaper. That is why I hardly ever call or write – much too painful. Oh, if only I were not so busy.’ He sighed grandly. ‘I do what I must to survive. It is a cruel world out there, princess. I am just grateful that you will never have to struggle as I do.’

  Isabella looked dumbfounded. ‘But Father, you have the monthly allowance from the trust. Whitlam assures me it is most generous.’

  ‘That is true,’ said her father solemnly, ‘and I am not one to complain.’ He paused for dramatic effect before beginning his complaint. ‘But Whitlam does have me on a rather tight budget. It pains me to admit this, princess, but I haven’t bought a new suit in weeks.’

  Isabella looked away from her father. ‘You would like me to give you more money – is that it?’

  Nathanial looked utterly shocked and not a little offended. ‘Certainly not! What sort of father would I be if I allowed my billionaire daughter to lift me from poverty?’ The caramel-coloured man looked at his daughter and smiled lovingly. ‘I do hope I haven’t hurt your feelings, princess.’

  ‘No, Father, not at all,’ replied Isabella brightly. In fact, she was pleased that Nathanial had turned down her offer.

  Her father paused, stroking the Arabian’s mane. ‘Come now, I can see you are upset. I have been a bully.’

  ‘Honestly, Father, I am perfectly –’

  ‘Clearly you are determined to talk to Whitlam about doubling your father’s allowance. I see it is useless trying to argue with you.’ He reached out and grasped Isabella’s hand. ‘How lucky I am to have such a daughter. And princess, make sure Whitlam knows that the idea was yours and yours alone. You know how funny he gets about these things.’

  The young girl nodded. ‘All right, Father.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Nathanial kicked his horse fiercely and the dark Arabian broke into a gallop, blazing across the field of poppies with such velocity and grace you might think she had wings. Being a less experienced rider, Isabella trailed far behind and did not catch up to her father until he slowed to a trot. Fortunately she had used the extra time to come up with a brilliant idea.

  ‘Come and live here at Sommerset,’ she told him breathlessly.

  Nathanial pulled the mare up, coming to a halt at the edge of the field. ‘Here, princess?’

  ‘Oh Father, can you imagine?’ said Isabella, her pretty face beaming. ‘We could be together every single day. If you need more money I am sure Whitlam could find you a position with the Winterbottom Trust. And in summer we could travel together – to London and New York, anywhere we wanted. Oh Father, wouldn’t it be wonderful?’

  Now when a man has a face as smooth as Nathanial Winterbottom’s it can be rather difficult to tell what he is thinking. At that particular moment, however, Nathanial’s feelings were very clear. He looked as if he had just swallowed a weasel.

  ‘What a wonderful idea,’ he said, smiling awkwardly. ‘It’s perfect! I love it!’ Then he sighed. ‘If only it were possible.’

  The joy drained from Isabella’s blue eyes. ‘Why shouldn’t it be possible?’

  ‘Love, my dear,’ her father explained matter-of-factly. ‘I love you too much to be a burden. Princess, your life here is full – you have your cousins and the Winterbottom Trust and your schoolwork. You are famous! If I came to live here you would want to spend all your time taking care of me and I simply cannot allow that. As your father I must put my own selfish needs aside and do what is best for you.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I know what you are going to say, princess, and the answer if yes. Of course you can still talk to Whitlam about increasing my allowance.’ He glanced down at his solid gold watch. ‘Is that the time? The masseuse will be here in ten minutes. Princess, I will see you at dinner. Giddy up!’

  Isabella watched as her father galloped across the field. When he had faded to a blur, she dismounted, walking Oasis the rest of the way to the parterre. The girl and her horse moved slowly along the gravel paths which divided the elegant expanse of triangular flowerbeds brimming with roses and lilies. They came to a stop by the large lily pond at the centre of the garden.

  Oasis walked to the mossy edge and lowered his neck to drink the cool water. Isabella sat and watched the black and white swans glide across the surface, a rippled echo fanning out behind them. The sun flared in her eyes and she closed them, imagining just for a moment that she was happy and all was well.

  Milo was standing under the great Tudor arch which crowned the massive ballroom, watching his cousin knock on the room’s enormous bank of lime-panelled walls. With each knock she pressed one ear to the wall as if she were awaiting a reply.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The poor girl’s shoulders twitched and she gasped, her ginger mop bobbing about madly. ‘Milo!’ She clutched her chest. ‘You scared me to death.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said shyly. ‘I was in the conservatory and I heard banging. I thought it might be . . . Aunt Rosemary.’

  Adele nodded. ‘False alarm. Sorry.’

  ‘So what are you doing?’

  For a moment Adele looked slightly embarrassed; she may even have blushed. ‘Well, I’m checking the walls,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve been researching hidden rooms and it turns out that most of them were built behind false walls like the one I found in the summerhouse. The best way to find one is to knock on the wall and listen for any difference in sound. If a section of a wall sounds hollow or tinny, then you just might have something.’ She shrugged. ‘No luck so far.’

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’

  ‘Since last night.’

  ‘No wonder you look so worn out. You must rest, Adele, or you’re going to get sick.’

  ‘I’m really not that tired,’ she lied. Adele sat down on a bench that ran down one side of the ballroom. ‘Milo, about what happened yesterday, what Isabella said . . . I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Milo quickly.

  ‘You are nothing like Uncle Silas and deep down Isabella knows that too. She was just trying to impress Uncle Nathanial, that’s all.’ She paused and watched her cousin. He was barely a metre away from her yet it felt like there was a deep valley between them. ‘Something is troubling you; I can feel it.’

  The boy was silent, his eyes giving nothing away.

  ‘I know about the nightmares,’ said Adele, and Milo could not hide his surprise. ‘I’ve heard you calling out. I know you
dream about Uncle Silas.’ She stood up and moved towards Milo but he drew back, arms crossed over his chest. ‘Please, Milo, I want to help you.’

  Milo shook his head. ‘You can’t.’

  The girl did not know what else to say and a painful silence came to rest between them, marked by the crisp ticks of the grandfather clock at the far end of the ballroom. In time Milo looked up and noticed the mountain of old newspaper clippings and leather-bound notebooks on the bench.

  ‘So, Detective Winterbottom,’ he said, managing a crooked smile, ‘have you had a chance to discover if Captain Bloom was a jewel thief?’

  Adele grinned, grateful for the playful look on her cousin’s face. ‘Funny you should ask.’ She walked back to the bench and picked up a clipping from the top of a large pile. ‘I found this amongst Theodore Bloom’s papers.’

  She handed Milo the torn, yellowed newspaper article. It detailed a police raid made on Sommerset in the early hours of 22 February 1871. Following a tip-off from an ‘unnamed source’ the police had searched the island looking for the priceless Lazarus Rock. Captain Bloom had fiercely declared his innocence but the police remained convinced that he was the thief.

  ‘They searched for three days,’ said Adele, ‘and found nothing.’

  ‘So Captain Bloom didn’t steal the diamond,’ said Milo.

  Adele’s dark eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, but I think he did.’

  ‘He did?’ Milo put down the article and waited for an explanation.

  ‘I went back and looked over Captain Bloom’s journal entries for 22 October,’ she explained. ‘That is the date the Lazarus Rock was stolen from Trangara. Captain Bloom was there. Not only that, he writes about taking a souvenir with him when he left. The same day, Milo – that can’t be just a coincidence.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Milo.

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Adele, sifting through the stack of papers and pulling out a thin, dull envelope. ‘This is a letter from Captain Bloom’s mother begging him to come home and end his hunt for the Panacea. Bloom’s parents blamed Dr Mangrove for encouraging their son’s obsession with the plant.’

  Her cousin stiffened at the mention of the dreaded doctor but Adele pushed on.

  ‘His mother makes it clear that Captain Bloom will be cut off financially if he doesn’t break away from Dr Mangrove and end his wicked quest for the Panacea. My theory is that Captain Bloom needed money, lots of it, to fund Mangrove’s experiments with the Panacea. That’s why he stole the Lazarus Rock.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And it proves that there is a secret room in this house.’

  ‘It does?’ said Milo, looking baffled.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Adele forcefully. ‘If Bloom returned to Sommerset with the Lazarus Rock then why couldn’t the police find it when they searched the house? I’ll tell you why – because he had built the ultimate hiding place. Remember what he wrote in the journal:I have a room, hidden from all. The pieces all fit, Milo!’ She sighed, the exhaustion dulling her voice. ‘Captain Bloom had a forgotten room and I believe Aunt Rosemary is being held there.’

  Milo had to admit that while his cousin’s argument lacked hard proof, it did make a certain amount of sense. In fact, it was rather compelling.

  ‘I don’t know anyone who thinks the way you do, Adele,’ he said bashfully. ‘What I am trying to say is . . . if you believe in this forgotten room, then so do I.’

  Adele gasped. ‘You do?’

  ‘I do,’ said Milo. ‘And if you will let me, I would like to help you find it.’

  With a blast of joy surging through her (the sort that comes when you are believed at long last), Adele grabbed Milo by the arm and taught him the simple technique for testing the walls. Working together they finished the ballroom and the remainder of the eastern wing by early afternoon.

  Unfortunately, no wall had answered the knock.

  After a glass of lemonade and a slice of peach pie in the kitchen, Adele suggested they search the storeroom and the larder before heading to the hall of mirrors. Side by side the cousins checked the storeroom first and then moved into the cool of the larder. Many years earlier the room had been used to store meat and game, but now it was little more than a place to throw unwanted boxes and kitchen supplies. A large stone shelf was built into the southern wall beside an ancient set of stairs, and the low ceiling was anointed with a number of meathooks stained with streaks of dried animal blood.

  The cousins checked the walls of the larder but found nothing of interest apart from peeling paint and a web of cracks. Moving on, they mounted the rickety staircase for a quick inspection of the room above. The wooden planks of the staircase groaned under their feet as if they were climbing upon the very bones of its aching back.

  ‘Watch your step, Milo,’ said Adele gently (as if raising her voice might bring the whole thing tumbling down), ‘this doesn’t feel very sturdy at all.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I am.’

  When they reached the top they found a sad little room which had once been the sleeping quarters of a rather foul-smelling scullery maid by the name of Adelaide Robins. She’d died up there at the age of eighty-seven, suffocating on a hard sweet she had stolen from the kitchen.

  ‘I doubt anyone’s lived up here in years,’ said Milo, looking about the musty chamber.

  It was all very bare – the sort of place in which you might expect a starving painter to live or, at the very least, a poet. It had a low ceiling, bare floor and a narrow bed tucked away in a corner. The walls were solid stone and offered little promise of a hollowed chamber behind.

  While Milo checked the stone bricks around the tiny window, Adele knocked high and low across the far wall, even braving the dusty cavern under the bed. Then, moving to a gloomy corner of the room, she knocked with both fists up and down the joinery on either side. The walls were thick and her knocks died in the dense stone columns.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said with familiar regret.

  It was at that moment that a knock came back through the wall. It was loud and sharp, accompanied by a low scraping sound. Stunned, Adele turned to her cousin and found the boy already staring intently at the wall. He pointed to a low, narrow door at the opposite end of the wall, which the children knew gave onto a small wardrobe.

  ‘In there,’ he said softly. ‘It came from in there.’

  Taking small, halting steps, the Winterbottoms walked from either side of the dusty bedroom, meeting at the door. Milo glanced at Adele, recognising the terror and hope flickering across her face. A nod was exchanged and then the two cousins reached out, clasped the handle and began to open the door.

  RANSOM

  ‘It won’t open,’ whispered Adele frantically.

  ‘Try again,’ said Milo, tightening his grip on the doorknob.

  The handle let out a rusty scream as it turned and the children yanked again on the door. It would not move an inch. Adele gave a count of three and they pulled again. Like a hibernating bear the door could not be roused.

  ‘We have to get it open!’ declared Adele.

  A loud thump hammered from inside the wardrobe. The cousins jumped, startled. There was no doubting it – someone was trapped inside. It had to be Aunt Rosemary!

  They gripped the handle tightly and pulled back, their faces buckled and bright red, their eyes squeezed to narrow slits. Struggling in a tug of war, fingers twitching and bloodless, the door was a relentless opponent, refusing to be bullied.

  Thump! Thump! Each knock sounded more urgent than the one before.

  Adele and Milo yanked the handle with fresh determination. Very reluctantly the swollen wooden panels began to shift, scraping against the doorframe. Movement at last!

  ‘It’s opening!’ shouted Adele.

  They flexed their aching fingers then gripped the handle anew, pulling with their whole bodies. The door jammed again and then suddenly flew open, sending the cousins tumbling to the bare wooden floor.

  Inside there was only darkness.

  Adele pulled a s
mall torch from her pocket as they rushed into the dim wardrobe. The torch’s golden beam trembled as it travelled quickly down the narrow galley; the wardrobe was bare save for a metal rod running across the top, dotted with a handful of old wooden coathangers.

  ‘I don’t see anyone,’ whispered Milo.

  The golden light slithered deeper into the wardrobe, a serpent eating the darkness.

  ‘Look!’ cried Adele.

  Two feet were caught in the light. They were puffy, stuffed into ill-fitting black shoes . . . and they were hanging just above the floor, kicking wildly against the wall. The torch flew up and spotlighted the shocking figure – her arms tied to the rail above her head, the rope cutting into her wrists under the weight of her portly body, which hung several inches above the ground. A white gag was tied severely around her mouth.

  Adele gave a loud cry and raced towards the captive.

  Thinking quickly Milo ran back to the kitchen, where he pushed past a scullery maid cleaning pots in the sink and grabbed a large carving knife from a drawer and a wooden box from the storeroom. He sprinted up the stairs, two at a time, and was back inside the wardrobe, atop the box and cutting the rope before Adele even knew he had gone.

  When the last thread of the knotted rope was sliced, the victim’s plump arms fell like a bag of rocks and her body followed, slumping to the wardrobe floor. Carefully, Adele reached down and removed the gag.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Hammer,’ she whispered. ‘Who did this to you?’

  The housekeeper heaved, terrible sobs tumbling from her mouth, which was now branded with a purple and crimson bruise. She looked up at the children, her hazel eyes spilling tears. It was then, as the torch’s light flew over her chest, that Milo spotted the note pinned to Mrs Hammer’s apron: a crisp sheet of black paper covered in familiar delicate white print.

  Dear Winterbottoms,

  In exchange for the safe return of your aunt I require an object – the Vulture of Sommerset. It is a small statue made of solid silver and is approximately twenty-five centimetres in height. The Vulture has been in Sommerset House for over a century, yet its exact location remains a mystery. Your task is a simple one – find the Vulture of Sommerset and deliver it to me. You have three days. As ever, do not speak of this beyond the walls of Sommerset or your aunt will draw her last breath in captivity.