Garden of Secrets Past

TWENTY-ONE


Driving home, Kingston spent the first ten minutes speculating as to how a gold horseshoe trinket from Windrush Stables had ended up in Julian Heywood’s drawer. After having just made it eminently clear that he had no time for his stepfather, it begged the question as to how Julian had come by it. If Lytton had given it to Julian, which would be the most logical answer, it could have been a long time ago, before he and his stepfather had a falling-out. The other implication—an intriguing one—was that Julian had lied, but if so, why? Could several Morleys be in on this together? Was the whole idea of a family feud nothing more than a cover-up?

The brake lights of the lorry in front of him went on suddenly. He jammed his foot on the brakes just in time to avoid what could have been a nasty crunch. “Forget the bloody Morleys,” he muttered. He turned on the radio and concentrated on the road.

He was on the straight stretch of the A4 between Newbury and Reading when he realized there was a car following him.

It was a gray BMW, with a man at the wheel. It had maintained a comfortable distance for the last half hour or so, which in itself wasn’t necessarily unusual but there had been many places where passing would have been possible, and in his experience BMW drivers were usually the first with lights flashing and foot to the pedal. He thought no more of it, and by the time he’d passed through Reading, ten miles later, the car had gone.

But an hour later, crossing the Chiswick Flyover, making a quick lane change, he swore he caught a glimpse of the BMW again, several cars back. He dismissed the thought, reminding himself that there must be hundreds if not thousands of gray BMWs on the roads. Ten minutes later he arrived at his garage with no further signs of phantom gray BMWs. The TR4 safely locked up, Kingston headed for the King’s Road, where he planned to stop at Partridges deli to pick up dinner and a bottle of port.

Crossing Sloane Square, he passed the central fountain and waited at the traffic light to cross to the Sloane Street side. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a man in a dark windbreaker. The nondescript middle-aged man had just stopped and taken a seat on a nearby bench, where he unfolded the newspaper he was carrying and started to read. The signal changed to green and Kingston crossed. On the other side of the road, directly ahead, was Peter Jones. Turning past a large window displaying their Hugo Boss men’s summer clothing, he saw a clear reflection of the square. He was puzzled to see that the man in the windbreaker was now standing at the same traffic light—that had since turned to red—waiting for it to change. After the episode with the BMW, Kingston was beginning to question his judgment. He was imagining things, he told himself. But why, he wondered, had the man sat for such a short time if he’d planned to read the paper? Kingston kept walking, tempted to sneak a backward glance. Fifty yards farther along, now on the King’s Road, an opportunity presented itself that gave him a plausible reason to look back. Two kids on skateboards were rolling toward him, and though there was no danger of collision, Kingston stepped adroitly to one side, turning as he did, to let them pass. About fifty feet back, he saw the man stop suddenly and look at a store window.

That put it to rest, then. There was no question anymore that his first instincts had been correct. Why was he being followed? To find out where he lived was the first reason that came to mind. On second thought, that didn’t make too much sense because nowadays there were many ways of obtaining personal addresses. The other reason, which he preferred not to dwell on, was that if the man shadowing him had anything to do with the people who’d killed Endicott and Veitch, he could be in danger, too.

Thinking hard how he could shake the man off, Kingston picked up his pace, doing his best to conjure movie scenes where the good guy had outsmarted a tail, trying to recall an evasive measure that might work. A mad dash along the crowded pavements of the King’s Road was out of the question, and he didn’t know of shops where he could casually enter and quickly slip out the back door into an alley, to leap over the convenient fence and vanish. When he saw the number 11 double-decker bus ahead, taking on passengers, the answer was staring him in the face. Timing would be critical, he knew. He was about twenty feet away and only one passenger remained to board the bus. The moment the elderly gentleman was safely on the bus’s platform, Kingston would start his dash. If he gauged it just right, he could reach the bus and jump on before it gathered too much speed. It had been a long time since he’d done it, but he would soon find out if he still had it in him.

At the back of the bus, not even winded, Kingston looked back to see the man in the distance standing on the pavement, newspaper dangling at his side, watching the bus disappear. Kingston’s smile was short-lived. He had a distinct feeling that it was only a temporary reprieve.

Hopping off the bus three stops later, he backtracked and made a hurried and wary shopping stop at Partridges. Ten minutes later, back at the flat, he closed the door behind him with his back and a sigh of relief. Andrew was right. He was going to have to be very careful indeed from now on. He picked up the post.

In the kitchen, Kingston put the Partridges bag on the counter, then went to the living room, dropping the post on the coffee table. Standing to one side of the window, he pulled the curtain back slightly and looked down onto the street. All appeared normal, no sign of the man with the newspaper.

He sat on the sofa and riffled through the post. Among the usual smattering of bills and junk mail was an envelope with a return address he didn’t recognize at first. From Holbrook, he realized. It must be the copies of the three pages found behind the frieze. He pulled out the sheets of paper and the brief cover note from Holbrook, unfolded them, and flattened them out on the table.

He was pleased to see that the copies were clear and that the handwriting, which had a graceful calligraphic quality, was legible. He was amused, as always when he read early writings, by the spelling of many of the words and the letter “e” added to words, making “downe” and “halfe”; the flourish resembling an “f” in place of “s,” making the “professor” appear as “profeffor.”

The first page described the site and orientation of the house with respect to the surrounding land, conditions of climate, and its relationship and significance to neighboring villages and towns. “The land was highe of no particular shape and, with nothing in the way of trees, walls or hedges, was frequently windswept. The soil was described as heavy and not suitable for the purposes of agriculture.”

He learned that the land around the house was developed as the house itself was still under construction, a practice that many of today’s builders might well be advised to adopt, he mused. The various designs and layouts of driveways, paths, walls, fencing, gates, ornamental and kitchen gardens, and planting of trees, hedges, and borders were described in great detail.

The next page referred to the house itself, how it was designed and constructed. He was starting to get a sinking feeling that this and the remaining page would be much of the same. By the time he’d reached the bottom of the page, he was even more discouraged, now worried that the papers would prove to be of no help whatsoever to his investigation

He turned to the last page, running his forefinger down, reading slowly though knowing that odds were that it would be no different from the others. Near the foot of the page, he almost missed the word “frieze.” He stopped and reread the paragraph:

The dining room is to be embellished with a decorative frieze embracing its foure walls. The quotation chosen will be rendered in decorative porcelain tile worke. Each tile, approximately one-foote square, is to be individually designed to display a letter of the alphabet. At the recommendation of Architect, Matthew Seward, the highly respected designer Godfrey Upjohn has beene commissioned to undertake design and fabrication of the tiles. Seward is noted for his interpretations of classical Hellenic architecture as ably demonstrated in the Grecian-inspired monuments at the Sturminster estate in Nottinghamshire, commissioned by Samuel Morley; and at Aspinhill Court in Leicestershire. Seward and Upjohn have created designs for several places of business, private residences, and follies, including those of the Right Honorable Jeffrey Wylde, Lady Marchfield, and the statesman, writer Horace Walpole.

Seward. Sturminster. Morley. Names that Veitch would have been very interested in, though what relevance they—or the frieze—had to the matter at hand wasn’t clear. Still, Veitch was interested in them, so …

He slowly shook his head. It was all so infuriatingly confusing.

He folded the pages and placed them back in Holbrook’s envelope. He was about to put them in a drawer of his tansu—until such time he could take another look at them, if he ever did—when he paused, staring at the envelope in his hand. He tried to recall Holbrook’s exact words but couldn’t. Kingston was sure that he’d said something to the effect that they’d found a letter and it was three pages. But knowing that it would be sealed up behind a wall for God knows how many years, wouldn’t the person hiding the letter have placed it in an envelope?

He put the envelope in the top drawer of the Japanese chest and started for the bedroom. He knew why the absence of an envelope nagged him. It was the outside chance that the envelope itself might offer further elucidation: whether it was addressed to anyone; if it noted the contents, dates, anything that might help. He was grasping at straws again, but he was getting used to that. He stopped, went back and picked up the phone. Why wait? he asked himself, as he entered Holbrook’s number.

He was surprised when Tyler answered after the second ring.

“It’s Lawrence,” he said. “Sorry to bother you, but perhaps you could answer a quick question?”

“Sure.”

“Were you there when the papers were discovered behind the frieze?”

“I was at the house that day, yes.”

“Do you recall if there were just the three sheets, or were they in an envelope?”

“They were in an envelope. I remember because it was an unusual shape.”

“Do you still have it?”

“I believe so. Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s sheer speculation on my part. Was anything written on the envelope? Was it addressed to anyone? Dated? Anything else?”

“Odd you should ask, because we wondered what they meant.”

“They?”

“The letters written on the inside flap of the envelope.”

“What do you mean by letters?”

“A long sequence of letters of the alphabet, separated by a vertical line with an arrow pointing to another, longer, sequence. Gibberish. We made a scan of it. I could send it to you.”

Kingston couldn’t hold back his exuberance. “Absolutely. Please.”

“Do you mind telling me what the hell’s going on here, Lawrence?”

“It’s a long story, as they say, but I’ve every reason to believe that those letters you’ve described could be some kind of code. They could be the key to solving a riddle that goes back more than two hundred years.”

“You’re kidding? Only in England!”

“I really appreciate this, Tyler…”

“I happen to be on the computer, so I’ll send it right away.”

Five minutes later, Kingston’s Mac dinged. He opened Holbrook’s e-mail with the attachment and read his note:

Dr. Kingston,

I guess I should have mentioned the envelope before. It was larger than a standard one and the face of it was blank. We thought nothing of it ’til Libby noticed the writing inside in black ink. We had no idea what it all meant other than it could have been some kind of secret message, so we saved it. Do you think that’s what it is?

Tyler

Kingston opened the attachment and smiled. The scan showed two long lines made up of random letters of the alphabet. Underneath them was a vertical arrow pointing to seven more lines of jumbled letters below. All told, he figured there could be as many as two hundred characters. For a moment he flashed back to the letters on the monument at Sturminster.

It was a code of some kind. It had to be.