EG05 - Garden of Secrets Past
Page 29
“I’m curious, Lawrence,” said Andrew, sipping his wine. “Did you ever figure out who was shadowing you? Was it Morley’s people?”
“You mean the man on the King’s Road and the one in the BMW?”
“Right.”
“They were Wheatley’s tails. He told me that with the case at a standstill, it might be a good idea to know where I was going and whom I was talking to. That’s how he knew I’d gone to see Dorothy Endicott, among other things.”
“And what about the gold horseshoe, the one Lytton gave you?”
“What do you mean?”
“How come Julian Heywood had one in his drawer? You’d said that he and his father-in-law were not on speaking terms.”
“Ah, yes. For a while I thought there might be a connection between Julian Heywood and Bryce Lytton, that they might be involved somehow in Endicott’s murder. It really made no sense, but I eventually called Julian and asked him how he came by the horseshoe. Apparently his mother had given it to him years ago. That’s all there was to it.”
Soon the conversation drifted to more pleasant matters: Amanda admiring Andrew’s Georgian house, commenting on the furniture, décor, and the garden, wanting to know more about it. Andrew was only too glad to oblige, launching into a lengthy explanation of its history: built for a famous Shakespearian actor around the mid-nineteenth century and the garden laid out much later by a theater-set designer. He finished by giving Kingston most of the credit for the way the garden looked today.
Some forty minutes later they’d finished Andrew’s sherry trifle and were having coffee when Kingston seized the conversation in a rather unexpected way.
“I hesitate to bring up Sturminster again,” he said, “but with everyone, including myself, naturally focused on the events and crimes of the present, we’ve tended to overlook the past. We shouldn’t forget that it was what actually took place at Sturminster two hundred and sixty years ago that got Tristan interested in the first place.”
Andrew frowned. “I’m not sure that I’m following you. Hasn’t the, quote, ‘Sturminster legend’ been laid to rest? Don’t we now have a pretty good idea of what happened in those days?”
“I believe we still have only partial knowledge. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but in the coming weeks the nation will be shocked again when it’s revealed what else might have happened back then. It’s incomprehensible how it’s remained such a guarded secret all these centuries and it also provides a clearer understanding of why Samuel Morley went to such lengths with the complicated secret codes to protect his ill-gotten fortune and other crimes.”
Andrew shrugged and glanced at Amanda. “He does this occasionally. It’s the professor coming out.”
Kingston ignored the flip comment. “I’ll explain,” he said. “It was something that Tristan said that day at the hospital that stuck with me. He talked about ‘damning information’ and ‘heinous crimes.’ It took me time to realize that while we were focusing on the hidden cache of money, there could be another, more macabre, secret that Samuel Morley had to live with—”
Amanda interrupted. “The ‘heinous crimes’ part?”
“Exactly. And ‘guilt-ridden bricks.’”
“That was a clever play on words,” said Andrew.
Kingston nodded. “Lying in that underground room, after I’d noticed the gold inside the brick, I started thinking: How could Morley have built the room under the temple without others knowing that the bricks were filled with gold ingots, if indeed they all are?”
“Are you talking about the workers, the bricklayers?” asked Amanda.
“Mostly. There was someone else, too—a man who played a big part in Morley’s grand design for Sturminster. The man who had designed and overseen construction of his monuments and had undoubtedly helped construct the room under the temple before the temple was built—Matthew Seward, the architect.”
Andrew looked confused. “Where is all this going?”
“I’m getting to that.” Kingston glanced about the terrace while gathering his thoughts. “Oxbridge-Bell’s book on the history of Sturminster gives passing reference to certain deaths on and around the estate during the period in question, oddly enough all male. Though lacking specifics, the author concluded that most were either accidental or job related—no mention of homicides. What is more telling, however, is a single paragraph concerning Matthew Seward. It states that Seward disappeared soon after he’d completed Sturminster’s monuments, and no reports of his death have ever been presented or recorded. He simply disappeared. One explanation offered was that Seward had traveled often to various parts of Europe and the Middle East, and it has been speculated that he might have died while on one of these journeys.”
“So what are you getting at?” Andrew frowned.
“I’m suggesting that when the time comes to dismantle the room under the temple to find out exactly how much gold it contains, further excavation will reveal that it also served as the tomb of one or more workers and possibly Matthew Seward.” He paused, as if to underline the gravity of what he’d proposed. “I believe that’s what Tristan had in mind when he said ‘heinous crimes.’”
Amanda grimaced. “You’re saying that they knew too much and had to be … silenced?”
“Either that or they’d resorted to blackmailing Morley. If you think about it, he’d have had little choice—a fortune amassed over several decades was buried under that temple.”
“Grisly. The tabloids are going to have a field day with that,” said Andrew.
Kingston nodded. “They will, I’m sure. And you know what? I wouldn’t be at all surprised as the days pass if even more transgressions surface, when the tattered pages of Sturminster’s sordid past come under closer scrutiny.”
“I trust you won’t be part of that inquiry, Lawrence,” said Amanda.
“Not on your life. I’m done with it.”
“Then let’s talk about something else.”
“How about more coffee?” Andrew interjected.
Amanda said yes. Kingston declined, and Andrew left for the kitchen.
Alone again, a silence fell between them, as if each was waiting for the other to say something first. Finally Amanda spoke.
“I’ve been making quite a few changes to the house,” she said. “I’ve cleaned out Tristan’s office and painted it, and I may get the floor refinished. I’m also getting rid of a lot of stuff.” She paused, fingering the string of amber beads resting on her blouse. “I was thinking it might be … well, I wondered if you’d like to come up to Stafford again. There are two things in particular that I wanted to tell you about.”
He smiled. “You make it sound quite mysterious.”
“I had planned to surprise you, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t know now.” She stopped fidgeting with the beads and dropped her hands into her lap. “The first is the wine cellar.” After a pause, she went on, her voice more upbeat. “I’ve really no need for it and I could use the space. Before I start dismantling it, I thought you might like to go through the bottles and pick out those you’d like.”
“My goodness. Are you sure?”
She nodded. “If you don’t take them, someone else will. I’ll keep a few, and what remains I’ll either sell or give away.”
“That’s extremely generous of you. Wait ’til I tell Andrew.”
“Bring him with you when you come up. We can make a day of it. Lunch and a wine tasting.”
“It sounds delightful. When he comes back we’ll set a date. You won’t have to ask him twice.”
Kingston picked up his water glass, draining what little was left in it as Amanda started to rummage in her purse. “You mentioned two things,” he said.
“Yes. The other has to do with Charlie. I want you to meet him,” she said, appearing to have found what she was looking for.
Who on earth was Charlie? he wondered. Perhaps she’d hired a gardener—she’d talked about that possibility. It couldn’t be a new boyfriend, su
rely?
She closed her purse, looked up at him, and slid a small photo across the table. “Here,” she said. “He’s two months old.”
Kingston was looking at a close-up of a black puppy with its tongue hanging out.
“You’ll love him. He’s adorable. I got him from the animal shelter last week—part Lab, part sheepdog.”
Kingston grinned. “Well done. I can’t wait to meet him. That reminds me, I should return your Pet Tag.”
“No, you hang on to it, as a keepsake. He already has the old-fashioned kind.”
Kingston handed her the photo and leaned back, measuring his next words carefully.
“Amanda,” he said, pausing, “I want you to know … to know how much I’ve admired your courage and composure during these last horrendous weeks. There’s no point in dwelling on the past, other than to think about the irony of it: Were it not for all that misery, we’d never have met.”
He waited for her to say something, but all she did was return his gaze with an amused look, as if sympathizing with his struggle for words.
Kingston shifted in his seat, wondering whether to continue. “Maybe that didn’t come out right. What I’m trying to say—”
“You don’t have to say anything, Lawrence,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “It won’t change anything. We survived, didn’t we? And that’s all that matters.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“I’ll go on loving and missing Tristan, and being forever thankful for what you’ve done. As for the future, I’m going to do my best to erase all thought of these last wretched weeks and, as the cliché goes, simply get on with my life.” She stopped herself, as though wondering whether to leave it at that, then continued. “There’s one more thing I’d like to say, and then we’ll drop the whole thing before we both become mawkish. And that would be embarrassing.”
Kingston nodded.
“I’d like it if we could remain friends. As you know, I don’t have too many, and at least you’ll have seniority—I mean that in a positive sense, of course,” she finished with a mischievous grin.
“In that case, I accept.”
“That makes me very happy.”
Kingston smiled and leaned back. “For a single rose can be my garden … a single friend, my world.”
“That’s nice. Did you make that up?”
“No. I stole it.”
Ready with the coffee, Andrew could hear their laughter from the kitchen.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE CODES
From the beginning it was clear that encoding and deciphering codes would play a pivotal role in my story and it was imperative that they be accurate. To achieve this, I was privileged to obtain methodology from the science writer and author Simon Singh, MBE, and Cary Davids at the American Cryptogram Association.
After a rudimentary self-imposed course to make sure that I understood the process, there remained the task of compiling the two riddles. The first was easy, based on a simple shift of letters as described by Kingston to Andrew on page 188. But devising the second (Winterborne) riddle took considerable time and racking of my nonmathematical brain. First, the riddle required the exact number of characters as those in the poem’s seven lines. Next, it had to give the solver not only exact but also cryptic instructions on how to open the secret chamber. Last, it had to have relevance to the frieze and the chariot and be couched in language believable enough to have been written in the eighteenth century. I have no idea how many days passed before I’d managed to compile the riddle, but I know that in the end, few empty pages remained on my notepad.
For readers interested in knowing exactly how the Winterborne code (ciphertext) was created (enciphered), following is the mathematical formula:
First, the letters of the poem (the key) were assigned a number (shift) based on their numerical position in the alphabet. Thus, with the first word of the poem, THEIR, the first letter T = 20, H = 8, E = 5, I = 9, and R = 18. The next step was to shift the letters of the MESSAGE (plaintext) using the same process. Thus with NEATH, the first letter N = 14, E = 5, A = 1, T = 20, and H = 8.
Creating the code (ciphertext) can be done in two ways: the first, by manually shifting each individual letter, which I experimented with using two separate strips of the alphabet, sliding one under the other and counting off the letters to determine each coded letter. A far less laborious method was provided by the ACA:
Winterborne Code
1st plaintext letter (message):
N = letter 14 of the alphabet
1st key letter (poem):
T = letter 20 of the alphabet
1st ciphertext letter (code):
H = letter 8 of the alphabet
The shifted letter (code) is determined by adding the numerical positions of plaintext and key letters. In this case, the code number would be 34 (20 + 14). But since there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, the code letter (H) is arrived at by deducting 26 from 34.
2nd plaintext letter (message):
E = letter 5 of the alphabet
2nd key letter (poem):
H = letter 8 of the alphabet
2nd ciphertext letter (code):
M = letter 13 of the alphabet
In this case, the shifted code letter (M) is 13 (5 + 8). Note that this is determined by addition, not subtraction, if the total of plaintext and key letters do not exceed 26.
Following this formula, the first five coded letters of the Winterborne code are HMFCZ, which when decoded = NEATH.
Enciphering Rule
Number of ciphertext letter = number of plaintext letter plus number of key letter. If the number of the ciphertext letter is greater than 26, subtract 26 to get the correct letter number.
Deciphering Rule (reverse of enciphering)
Number of plaintext letter = number of ciphertext letter minus number of key letter. If the number of the plaintext letter is less than 0, add 26 to get the correct letter number.
Applying the deciphering rule to the Winterborne code, the first letter of the message is obtained by deducting the numerical position of the first letter of the poem (T = 20) from the numerical position of the first letter of the code (H = 8). 8 minus 20 equals minus 12. Since this is less than 0, add 26 to get the answer 14, the numerical position of letter N (first letter of the message).
ALSO BY ANTHONY EGLIN
The Blue Rose
The Lost Gardens
The Water Lily Cross
The Trail of the Wild Rose
The characters, settings, and events depicted in this novel are fictitious, as is the garden description, layout, and security installations at Sturminster, Staffordshire. Any resemblance to actual people, events, or places is entirely coincidental.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
GARDEN OF SECRETS PAST. Copyright © 2011 by Anthony Eglin. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Eglin, Anthony.
Garden of secrets past / Anthony Eglin.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Thomas Dunne book.”
ISBN 978-0-312-64836-7
1. Kingston, Lawrence (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Botanists—Fiction. 3. Historic gardens—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 5. Family secrets—Fiction. 6. England—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3605.G53G37 2011
813'.6—dc22 2011005100
First Edition: August 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-2384-2
First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: August 2011
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter
Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
A Few Words About the Codes
Also by Anthony Eglin
Copyright