Garden of Secrets Past

THREE


Three days later, Staffordshire

“Shortly after that, the police arrived. I believe you know the rest of the story, Doctor.”

Simon Crawford folded his arms and leaned back. He and Kingston were seated on carved mahogany chairs in the manager’s office that more resembled a gracious living room than workspace. When Kingston had sealed the deal with Morley—with a fat advance and the provision that he could drop out at any time after two months with no forfeiture—it was agreed that the first step would be to set up a meeting between Kingston and Crawford. Morley had explained that Simon Crawford had acted as Sturminster’s liaison with the police from the start and, outside of them, knew more about the case than anyone.

Crawford had spent the last ten minutes briefing Kingston on the events that had taken place on the day that William Endicott’s body was found. On arrival he’d given Kingston a canvas satchel filled with documents, police reports, clippings, and copies of pages taken from a number of Sturminster’s library books, items that he and Morley had deemed relevant to the case.

When they’d met, Kingston had pegged Crawford as midsixties and indubitably ex-military. His attire was impeccable: suit and shirt, pressed and starched, perfectly knotted striped tie. He had the right bearing to carry it off, and the clipped manner of speech. His features certainly fitted the bill too: short hair peppered with gray, ruddy-cheeked complexion, and a toothbrush mustache. His account of the day of the murder had been clear and concise. He was in the main house meeting with suppliers, he’d said, when he’d received a mobile call from Albert, one of the gardeners, saying that an agitated man, who’d been picnicking in the garden with his family, was reporting that his young child had just discovered what appeared to be a dead body in a clearing near one of the monuments. Telling the gardener to stay put with the father, and that he was on his way immediately, he hurried out of the house and within two or three minutes had joined them. The visitor led them to the spot near the Arcadian monument where, sure enough, the body lay. Crawford said that he’d then made a cursory visual examination of the body—knowing better than to touch anything—concluding that the man was dead. He called 999 and reported the incident, telling the gardener to round up a couple more staff members on the double and return to the scene. While the gardener was gone, he waited near the stranger’s body, taking stock of the immediate area, observing nothing out of the ordinary. When the men returned, within a matter of minutes, he instructed them to keep the area secure until the police arrived. He then turned his attention to the family who were nearby, packing their picnic gear, preparing to leave. At his insistence, knowing that the police would want to talk to them, he took the four of them to the house where, under the care of two staff members, one a former nurse, they were made comfortable in one of the drawing rooms until they could give their statements. That done, he returned to the scene to rejoin the men guarding the area, where they all waited until the police arrived. In answer to Kingston’s only question, Crawford was emphatic in asserting that no one else had been near or touched the body between the time he first saw it and when the police arrived at the scene.

While Crawford answered a phone call, Kingston gazed around the elegant room thinking of the incongruity of it all. Here, amid the beauty of the fastidiously redecorated room with its fine woodcarving, coved ceiling, marble fireplace, and satinwood cabinetry, they were discussing a man’s murder. Even in its day it must have cost a fortune, he contemplated. He still hoped he’d made the right decision in accepting Morley’s offer. In the end the temptation of taking on such an unusual and intriguing challenge and the financial reward had outweighed his misgivings about Morley’s character. If things were to go sour this time, he could always bail out early.

“Sorry about that,” said Crawford. “Another damned reporter. Where were we?”

Kingston flashed an ambiguous smile. “Would you mind if I asked a couple of questions? Sooner or later I’m sure I’ll be able to talk with the police, but getting your perspective and learning more about your involvement would be a helpful start.”

“Not a problem. I’m happy to pass on everything I know.”

“Thanks. It’s appreciated.” Kingston pulled his chair a few inches closer to the desk and leaned back. “This Endicott chap, what’s known about him?”

“All the usual stuff, according to Inspector Wheatley. But apparently nothing that throws any light on why he was murdered or by whom.” He paused. “You’ve been informed that Wheatley is the policeman heading up the case, I take it?”

“I have. Lord Morley told me. How did the inspector describe Endicott?”

Crawford didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked up at the ceiling for a moment, pursing his lips, before looking back at Kingston. “Name is William Clarke Endicott, fifty-nine years of age, bachelor,” he said, as though he’d memorized it. “Until six months ago he was employed by the Institute of Archaeology and Art in Wolverhampton. He taught courses in Greek and other Middle Eastern antiquities—archaeological subjects, that sort of thing.” He paused, running his fingers across the edge of the leather-topped desk. “What else?” he muttered to himself. “For what it’s worth, he has an elderly mother who lives in an assisted-living home in Rugeley—a small town about fifteen miles south of Sturminster. Umm … no other living relatives and what few friends he had were mostly colleagues from the institute. From all accounts he had no hobbies to speak of, except travel, which he did quite a lot, mostly to places of archaeological interest. No surprise there.”

“Hmm. Any criminal record?”

Crawford shook his head. “No.”

“Where did he live?”

“In Little Cherwyn. It’s a small village near Cannock. Owned a bungalow with no mortgage.”

“Which would suggest that he wasn’t hard up.”

“Possibly. Though according to Wheatley, it looked like he never spent a penny on the place—the inside was a mess.”

“How far is the village from Sturminster?”

“No more than ten miles, maybe less.”

“Not far from home.”

“Right.”

“What about his car?”

“It was parked in his garage, apparently.”

“So someone drove him to Sturminster?”

“Or he cycled or walked.”

“Doubtful he’d walk ten miles.”

“I agree.”

“No bicycle’s been found, I take it?”

Crawford shook his head. “If it had been left somewhere on the grounds, it could easily have been stolen.”

“How about cause of death?”

“Skull fracture. Fatal blow to the head.” Crawford smiled. “You’re really testing my memory, Doctor. I can see now why Morley thinks so highly of you.”

“One blow or more than one?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the police.”

Kingston nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry. Not too many more questions. If that’s all right with you?”

“No need to apologize. Fire away.”

“Have the police established an estimated time of death?”

“Yes. It was approximately twelve hours prior to the time that the body was discovered.”

Kingston glanced at the clock across the room, figuring the lapse in time. “So that places it sometime before midnight?”

“Correct.”

“So he was either killed in the park then or could have been killed elsewhere and dumped on the grounds later.”

Crawford nodded. “Either one. Although it wouldn’t be easy smuggling a body onto the grounds at night.”

“Security?”

“Right. Ours might not be up to Buckingham Palace standards but it’s up-to-date technology and up until now has proved remarkably efficient. There’s pretty much round-the-clock patrolling, too, of course.”

“What about the weapon?”

“They haven’t found one as yet.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t know if the pathologist detected anything about the wounds that would help identify the murder weapon.”

Crawford shook his head. “Sorry, I wouldn’t. It’s all in the police report.”

Kingston scratched his temple. “What about your security people? Nothing from them?”

“No. They reported nothing unusual during the days and nights in question. That doesn’t mean to say the murder couldn’t have taken place during visiting hours or, like you said, his body been dumped here during the daytime. Obviously I can’t elaborate on our security systems, but suffice it to say that we have fifteen hundred acres and it’s impossible to monitor every inch of it, twenty-four/seven.”

A gap in the conversation followed while Crawford took another phone call. Kingston took the opportunity to gather his thoughts and ponder whether he’d overlooked anything he’d wanted to ask. He was finding Simon Crawford hard to read. On one hand, he was being cooperative and reasonably friendly; on the other, Kingston was starting to have a hard time with the terseness of his answers. Was he always like this, Kingston wondered, or just eager to move things along and get the meeting over with? As he was contemplating this, he looked across the desk to see that Crawford was off the phone.

“Sorry again. I’ve told them to hold all calls.” Crawford turned to face Kingston again.

“Just a couple more questions,” said Kingston, deferentially.

“Go ahead.”

“Have the police found anything at all to connect Endicott to Sturminster?”

“As far as I know, not a damned thing. I know for sure that they’ve interviewed not only the staff but everyone we know of who’s had anything to do with the estate in the past couple of years or so—and that includes me, Lord Morley, and members of the board of directors. They’ve also interviewed contract workers and most of the estate’s regular suppliers and tradesmen. In that regard, I must say that Wheatley’s people have been extremely thorough.”

“Morley mentioned there was a scrap of paper found on the body, with letters on it. A kind of code, perhaps?”

“Right. What about it?”

“Have you seen it?”

Crawford hesitated, then nodded. “I’ve seen a copy. It’s just a series of capital letters, a dozen or more perhaps, on copier-type paper.” He smiled. “No watermarked personal stationery, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“In ink?”

“It was a photocopy.”

“Of course, I was forgetting. What did you make of it?”

“Nothing at all, frankly.”

“Any chance of getting a copy of it?”

“Of course. I can’t see why the police would object. They have the original. It’s now an exhibit.”

“Thanks. That could help.”

Crawford scratched a reminder note on the pad at his elbow and kept what looked to be a real gold pen between his fingers.

Kingston continued. “According to Lord Morley, GCHQ took a look at it and submitted a report. Could I get a copy of that too?”

“You can. I have a copy on file. Morley tells me you know something about codes?”

Kingston nodded. “Back in my army days, I attended an intelligence course at Joint Services Intelligence, in Ashford. I’ve also visited GCHQ.”

Crawford made a feeble attempt to suppress a smile. “Now why wouldn’t I have known that?” he said.

Kingston shrugged off the jibe. “With only a dozen or so letters it would be impossible to know if it’s truly part of a code. It could be a lot of things—password, PIN, combination to something, perhaps.”

“I’ll get you a copy of Harry Tennant’s report. He’s the chap who looked at it.”

“Thanks.”

“As a thought, you might want to have Morley or Wheatley put you in touch with Tennant. At least you’ll be able to understand what he’s talking about. That’s more than I could.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that. If it turns out to be part of a coded message, it would be reasonable to assume that the code would be a simple one, unless the other piece of paper has substantially more letters.”

Crawford nodded. “So I’ve been told. But unless we find the other half, all this code malarkey means absolutely nothing.”

“You’re right, of course,” Kingston replied with a slow nod. “That said, if it does turn out to be a coded message, it begs the important question that no doubt you’ve all thought about, Simon: What is it that could be so important, so confidential, as to require such secrecy? And did Endicott know what it was, or was he attempting to find out?”

“We’ve considered all of that.”

Crawford’s uncrossing his legs and body language hinted that their conversation could be ending.

“I have one last question,” said Kingston. “It’s rhetorical, but permit me to ask anyway. I take it nothing was found at the crime scene that the police might have considered significant? Anything out of place, anything to indicate that the assault might have taken place elsewhere? Was there—”

“According to Inspector Wheatley,” Crawford interrupted, a frisson of impatience in his tone, “when he gave us his last briefing, all regulation procedures were conducted to the nth degree, right down to fingertip searches by forensics. And he was emphatic that nothing was found at the scene that would be considered out of the ordinary.” He paused, leveling his eyes at Kingston. “Unfortunately, there were no cigarette butts or train tickets next to the body,” he said with a vestige of a smile.

“That’s too bad,” Kingston said.

The talk moved on to more mundane matters: the weather, of course, and British sports cars. Crawford had earlier admired Kingston’s restored Triumph TR4 and, as it turned out, owned a Jaguar XK120. Before long Crawford suggested that they get some fresh air and visit the purported crime scene, where the body was found. While they were gone he would arrange to have the copies made.

As they were leaving the house, an Audi convertible drove up and pulled into the parking place next to Kingston’s TR4. A young man with lank blond hair, wearing a sweater and jeans, stepped out and walked toward them. Ignoring Kingston, the man pulled Crawford aside, saying he wanted to have a word. Kingston thought nothing of it, instead turned away to admire the splendid view from the top of the entrance steps. Immediately below, a long, narrow bed of pink floribunda roses gave way to a sweeping terraced lawn, divided in the center by a wide gravel path. Each lawn was edged on the path by symmetrical rows of eight-foot-high pyramids of golden yew, twelve in all, clipped to perfection. Beyond, centered in the path, was a fountain depicting a boy with a swan. Past that, lay the river and open grazing land.

Kingston heard Crawford speak and turned in time to see the young man enter the house. “Sorry about that,” said Crawford. “That was Julian, one of Lord Morley’s nephews.” Kingston noted that Crawford’s expression was distant, as if he was reflecting on his hurried exchange of words with Julian. Then Crawford clapped his hands and said, “Well, let’s go, shall we?”

Short of Crawford’s pointing out the exact spot and describing the man’s injury and body position, the tranquil scene, as Kingston had suspected, proved to be of little interest. Glancing at his watch, he was starting to think about the drive home and wondering if he should suggest taking a break for lunch before leaving, when Crawford spoke up once more. “We should look at a couple of the monuments before you go. You know about them, I take it?”

Kingston nodded. His recollection of the monuments—sometimes called follies—in the garden at Sturminster had been vague until Morley’s question the other day had jogged his memory. Eight of them, Francis had said. Such monuments were a typical design embellishment in large estate gardens of the period, he knew. They were often whimsical, even eccentric, using ancient Greek and Roman architecture for inspiration. When he was teaching at Edinburgh University, he’d included a short discourse on the idiosyncratic garden features in his lectures. He showed examples of English garden follies in a slide show, then explained that while they’d been around for more than four hundred years, the fad had a renaissance in the mid-eighteenth century, when they started popping up in almost every other garden of England’s grand country houses. His students invariably became more interested when he further explained how the trend was escalated by young men of means who took a year or two—often more—out of their postgraduation lives to travel around Europe on the “grand tour” in an effort to broaden their horizons and learn about language, architecture, geography, and sociology. Most returned to England where, in later years—many of them having inherited the family estate—they built their own re-creations of Gothic ruins and renditions of ancient temples that are now scattered with seeming abandon about the landscapes of many English country estates.

“Our monuments? ”

Kingston was jolted back to the present. “Somewhat,” he replied, turning toward Crawford. “I seem to recall a story about them in one of the garden magazines, Gardens Illustrated, I believe, but that was a long time ago.”

“Let me show you a couple, then.” Crawford gestured over his shoulder and headed down a small gravel path that led between two of the most enormous rhododendron bushes that Kingston had ever laid eyes on. On the other side of the rhodies, they came to a small glade with a curved backdrop of dark conifers. Centered in front of the spruce, cypress, and yew was a curious-looking structure as high as a small house and almost as wide.

“This is the Arcadian monument,” said Crawford, as the two walked up close to it. “One of eight situated throughout the garden and the park.” Crawford stood silently to one side, watching as Kingston gazed up at the monument.

Supported on either side by two carved Doric columns, the lichen-stained stone entablature across the top was decorated with rustic carvings. Together they formed a strange-looking rough-hewn arch that was the setting for the centerpiece white-marble slab on which the likeness of a painting—which Kingston would later learn was by Poussin—was carved in relief. His eyes then rested on the inscription carved below the pastoral scene, the sequence of ten Roman letters: D. O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V. M. He noted that the beginning D and the ending M were wider spaced, separated from the other letters.

Lost in thought, pondering the letters and the incongruity of the elegant marble against the crude stone arch, he suddenly realized that Crawford was speaking.

“… the last of the monuments to be built, about 1750, so it’s believed—they were all designed by one man, Matthew Seward. It’s been suggested that the separated D and M could be initials or stand for the Latin dis manibus—sacred to the dead. This was found commonly on Roman tombs, dedicating the soul of the departed to the spirit world. Only problem is that here the two letters don’t stand together.”

“Yes, I see that,” said Kingston, finally taking his eyes off the chiseled lettering. “And no one knows what the letters signify?”

“No. For three hundred years, cryptographers, historians, mathematicians, scholars, you name it have all tried to solve the riddle, with no success. It’s even rumored that Darwin and Dickens tried but gave up. We even invited a few of the Bletchley Park experts who’d cracked the Nazis’ Enigma code during the war—not many of them left, you know—to see if they could decipher it. It was part of a public-relations stunt that backfired, a few years ago. Turned out to be a royal disaster.”

“Why was that?”

“Well, for one thing, Poussin was rumored to be a Grand Master of the Knights Templar.”

“I see what you mean.”

“The press had a heyday with it. If the place had burned to the ground, we wouldn’t have had more coverage. Before we knew it, every Grail hunter and curiosity seeker in Christendom descended on us—people camping, caravans, camera crews. Everywhere you turned it was utter chaos.”

“People interested in code solving?”

“More like people interested in the treasure.”

“Treasure?”

“You don’t know the story of the missing money, the Morley feud?”

Kingston shook his head. “Why would I?”

“You’re right. It’s an old Staffordshire legend about Sturminster and the two brothers who founded the estate back in the seventeen hundreds. It’s rumored that while Admiral James Morley was making history and amassing a huge fortune with his sea victories of the Seven Years’ War, his brother, Samuel, was secretly salting away, for his own purposes, a large share of the moneys contributed by James—funds intended exclusively for the expansion of Sturminster. Much of the money was unaccounted for, and to this day there are those who believe it was hidden somewhere on the estate by Samuel Morley.”

“I can see why the monument would be so intriguing—solve the code, find the treasure.”

“Intriguing? That’s putting it mildly. Some of those people are fanatical. They caused considerable damage to the gardens and to the Arcadian monument, sad to say.”

“I can appreciate why you wouldn’t want a repeat of that.”

Crawford nodded. “Right. That’s why the police have been downplaying the code thing.”

“Makes sense.” Kingston paused, thinking. “These letters,” he said, pointing at the inscription. “Is there any similarity to those found on Endicott’s person?”

“The piece of paper? None whatsoever.”

Kingston simply shrugged. He wondered why Morley hadn’t mentioned the legend.

“Follow me,” said Crawford. A few paces behind Crawford, Kingston was gazing around to see if there was any way a car might have been driven close to the monument. The answer came almost immediately when they crossed a narrow dirt track, wide enough for a vehicle, that ran past the back of the clearing. Kingston estimated that anyone passing by on that road would be barely fifty feet away from the spot where the body was found. As he was visualizing the possibilities, he heard Crawford talking again and hurried to catch up. “I’ll show you a couple of other places of interest on the way back to the office. But first, you must see our famous yew tree.” Soon they encountered another grassy clearing where Crawford pointed out another monument, this one much smaller, mounted with a large stone globe. Perched on top of the globe, a sphinxlike marble cat stared down. “This is Amunet’s monument,” he said. “It’s named after the admiral’s favorite Siamese, said to have accompanied him on voyages.”

“The admiral being James Morley,” Kingston said.

“That’s correct. I’m not certain if it’s ever been established whether he knew that his brother was stealing from him or, if he did, at what point he found out. We do know that eventually they never talked to each other again and James Morley stopped visiting Sturminster—hence the feud rumor.”

Continuing, they passed another monument, this time considerably larger and farther away. It resembled a smaller version of a classical Greek temple. “That’s the Athenian temple,” said Crawford. “The design is based on the Temple of Hephestus in Athens. It’s amazingly accurate in detail.”

Five minutes later they were standing under one of the largest trees Kingston had ever seen. Crawford, who had now assumed the practiced mantle of tour guide, pointed out that it was reputedly the largest in England, with a spread of 525 feet in circumference. At charity garden parties during the war, an admission charge was made to view the tree, he added.

Their next stop was the walled vegetable garden. As they walked the gravel pathways that divided the spacious raised beds, filled to capacity with every kind of vegetable imaginable, Crawford launched into a rambling commentary, describing how it had been restored to its 1805 glory days when it had enjoyed a reputation as one of the most ambitious horticultural centers of its kind, employing what at the time were considered revolutionary gardening techniques. The garden, he droned on, was now a showcase for organic and biodynamic agriculture, a farming approach that looks upon the maintenance and furtherance of soil life and other ecological factors to provide high-quality crops, more nutritional food for human beings, and better feed for livestock. Pausing now and then along the way, he pointed out displays that showed how soil improvement could be achieved by implementing various methods: applying sufficient organic manure and compost, using earthworms to enrich and revitalize the soil, proper crop rotation, working the soil, protective measures, using cover crops, and with diversified crops rather than monoculture. To Kingston, it sounded as if Crawford had memorized it by rote, oblivious to the fact that he was preaching to the choirmaster.

Back at the house, Crawford picked up the copies of the reports from the police and GCHQ that had been made and gave them to Kingston. On their way out, they took a detour to the rococo decorated library, where Crawford described its beginnings when it housed the admiral’s personal collection of books, antiquities, and ephemera collected on his voyages abroad. He further explained the methodology of how the volumes were stored, pointing out certain shelves by subject category.

“Oh, and here’s something Francis thought you might find interesting.” Crawford took a large volume from a nearby shelf and handed it to Kingston. “It’s considered the definitive history of the Morley family. Written by William Oxbridge-Bell, the noted historian. Though I should warn you, it’s quite a slog.”

“Thanks,” said Kingston, taking it.

Crawford glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting with an American television production company at two. Much as I hate to, Lawrence, I must wind up our meeting for now. It was a pleasure to get to know you and I hope that I’ve been able to give you a clearer picture of the case as far as Sturminster is concerned. Don’t hesitate to call me if you have questions. Please feel free to come back at any time,” he said with a fleeting smile.

Kingston was relieved that a lunch wasn’t planned. Another hour or more with Crawford, even if it was only small talk, was not what he would have preferred. “Thanks again,” he said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, and I can now see why Endicott’s death is so perplexing.”

After exchanging cards, they left the library and a minute later stood at the colonnaded entrance to the grand mansion. After good-byes and a quick handshake, Kingston walked to his TR4 and lowered the satchel of documents behind the driver’s seat. He slipped behind the wheel and, with a quick wave of farewell to Crawford, who was watching from the flagstone steps, took off down the tree-lined driveway.