Garden of Secrets Past

TWO


Kingston sat in the back of the cab on his way to 21 Chesterfield Street. For the occasion he’d decided to wear his navy double-breasted blazer with a white shirt and University of Edinburgh striped silk tie—dignified but not too formal.

As the cabbie navigated the hurly-burly of traffic at Hyde Park Corner, headed toward Park Lane, Kingston gazed out of the window, admiring the magnificent Wellington Arch in the center of the roundabout. It was originally built to provide a grand entrance to London, and he never tired of seeing it. London had been his adopted home now for more than ten years. As each year passed, he had come more and more under its spell and—even he would admit—more in love with it. When friends asked about his infatuation, he would smile and quote George Bernard Shaw: “A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.”

Not that his transition from a married life in the country to one of a silver-haired bachelor in London had been without its ups and downs—far from it. Thinking back, he was surprised that it hadn’t taken much longer to get over the grief of losing his beloved wife, Megan, who had been killed in a boating accident on a lake in Switzerland, over twelve years ago. Moving from Scotland after her death, he had quickly come to terms with the vicissitudes and advantages of urban life in one of the world’s most populated capitals. It took almost a year of agonizing and self-doubt before he could summon the courage to let go of the house near Edinburgh; it had been the home that they’d shared lovingly for more than thirty-five years, where they’d raised their daughter, Julie, and realized their dreams. Several years ago, at age twenty-four, Julie had taken a job with Microsoft in Seattle. In the passing years she had become an independent and very successful single woman. He made a mental note to drop her an overdue e-mail when he returned.

To Kingston it was as much the country acre of land with mature garden, a small orchard, and a sizable kitchen garden as the house itself that had come to mean so much to him. For almost as long as he could remember, he had cultivated and had come to memorize every square inch of soil there and had nurtured its every plant, shrub, and tree from seeds or cuttings.

On the sultry day in late August, after he’d handed over the keys to the new owners, he’d taken a walk through the garden for the last time. Being alone with his memories, knowing that he would never again see his garden as he had created it, was more than he could endure. Afterward, he’d had to sit in his car for ten minutes, near tears, until he’d regained his composure enough to drive.

The poignant memory melted as quickly as it had come, as he noticed that they’d pulled up to the Mayfair curb. At the same time he heard the cab driver open the sliding window separating the two of them and announcing a cheery, “’Ere we are, guv.” He got out, paid the cabbie plus a generous tip for such a short journey, and glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes to three.

With time to spare, Kingston stood on the pavement for a moment, admiring the pristine cut-stone building, with its black iron railing across the front and on the balconies above, elegant yet unpretentious. As he ascended a short flight of steps leading to the portico entrance, he spotted the name JARDINE’S engraved on a small plaque on the brick wall to the right of the shiny black door. To most, it would offer no clue as to the owner or tenant, but Kingston already had an idea who it might be. He pressed the doorbell below the plaque and waited. Hearing the buzzer, he gripped the polished-brass doorknob, pushed the door open, and entered. Inside, his suspicions were confirmed. There was little doubt in his mind that it was a gentlemen’s club. Thinking back to the letter, this made perfect sense. What better place for an influential client to impress his guests?

Kingston had a vague recollection of the club by name and reputation, but that was about all. He would later learn that it was established in 1796. Its primary purpose was to provide a “home from home” for the gentleman of the time, most typically disinclined toward matters domestic. Still considered one of London’s most exclusive clubs, it had retained most of its original bylaws and rules of conduct, at the same time moving prudently with the times by providing expanded facilities and services, and relaxing what for two centuries had been stringent membership requirements, even permitting—which is not to say welcoming—women as members, but only whenever and wherever.

As the tall door closed silently behind him, he embraced the hallowed establishment, crossed the Oriental-carpeted floor, and approached the elderly concierge hunched behind a Regency desk.

The man looked up over his glasses, a benevolent smile on his wizened face, as Kingston approached. “Good morning, sir. How may I help you?” he asked, in a voice that went with his years.

“Dr. Kingston. I’m here to meet one of your members—so I’ve been instructed,” he added.

“Ah, yes. He’s expecting you, Doctor. You’ll find him in the reading room. Down the main corridor, second door on the left, sir.”

Kingston entered the thick-carpeted reading room, closed the door quietly behind him, and surveyed the interior, looking for signs of recognition from any of the half dozen or so members slumped in armchairs, lost in reading or, in one case, napping. As yet, none had looked up or seemed even to be aware of his presence. Now and then the rustle of a newspaper or a polite cough interrupted the churchlike hush as Kingston continued to glance around. He was beginning to feel like an interloper, thinking about making a graceful retreat, when someone in the farthest corner by the window lowered his magazine, stood, and waved him over.

Kingston started across the room but still didn’t recognize the individual. It wasn’t until he was close to the gray-haired, elegantly dressed man that the penny dropped. For a moment his steps faltered. Good God, he almost muttered out loud. Of all people, not you! He pulled himself together and reached out diffidently to shake Lord Morley’s outstretched hand.

Kingston had sworn that he would never again have dealings with the man. Francis Morley—Lord Morley—was the sixth earl of Ramsbury, a member of one of Britain’s most distinguished families. The sudden recollection of his experience with the man brought a bitter taste to Kingston’s throat. That Lord Morley would have the audacity to ask him for help now, after all that had passed between them, was beyond Kingston’s ken. He was tempted to turn on his heels and leave there and then, but good manners and his sense of curiosity prevailed. He pulled up a chair opposite Morley and sat down.

“Can I get you anything?” asked Morley. “Tea? Coffee? Perhaps something stronger?”

“Thanks for asking, but I’m fine, for now.”

Morley gave a half smile. “I appreciate your coming.”

“It was shrewd of you to write an anonymous letter,” Kingston replied, still not having recovered fully from the shock of coming face-to-face with Morley again, after all these years. “You knew damned well that, no matter how intriguing you might make it, I wouldn’t have come if I’d known it was you who’d written it.”

Morley leaned back, showing not the slightest resentment to Kingston’s stinging rebuke. “I thought it would appeal to your sense of the mysterious, that’s all.”

Only part of what Morley had said registered with Kingston. The rest was washed away in the onrush of memories and bad feelings that he’d managed to dam all these years. It had happened ten years ago. Morley had hired him to oversee the restoration of a garden he’d purchased in the south of France. Kingston had spent six months on the project, and when the time came for Morley to pay his fee, it got very nasty. Despite his considerable wealth, he had tried to cheat Kingston out of a good share of what was due to him. Rather than pursuing legal action, which he knew would involve a lengthy and expensive court case, Kingston had chosen to walk away from it and take the loss, writing it off as a hard lesson learned and never to be repeated. He’d sworn to himself that the misery and humiliation of those few months in France would never happen to him again. Yet here he was, not only face-to-face with his former antagonist but being offered another job. The man had a lot of gall, Kingston thought … He suddenly realized that Morley was speaking again.

“I must say you’re looking remarkably well, Lawrence.”

“If it’s all right with you, Francis, perhaps we could skip the pleasantries and you could explain why you invited me here. Given how disgracefully I was treated on the last job, what could possibly make you think that I’d repeat the same mistake?”

“That was then and this is now, Lawrence,” Morley said, his expression showing no signs of remorse or guilt. “I know I treated you rather shabbily at the time and—I know you may find this hard to believe—I’ve regretted it ever since. You see, things are not always as they seem on the surface. I should never have undertaken such an ambitious and costly project to begin with. My accountant at the time either neglected or chose not to tell me how precarious my financial situation was. In fact, I was close to bankruptcy, and it wasn’t a question of not wanting to pay you. It was simply that I had no money.”

They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, as if both realizing that dredging up the past was in neither of their best interests. At least Morley had made a halfhearted attempt to explain and apologize, and Kingston would accept it for what it was, with no further discussion. He was eager to move on, to have Morley explain the mysterious “crime” and why he’d been so conspiratorial about it. He leaned back, now eyeing Morley with more interest.

“Tell me about this crime, Francis, and why you think I can help you. Where did it take place, by the way?”

“It happened in the garden at Sturminster, the family home. Have you been there?”

“Once—many years ago.”

Sturminster, Kingston knew, was one of Britain’s preeminent landscape gardens. It had been the seat of the Morley family for more than three hundred years, and its fifteen hundred acres of parkland included a magnificent house, extensive gardens, and recent restoration of an old walled kitchen garden—a showcase of organic and biodynamic vegetable gardening—plus a working farm, all open to the public.

Morley leaned back but didn’t appear fully at ease. “No point in beating about the bush. The crime I referred to in the letter is a murder.” He paused, as if waiting for the word to sink in. “It goes without saying that it has left us all in a state of shock.”

“That’s understandable.”

“I doubt we’ve had more than a half dozen murders in the entire county in the last hundred years, and now one shows up right on our bloody doorstep.”

“Tell me about it.”

Morley nodded and took a long breath. “About a month ago, a young girl—only six years old—discovered a dead man’s body in the park. He’s been identified as William Endicott. A professor at the Institute of Archaeology and Art, in Wolverhampton.”

“I’m surprised I haven’t seen it in the paper or on TV.”

“It was reported in the local papers when it happened but, as I said in my letter, the police have exhausted all their leads. Although their investigation is ongoing, they’ve no idea who might have wanted Endicott dead and why.”

“I’m sure you didn’t go to all the trouble of enticing me here to tell me about an unsolved murder. There must be more. In your letter, you said you’re dissatisfied with the police investigation? Something that they’re not doing or overlooking?”

Morley nodded. “The murder is why I wrote to you, of course, but there’s more to it. First and foremost, let me stress that I want to have it resolved and put behind us as quickly as possible.”

“And you want me to help solve this crime? To conduct this inquiry of yours?”

Morley nodded again. “I do. Because you’re experienced in these matters, you’re persistent, and, frankly, I can’t think of anyone even remotely more capable of solving it than you.”

“Really? What makes you think that I could succeed when the police have made no headway? And surely you must know that most murder cases aren’t solved overnight; they often take years.”

“I know all that, Lawrence. Let me explain. As far as the police are concerned, we’ve given them our full cooperation from the start and will continue to do so. Inspector Wheatley, the senior investigating officer, is highly experienced, very bright, and quite thorough. But it’s my belief that someone with your track record, conducting a separate inquiry without the constraints and bureaucratic rules and regulations imposed on official police inquiries these days, could bring results and do it more quickly. Before lifting a finger, they have to fill out a damned form. You must know how it is.”

“An independent inquiry will still require liaison with the police. Frankly, I don’t think you’ll gain much by hiring me.”

Morley shifted in his seat and looked at Kingston for a long moment. “There are other reasons.”

Kingston noted a subtle change in Morley’s tone. “I’d be curious to know what they could possibly be,” he said.

“The first is your knowledge of and interest in gardens. I’m sure you’re aware that Sturminster is among the largest, most historic, and important gardens in the country.”

“Of course,” said Kingston with a concealed smile. “But surely you’re not suggesting that we’re looking for a killer from the plant world?”

“This is a serious matter,” Morley snapped.

“What other reasons, then?”

“It may sound odd, but it has to do with your experience with codes.”

“Codes?” Kingston was speechless.

“Yes.” Morley’s look was supercilious. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Lawrence, but weren’t you involved with codes of some kind in the past? I seem to recall your having mentioned it at one time, when we were in France. Something to do with your army career, I believe. And there was that case where you found your missing professor friend. Didn’t that involve solving some kind of cryptic message?”

“Yes, but I don’t see how—”

“Our monuments—the mysterious monuments in Sturminster’s garden.”

Kingston vaguely remembered having read about the eight ancient monuments dotted throughout the estate garden and parkland.

Morley interrupted his thoughts, sparing him the embarrassment of an uninformed reply. “One of them—the Arcadian monument—bears a mysterious inscription of ten letters, thought to be a code of some sort. They were chiseled on the monument in the middle of the eighteenth century, and their meaning is unknown today. It’s baffled some of the greatest minds of our time.”

“You’re implying that the murder could be connected in some way to that monument, the inscription?”

Morley took a moment before replying. “I haven’t ruled it out. And neither have the police. But that’s not all.”

Kingston squinted, perplexed. “What else?”

“There’s a second code as well—at least it’s presumed to be a code—found on the dead man’s body.”

“Another code?” Kingston was becoming mildly irritated with the way Morley was doling out teasing morsels of information, as if he were reeling in a stubborn fish. Perhaps he should tell Morley that it wasn’t having the effect he might be hoping for. It started to remind him of the old days, too, which was disconcerting.

“That’s correct. When the forensics chaps examined the body, they found a torn scrap of paper in the man’s pocket. Written on it, in longhand, was a series of letters, over a dozen. Since it’s the only piece of real evidence so far, the police have focused on it believing that it could be part of a coded message. They actually brought in a specialist from GCHQ, the government communications agency, to look it over. They’re the chaps—”

“Yes, I know about them. SIGINT, signals intelligence.”

“Of course you’d know that code breaking is one of the many specialties in their bag of tricks?”

“Indeed,” said Kingston. Along with MI5 and MI6, GCHQ was a key player in Britain’s intelligence gathering and national security going back before World War II. In his long-ago army days he’d attended courses on intelligence and information systems and had visited GCHQ.

Morley continued. “Wheatley e-mailed me the GCHQ findings, but I must confess that I found their explanation almost unintelligible—if you’ll pardon the pun—a lot of mumbo jumbo about ciphertexts, keywords, algorithms, and so forth. Anyway, the upshot was that only if the matching piece of paper were found could they possibly read anything into the sequence of letters.”

“Did they conclude that it was part of a coded message?”

“They didn’t count it out.”

“What about the police?”

“Wheatley told me that they were going to withhold the information—for now, anyway—and asked us to do likewise.”

“I’m not surprised. The press would be all over a story like that.”

“Indeed they would,” said Morley, nodding. “They’ve been all over us as it is.”

“You’ve had adverse publicity?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I assume it’s already having a negative effect on attendance?”

“At first, attendance went up. But it’s been dropping ever since.”

“Understandable. In the beginning, these things bring out all the thrill seekers and the morbidly curious, just the kind you don’t want.”

“Exactly. The fact that a small child discovered the body doesn’t help either. We get hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, and many are families with young children.”

“So there’s been a substantial drop in revenue?”

Morley nodded. “Our family admission is thirty pounds, so if we lose fifty a day—well, you can do the math. And that’s on top of the free fall in income we’ve had with this bloody awful economy.”

A moment of silence fell, punctuated only by the dulcet chime of a long-case clock, on the far side of the room, striking the half hour.

Morley spread his hands and exhaled. “Well, Lawrence, that’s about the size of it. I don’t expect your answer right away, of course. I’m sure you’ll have a lot more questions.” His eyes searched Kingston’s face, as if hoping to find the glimmer of a positive reaction.

“I understand your reasons and determination to have this unfortunate matter resolved. I’ll even go as far as saying I sympathize with you, but this time I think I’ll pass.”

Morley looked offended. “Surely you’re not going to turn down five thousand pounds a month, guaranteed for six months, plus all expenses. Are you?”

Kingston was dumbstruck. He hadn’t for one moment been thinking of such a large amount of money. Also, if his assignment could be limited, perhaps to six months, with an option to continue or quit, it changed the whole picture. He knew his answer was already too long in coming but guessed that Morley would take it as a good sign and would be patient.

“Let me think about it, Francis,” he said at last. “Twenty-four hours. Okay?”

“All right, Lawrence. In the meantime, I’ll have Simon—Simon Crawford, our general manager—put together a package, with a time line, names, copies of police reports, et cetera, detailing everything concerning the case thus far. I know the board will be pleased to learn that we’ve had this conversation.”

“You’re assuming I’m going to say yes, then?”

“No. I just thought it would give you a better understanding of what has happened and what the police have done so far, that’s all; help you make the right decision.”

“Very well.”

With the tacit understanding that the meeting was over, the two stood. Morley picked up his magazine and newspaper and looked at Kingston as if he’d like to continue the dialogue but knew it would serve no purpose.

Kingston met his gaze, knowing that this was the appropriate and perhaps last chance to voice what he’d been mulling over for several minutes. How Morley received the sine qua non could well influence Kingston’s decision.

“Before we part company,” he said, “I’d like to say one thing further. It’s based on our past experience working together. Before I can even consider your offer, I would insist on a sizable advance on your proposed fee and would also require an escape clause written into the agreement, should things not work out as we expect. Without those conditions, Francis, there will be no point in any further discussion.”

After a few seconds, Morley nodded. “I’m willing to accept your terms.” He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out an expensive-looking wallet. He extracted a card and handed it to Kingston, looking deep into his eyes. “I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but you’re my last resort. I hope you won’t let me and Sturminster down.”

“Thanks,” Kingston replied, dutifully glancing at the card, slipping it into his own wallet. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ten minutes later, Kingston was on a number 11 bus headed for Chelsea and his flat. Squinting out the window through the light rain at the gray buildings of Great Scotland Yard, former headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, he thought back on their conversation. What struck him most was that Morley had seemed like a different person from the one that he’d previously crossed swords with and had come to regard with disdain. How much of it had been an act? he wondered. While it was expected that Morley would apply a certain amount of pressure to persuade Kingston to take the job, it bothered Kingston that he’d been almost too assertive. Morley couldn’t have made a better pitch if his life had depended on it. Bringing up the money at the end was a trump card, and Morley had played it well.

He glanced out the window again, watching the snarl of Knightsbridge traffic and the shoppers scurrying along the pavement in the rain, under the shelter of Harrods’ green awnings. He had no illusions about the disruptive changes in his life that would result should he accept the job. He’d lived through it all before. That included the usual rollicking he’d certainly get from Andrew, his bachelor neighbor and close friend, who lived three doors from Kingston on Cadogan Square. Andrew was independently wealthy, having sold his software company just before the dot-com bubble burst. He was not at all happy with Kingston’s investigative dabbling and was always harping that it was too dangerous for Kingston’s advancing years. Andrew also owned a small Georgian house on the banks of the Thames in Bourne End, where the two often spent weekends, entertaining. His “country estate,” he called it.

The circumstances of this case were different, though. Aside from the money, it was not only a serious commitment but there was also a moral aspect to it that ran contrary to Kingston’s character and code of ethics. He’d been taught a painful lesson once; why would he consider accepting a job from someone whom he knew to be arrogant and deceitful?

The Sloane Square bus stop was fast approaching. He made his way to the back of the bus. He’d promised Morley an answer by tomorrow afternoon. Plenty of time to think on it, he said to himself, stepping off the bus.