The Maltese Herring

by L. C. Tyler

  She looked up, startled.

  ‘You seem to be lost,’ I said. ‘I thought you knew where you were going?’

  ‘Yes. Very silly of me. I must have turned right when I should have turned left. Or something. Rather foolishly I have found myself here. But … was this by any chance Dr Joyner’s room, when he stayed with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  She nodded thoughtfully, as if entering a bedroom in mistake for the cloakroom was quite normal, at least amongst those of the right background. ‘I suppose he must have left his belongings with you – I mean, he wasn’t in any position to take them with him. Not to where he is now. Sadly.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘But his bag isn’t here now?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve just had a brilliant thought, Ethelred. I could take it to Oxford. By a strange coincidence, I’m driving up there very soon. If the bag is easy to find – obviously I wouldn’t wish to put you to any trouble – then I could just take it with me now.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m sure that it is safe in your hands. But, if there’s anything I can do to help tie up any loose ends for poor Dr Joyner, I’d be very pleased to help. Perhaps, if you’ve now looked inside, there might be something in his bag that puzzled you, but which I might be able to explain? As a committee member with a knowledge of the Abbey.’

  ‘There’s nothing in the bag that needs explaining,’ I said.

  ‘So, you have looked? But I thought …’ She paused and bit her lip. I waited for her to say what she thought, but she did not.

  ‘I’ve already had one enquiry about it,’ I said, ‘as you appear to know. So, yes, I did check after Professor Cox’s call. There’s nothing in the bag apart from some clothes and an empty envelope.’

  ‘Empty?’

  ‘Completely empty.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘It’s not something I need a second opinion on.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. And the thing that was in the envelope – before it was empty – he couldn’t have concealed it somewhere in the house?’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘I merely wondered.’

  ‘If he did, I would have found it by now.’

  Iris nodded. ‘I just thought I’d ask. To ascertain the facts. In case I could help in any way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ve told the family that I’ll return the bag to them, just as it is. I’ve told Professor Cox. And that’s what I shall do, if anyone lets me.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to interfere,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t say you were.’

  ‘If you change your mind …’ she said.

  ‘You’ll be the first to know,’ I said. ‘You, then Professor Cox. In that order.’

  As she was leaving, she paused for a moment and frowned. She glanced back, through the sitting-room door, and out into the garden.

  ‘That rose,’ she said. ‘You know, on second thoughts, I should be patient with it. Give it another chance. Plenty of water and compost. No digging. Just mulch the surface. Yes, that’s what I’d do. Regard it as a challenge, Ethelred.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the advice, Iris.’

  After she’d gone, it occurred to me that she hadn’t asked me whether I’d decided, on reflection, to join the committee. Perhaps, like Henry Polgreen, she’d decided it wasn’t so very urgent after all.

  The email arrived that evening. It was from Joyner’s ex-wife – or perhaps I should now say ex-widow, if there is such a term.

  Dear Mr Tressider,

  My late husband’s underpants and toothbrush have, for some years now, been of minimal interest to me. I have informed the College that I wish nothing to be forwarded – not clothes, not household chattels and certainly not history books relating to any period. Whatever it is you have in those bags, you may keep. I am sure Hilary would have wanted you to have it, so that’s fine. Alternatively, if he’d have hated your having it, that’s fine too. Either way, it’s all yours, as a gift from me, and I wish you well of it. No need to write and thank me. I’m happy just to imagine your joy at the receipt of this email.

  Kind regards

  Lesley Joyner

  This seemed eminently sensible. The cost of sending the bag to Spain would far outweigh its value. Then I noticed that she had mentioned bags in the plural, a natural mistake when I had not specified the number. There was just the one bag in the attic. Except, now I thought about it, hadn’t there also been a rucksack that Joyner had been carrying at the Abbey? Where was that? I tried to remember us setting off for our walk. Joyner had been clutching his map in both hands. I was pretty sure that he hadn’t had the bag with him then. And we would have noticed if he’d left it on the terrace at the Priory – if not when Iris and I arrived back there, then certainly later after his body was discovered. Unless Joyner’s killer – if he had had such a thing – had stolen the bag while we were all still wandering round the garden?

  That was possible. But there was a more likely solution to the mystery of the missing bag. I went outside and opened the door of my car. A small rucksack was stuffed underneath the front passenger seat. I pulled it out. I took it inside and unzipped it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Elsie

  ‘So that’s it?’ I said. ‘That there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘You thought it was worth lugging that random paper collection up to London to show me, just in case I turned into an archivist since you last saw me?’

  ‘This,’ said Ethelred, ‘is the original inventory of Sidlesham Abbey in 1530.’

  He seemed to think I should be impressed and whip out some white cotton gloves before handling it.

  ‘I thought Barclay-Wood nicked it?’ I said.

  ‘Well, Joyner seems to have found it again,’ he said. ‘It seems to be the genuine article. It was in the rucksack.’

  I picked up the genuine original inventory. It looked like one of the dullest documents I’d ever come across, and I have drunken deep of many slush piles, electronic and paper. At least there was no covering letter telling me how much I was going to love it because it was just like an inventory that J. K. Rowling had written.

  ‘What you’re saying is that this is a list of stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Dead monk stuff?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ethelred. He was pleased I finally understood and shared his boundless enthusiasm. ‘Until the commissioners appropriated it, obviously. Then it was the King’s stuff.’

  ‘Lucky King.’

  I tried to work out what the list said. It wasn’t entirely clear.

  ‘So, there was nobody around to teach handwriting until 1531 at least?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s how they wrote in the sixteenth century,’ said Ethelred, as if that ever excused anything.

  It just looked like a load of squiggles to me. I explained this to Ethelred.

  ‘The handwriting isn’t that difficult to interpret, once you get your eye in,’ he said. ‘And thoughtfully they wrote it in English rather than Latin. Mainly, anyway.’

  He talked me through: Imprimis i golde and blew enamel chalis, shewing the Virgin enthroned … then vii sylver candelle stikkes … then iii sylver cuppes.

  ‘They certainly had crap spellcheckers in 1530,’ I said.

  ‘Spelling was rather looser in those days.’

  ‘No shit? What does that line say?’ I asked.

  ‘It says: one gold and blue enamel pyx with St Peter and St Paul and the Lamb of God.’

  ‘Which does what exactly?’

  I waited for him to admit that he had no idea. But he was a man, so he didn’t.

  ‘A pyx? It’s a sort of container … or box … or bowl … for something or other,’ he said with great authority.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ I said.

  ‘In very general terms.’
/>
  ‘Except you don’t.’

  ‘I’ll google it,’ he said.

  He took his computer out of his bag and typed for a bit. ‘There,’ he said. ‘It’s a box for holding communion wafers.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I said. ‘What else would you use it for? I was just checking whether you knew too. Everyone knows what a pax is.’

  ‘Pyx,’ he said. Whatever. He hadn’t scored a point of any sort. He turned the screen round so I could see it. ‘Like the one there.’

  ‘So, that’s St Peter and St Paul?’ I asked.

  ‘Yup,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘And that small and slightly deranged animal with a flag is a sheep?’

  ‘Lamb.’

  ‘You know it couldn’t really hold a flag in his front hoof like that?’

  ‘Yes, it can. It’s a Lamb of God.’

  ‘What other superpowers does it have?’

  ‘It takes away the sins of the world.’

  ‘Fair enough. They probably hadn’t come up with X-ray vision then. And that’s all blue enamel?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘So, what you’re saying is that there’s one on Google exactly like the one in the inventory?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘They must be pretty common, then?’

  ‘I doubt it. A lot of mediaeval English church plate was seized and melted down in the 1550s. Edward VI didn’t like it from a doctrinal point of view, and he also wanted the cash. It’s all quite rare now.’

  Ethelred frowned and typed some more. ‘That one is in the Stephenson Museum in Hadleyburg in the United States,’ he said.

  ‘Fine. Lucky they had one so we could see it online. And what would the chalice have looked like?’ I asked.

  ‘I doubt we’ll be so fortunate this time, but let’s try searching for a mediaeval gold chalice, also with blue enamel. There might be one a bit like it.’ Ethelred fiddled around a bit more. ‘Good. And now let’s click on Images …’

  He turned the computer screen to face me.

  ‘Nice gold,’ I said. ‘Nice blue enamel. Nice Virgin enthroned.’

  ‘I agree I hadn’t expected quite so close a match,’ said Ethelred. ‘Let’s see where that one is … that’s odd. It’s in the same museum – in Hadleyburg.’

  He ran his finger down the badly spelt list. ‘The Abbey had a gold reliquary pendant of St Catherine. There won’t be too many of those out there …’

  For a while he typed and frowned and frowned and typed. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Almost everything in the inventory seems to be in the same museum.’

  ‘Coincidence?’ I asked.

  He typed some more. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘For the pyx, it gives the origin as … Sussex County, United Kingdom. And the chalice is … Sussex County, United Kingdom. And the candlesticks are …’

  ‘Sussex County, United Kingdom?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethelred slowly. ‘All acquired about fifteen years ago – apparently.’

  ‘So, does the Stephenson Museum also possess a gold statue of the Virgin Mary originating from Malta? It would be great if it did. We could wrap up the whole thing, go home and eat chocolate as a reward.’

  Ethelred typed a bit more. ‘I can’t find a gold statue of the Virgin listed on their website,’ he said. ‘Obviously, they haven’t put everything they possess on there. Just the more interesting stuff.’

  ‘But if it was the finest gold statue ever made, worth several zillion pounds and capable of killing anyone who touched it, you’d think it might be worth a mention?’

  ‘Quite. You’d think they’d refer to it in passing.’

  ‘But it’s in the monk inventory?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, definitely. Right at the end. An ancient image of the B. V. Marie.’

  I looked at the squiggles, which might have said almost anything. It was a good job I had Ethelred there. He definitely was, by a couple of centuries, the closest thing I was ever going to find to a sixteenth-century monk.

  ‘So how did Joyner get his hands on this?’ I said.

  Ethelred shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. All of the papers should be in a museum too. Here in Sussex.’

  ‘What else was in the rucksack?’ I asked.

  ‘Some other papers relating to the Abbey. And a notebook containing Sabine Barclay-Wood’s journal in manuscript. It looks pretty much identical to his published Happy Recollections of a Sussex Clergyman, though I haven’t yet compared it all line by line.’

  ‘But the original notebook?’

  ‘That’s what it seems to be. If we’re assuming that Barclay-Wood removed the inventory from the Abbey, then the combination of the journal and inventory here suggests that Joyner somehow acquired a whole stash of Barclay-Wood’s papers. But it still leaves unanswered the question of how and where he got hold of it all.’

  ‘And Cox was desperate to get his hands on it all?’

  ‘Apparently. And Iris.’

  ‘But is there anything remotely interesting there? A map with a big X on it, showing where the loot is buried?’

  ‘Joyner had a map of some sort with him when he died.’

  ‘The one that was reduced to mush in the well?’

  ‘Yes. I caught a glance of it. It looked quite old. Joe said the ink had run so badly you couldn’t make out anything now.’

  ‘OK, maybe Anthony Cox and Iris wanted the map, then. What else is there?’ I asked. ‘Anything exciting?’

  ‘Most definitely. A couple of documents confirming charters. What seems to be a list of manorial tenants. A letter from the King informing the Abbot of the coming visitation by the commissioners. Two or three letters concerning a lawsuit over grazing rights. Some general correspondence with the Bishop.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I think I must have dozed off there.’

  ‘Why did Joyner carry them all the way down to Sussex, though?’

  ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘The map would have been helpful, but he could have left the rest behind.’

  ‘Still, it could explain the padded envelope in the case,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Great!’ I said. ‘There’s a weight off my mind.’

  ‘Iris seemed to find it significant,’ he said huffily. ‘She asked what had been in the envelope before it was empty.’

  ‘Not much happens round your way, does it?’

  ‘I just meant, maybe the papers were in the envelope,’ said Ethelred. ‘That’s why it was in the case.’

  ‘Well, that disposes of the envelope problem, which might otherwise have kept me awake for several minutes tonight,’ I said. ‘Do you think Joyner knew that the Abbey’s gold- and silverware was all in the US now? It didn’t take us long to find out. Not once we knew what we were looking for. He had the list at the time he died.’

  ‘Probably,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Actually, wasn’t the inventory published somewhere? Wouldn’t a lot of people have seen it?’

  ‘It’s in a pretty obscure journal,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘But Polgreen might know? Or Sly?’

  ‘Both, probably,’ said Ethelred. ‘But they’ve never mentioned to me the possibility that the Abbey’s treasures might have been discovered and sold. I can’t see Sly holding back on that if he knew. Or Henry, really.’

  ‘Unless Henry found it at the Abbey and sold it. He’d keep quiet about it then. Very quiet.’

  ‘Surely not?’ said Ethelred.

  ‘It’s pretty much what Sly accused him of. Maybe there’s more to the accusations than we suspected.’

  Ethelred thought about it and shook his head. ‘Or it was part of the hoard taken to the Priory. If so, then Iris’s grandfather seems to have succeeded in finding a buyer before he died.’

  ‘Except,’ I said, ‘if it was at the Priory and then acquired by the museum only fifteen years ago, that actually points to a sale by Iris.’

  ‘Maybe I should contact the Stephenson Museum and ask them.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s what intern
s are for. Let’s go for a coffee.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ethelred

  ‘So, how did he get on?’ I asked.

  It was the evening after my return from London and I was curious to know what Elsie’s intern had found out. Curious enough to make a call to her mobile.

  ‘I was very pleased with him,’ said Elsie. ‘He called Hadleyburg on the office phone and spoke to one of the junior staff there, intern to intern. He said he was an MA student writing a dissertation on mediaeval church silverware and wanted to know more about the museum’s collection.’

  ‘You have trained him well,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, he was entirely honest and law-abiding before I took him on. Anyway, he asked her if she knew how the various Sussex County items had been obtained and whether they had been obtained directly in the UK or from a third party in the US. The Hadleyburg intern said she would be delighted to help and would email the information to him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He got a reply from her within half an hour. The items were from an unnamed source – a donation.’

  ‘Sounds as if she knows how to lie too.’

  ‘I was deeply shocked when I heard. Young people always look so clean and trustworthy. So he asked if the unnamed donor was British or American and if she had found out when the silverware had moved to the United States. She said the museum had been gifted the items fifteen years ago, but they had no records that enabled them to find out when or how any of it had entered the country.’

  ‘But they would have needed an export licence?’

  ‘Aaron pointed that out. He’s quite good. I almost wondered if I should pay him something … Anyway, he further enquired if the information he needed might be included on the licence, which they must still have. She said if such a thing had ever existed, it had been destroyed many, many years ago. In all likelihood before either of them had been born, though that obviously wasn’t that long ago. She declined to answer further questions. She had, he said, become quite irritable.’