The Ebony Stag, page 21
Thereat came disappointment.
“I never knew the customer’s name, sir. He dropped into the shop, very much as you yourself have done, gave the order that he wanted, executed, left a deposit, and then called back for collection on a date that we arranged. That was all there was to it. As we should say in the trade, just a cash transaction and no personal account opened.”
When he heard this, Anthony realized that he had learned here all that he was destined to learn. Pity! Nevertheless he had definitely made ground. He was certain now that Lymum ware had played a part in the pattern of things. That the original Forsyth stag had been brought to this very shop in which he was now standing in order that an exact copy might be made from it. Another idea suddenly struck him.
“This stag that you made two years ago—was it made from a copy or constructed from measurements supplied?”
“Not from another figure, sir. Just from measurements that were given to me.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Bathurst quietly. “I’ll call for my stag, then, on—what day will suit you?”
The little man looked at a calendar intently. The calendar hung behind the counter.
“In ten days’ time, sir, if that will suit you.”
“It will suit me admirably,” replied Mr. Bathurst.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CHURCHYARD OF ST. VERONICA’S
Anthony Lotherington Bathurst halted and looked at the Parish Church of St. Veronica’s that stood almost on the edge of a cliff that was crumbling. He saw that it was of Norman origin and Perpendicular development. He had read that beyond the cliff, less than a century ago, fifty yards of land had extended seaward from the Churchyard. Before the Marine Parade had been built, this stretch of land, known as the Hillocks, had been the great place for promenade. For where could better vantage-ground have been found for view or sea-breeze? Anthony thought that St. Veronica’s must have been originally a small cruciform church, with a central tower. Later, it was obvious, the building had been converted into a much larger edifice with a tower at the west end.
Anthony, it must be conceded, was more than curious regarding the Rev. Charles Ashmore Sellon. He went closer so that he could read the notice-board that published certain information. Anthony noted the Vicar’s qualifications. Then he went into the church. Under the tower stood a magnificent Norman arch, and in the porch were pillars of the same period. These pillars carried history and becoming ornament in their capitals. Anthony observed that the middle pillar of the south aisle had, amongst its foliage, four shields, of which three appeared to be original. They bore respectively two staves in saltire which terminated in fleur-de-lis with large crescent in the fess point, three lions heads and the letters H.M. festooned together—ascribed, Mr. Bathurst discovered shortly afterwards, to Lady Helen Marradick, the Lady Bountiful of the district in the year 1588.
The next pillar, eastward by the Vicar’s stall, bore on one face a large fret, the badge of the Bryanstons, the famous Bryanston Tangle, indicative possibly of a gift or benefaction of the great Bryanston family. An old lectern supported a chained Bible. A magnificent mural painting was over the chancel steps. The church boasted a wagon roof, a Jacobean pulpit, a memorial window in the north wall to the beautiful Beryl Hartley, and a most gorgeous tapestry in the gallery (1490) that depicted the marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York under the title of “The Union of the Roses”.
Anthony passed on to another corner of the church. He read that a number of old coins found during the work of restoration were now contained within the old lectern. Also that the church had eight bells and seven hundred and twenty-two sittings.
It was at this moment that Mr. Bathurst had his greatest stroke of fortune. He left the church dedicated to St. Veronica by the big main door, and made his way into the spacious, strangely shaped churchyard. Immediately to his left he halted by a most unusual-looking tomb. Instead of the ordinary headstone there had been erected a tall column. The appearance of this was so abnormal that it at once excited Mr. Bathurst’s keen interest. On the column, reading downwards, there were inscribed the following words. Anthony walked towards it in order that he could the more easily read them.
Sacred to the memories
of the
REV. STEPHEN CONWAY,
Vicar of this Parish, 1849-1867,
and his brother,
REV. HUGH CONWAY,
whose untiring devotion and patient self-denial on the night of Oct. 25th, 1859, will live for ever in the hearts of all those who were privileged to know them. STEPHEN CONWAY, born July 8th, 1819; died June 22nd, 1867.
HUGH CONWAY, born Feb. 21st, 1814; died April 18th, 1873.
“And underneath are the everlasting arms.”
This monument and memorial erected by the relatives and friends of the 465 human souls who perished in the terrible disaster on the night of Oct. 25th, in the year 1859 as written above, to whom the Rev. Stephen Conway wrote no fewer than one thousand and seventy-five letters.
As he read the lines, Anthony stood there almost petrified by the significance of the sculptured words. “When Death with Icy Wings did stalk, For twice two hundred human souls.” Here was a definite pointer, here in front of him, with regard to the message from the antlers of the stag. The terrible disaster on the night of October 25th, 1859. Here it was, the clue that he had been seeking for so long and which had now come to him, tossed almost wantonly by the fingers of Fortune. But what was the disaster and what had it to do with Robert Forsyth and the men who had gathered round him? What had it to do with the murdered woman, Bryant? Anthony stood there, in front of the tomb of the Conways, his brow deeply furrowed in thought. There was one thing—now that he had progressed thus far, the remainder of the way should not be difficult.
He began to make his way slowly along the churchyard path. A sudden turning brought him to an angle made by the church wall. He noticed from obvious signs that this portion of the wall had been more recently erected than the remainder. A few more steps brought him face to face with two huge mounds. Anthony advanced eagerly to the first grave.
In memory of those named below who lost their lives in the wreck of the Royal Stag in Chalke Bay on the night of October 25th, 1859.
The words on the stone at the head of the second grave held an added sadness.
In memory of the unclaimed bodies, buried in this common grave, of those persons drowned in Chalke Bay on the night of October 25th, 1859, when the Royal Stag, homeward-bound from Australia, foundered.
“In death they are not divided.”
Anthony’s breath came more quickly now. The Royal Stag! Stag! The antlers! The ebony stag! And the vital clue that he had sought had been close at hand all the time. The irony of fate! But the ball had been placed on his toe at last.
Anthony walked quickly from the churchyard in the direction of the Chalke Free Library. He would be able to obtain information there for a certainty. Arrived there, he walked straight to the Reference Library and asked for Picton’s Manual of Sea Disasters of the Nineteenth Century. Seeing that Chalke was implicated, the local authority would be bound to stock a copy. Mr. Bathurst’s assumption proved to be correct. Picton’s Manual was produced, Mr. Bathurst signed the necessary receipt and retired to a tranquil corner where he might read in peace. His grey eyes gleamed as he came upon the following report and settled down to digest it.
The Royal Stag was wrecked on the Murray rocks in Chalke Bay on the night of October 25th, 1859. The Royal Stag was a full-rigged ship of 3000 tons burthen, with auxiliary screw, belonging to Yardley, Gibb and Co. of Liverpool. She had left Melbourne on August 26th, 1859, with 322 passengers and 188 officers and men. She carried a light cargo of wool and hides and approximately £850,000 partly in gold ingots and partly in gold coin.
Anthony nodded to himself as he read. He was beginning to understand now why Forsyth had died with a harpoon through his chest. Strange, that, seeing that the Rev. Stephen Conway had once been vicar here. He went on with his reading.
The wreck was due to the terrible storm which raged round the coast on the night of the disaster. The Royal Stag struck a terrific on-shore wind against which her screw and engines were entirely powerless, and though strenuous endeavours were made to anchor, the anchor dragged until the ill-fated ship struck on the sharp, tooth-edged Murray rocks in Chalke Bay about 3 a.m., finally breaking up at 8.22 a.m., when no less an 465 persons lost their lives. Of the 510 people on board, only 45 lived to tell of the wreck. Many of the panic-stricken, frenzied passengers were drowned owing to the fact that they were carrying heavy belts of gold-dust round their respective waists. The bodies of the victims were buried in the little churchyards along the coast in the various bays in which they ultimately came ashore, but the great majority rest in the churchyard of St. Veronica’s, Chalke. In this churchyard, also, all the unidentified bodies were buried in a common grave, which grave is now within the precincts of the church. It is impossible to speak in too high terms of the Rev. Stephen Conway, the Vicar of St. Veronica’s, and his brother, the Rev. Hugh Conway, who was staying at the Vicarage on the night of the disaster. Words cannot adequately convey an idea of their untiring devotion and self-denial during the fearful scenes they were called upon to undergo. At the time of the wreck, the Vicar, never sparing himself, took into his personal charge no fewer than 222 bodies, and made a complete catalogue of the personal effects found upon each in the hope that it might be found possible at some future date to establish certain identifications. Captain Garfield O’Connor, the commander, was the last man to be seen on board alive; and one seaman, a Maltese, by name Samuel Forsetti, escaped miraculously, actually swimming ashore with a rope. £300,000 value of the gold that the Royal Stag carried was subsequently salved by divers, but the depth of the water in certain parts of the bay and the strong-running cross-currents made operations difficult and there must still remain great wealth round the Murray rocks in Chalke Bay which may or may not be wrested from the sea at some future time. Golden sovereigns (carried by the Royal Stag from Australia) were picked up in large quantities for many months afterwards on the sands near the scene of the wreck, and from time to time—indeed, up to the year 1920—pieces of wreckage have drifted ashore on the Chalke coast which have been identified as having belonged to the unhappy Royal Stag. A contemporary writer has written the following passage concerning the wreck. “So tremendous was the force of the seas that struck the Royal Stag, and so mighty were the walls of waves, that one great ingot of gold was beaten deep into a strong and heavy piece of the ship’s solid ironwork, in which also eight loose sovereigns were found as firmly embedded as though the iron had been liquid when the ins had been forced into it.” A curious walking-stick found among the wreckage and believed to have belonged to Capt. O’Connor, the commander, was for many years in the possession of the Rev. William Futchells, Rector of Poplar, and for a period in 1899, following upon his death, was on view in the window of a shop in Brunswick Road, Poplar.
Anthony Bathurst put down his book and endeavoured to collect his many devastating thoughts into something like order. Gold. Coins and ingots. Half a million unaccounted for—according to Picton’s Manual. In Chalke Bay somewhere. Of course it had been an ebony stag! And the dwelling-places of the Forsyths had each been named “The Antlers”. A Maltese, Samuel Forsetti by name, had escaped by a miracle and swum ashore. Anthony picked up the book again and looked at the name. It attracted him. Pity that the account omitted to give Forsetti’s age. That fact might have helped Mr. Bathurst considerably. He wrote down once again, on the back of a used envelope that he took from his pocket, the lines of the memorized message.
When Death with Icy Wings did stalk,
For twice two hundred human souls,
I drew the Serpents from their Holes,
To meet a Waterloo at Chalke.
Try then the Sails that never fly,
My Royal Burden Straight to find,
For One shall Live if One shall Die,
If Out of Sight—not Out of Mind.
And then, having written the eight lines, Mr. Bathurst added the line of letters that had been on the reverse side of the piece of paper. Z/J/AHEI. In this last connection, an idea had already occurred to Anthony and what he had read but a few moments ago had revived the association. Substituting numbers for letters according to the ordination of the alphabet, Mr. Bathurst immediately had the following line of figures: 26/10/1859. Here was the date of the disaster of the Royal Stag, for if she had met the storm on the night of the 25th October, she had certainly not struck the Murray rocks until the morning of the 26th. Anthony, therefore, was satisfied. Much was becoming plain, and he must now again examine the eight lines of the message. Anthony looked again at Picton’s Manual and then decided that he need have no more of it. He therefore returned it to the library attendant, at the same time making a request for Pliny’s Natural History. He was desirous now of testing yet another idea. The attendant obligingly handed over the second volume. Anthony Bathurst returned to his chair, opened the work of Mr. Pliny, and turned up “Stag”. For some moments he read on without finding what he wanted. But at length his patience was rewarded. Mr. Bathurst reached a passage which he read with avid interest.
The reason why a stag symbolizes Christ is from the ancient idea that it draws serpents from their holes by its breath, and then tramples them to death.
Then followed a footnote to this effect.
In Christian art the stag is always depicted as the attribute of St. Julian Hospitaller, St. Felix of Valois, and St. Aidan. When the stag is shown as having a crucifix between its horns, it alludes to the legend of St. Hubert, and when it is portrayed as luminous, it belongs to St. Eustachius.
Anthony Bathurst closed the labours of Pliny and rubbed his hands. Here was certainty confirmed and corroborated lock, stock and barrel. This meant now that the first three lines of the message were deciphered. And yet one more, Anthony saw, if he but looked ahead a little distance. “My Royal Burden Straight to find” obviously referred to the gold cargo that the Royal Stag carried, much of which still lay deep around the Murray rocks in Chalke Bay. But did it? That was the question. What had happened since 1859 to bring this train of murder? The remaining lines, unhappily, still meant nothing, or almost nothing, to him. What was meant by the allusion to “Waterloo”, and then again, to the “Sails that never fly”? Anthony took his copy of Pliny back to the “Reference” counter and smiled at the bespectacled, frozen-faced attendant.
“Thank you,” he said to her. “I am obliged.”
“It must be true,” he remarked to himself on his way out, “that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder otherwise we should all be submerged in a sea of troubles and by opposing not end them.”
Mr. Bathurst walked slowly back to the strange atmosphere that now distinguished the “Tracy Arms”.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE NET BEGINS TO CLOSE
To his surprise the first people to meet him in the lounge, upon his arrival, were Wilfred Hatherley and his chief, Mr. Sharpe-Lodge. Anthony Bathurst advanced to them with a question on his lips.
“What? Back again, gentlemen? And to what do we owe the reason of this further visit?”
Sharpe-Lodge answered him with an air of furtive mystery. “There has been a second murder, Mr. Lotherington. A second crime of violence has been committed. Why? But, of course, I waste my time. For you know of these things better than I myself.”
Anthony chose the words of his reply deliberately.
“I know of the second murder. I was here, on the premises, when the woman was killed. But I know no more of it than that. Regrets if I disappoint you. Where were you yourself—and Mr. Hatherley?”
“We went back to our work at Easthampton. It was necessary. My advice was wanted, on a matter of the mechanization of accounts, due to the trouble up at Milburne. I took Hatherley with me. When I heard of this last terrible development, I immediately instructed Hatherley and we returned. I run away from nothing, sir. I have never run away from anything. Nor do I shirk anything that may even be broadly regarded as my responsibility.” As he spoke, he turned and looked at Anthony with his curious, bird-like stare. “You don’t catch me, you know,” he added. “I’m afraid that I’m too old a bird for that to happen—when I credit Plant, I never fail to debit Stock. Do I, Hatherley?”
“Never, sir.”
“You can vouch personally for that?”
“I can vouch personally for that.”
Hatherley’s replies were comically solemn but clearly sincere. Anthony thought of the paper that had been stolen from the drawer in his bedroom on the evening when he had dined on the Vaar with Vass and Captain Stromm. Somebody had known that he was with Stromm that night, without a doubt. At the same time there was the risk which had always been present since the theft of the paper. The risk that the murderer might solve the hidden meaning that it held, gain his objective, and then disappear silently from their midst. Disappear as silently as he had come. Anthony determined to take a chance.
“You can clear your minds of the idea that the murders, or even the first murder, cast any reflection upon the County Borough of Easthampton itself.”
Sharpe-Lodge jerked his head to one side. “Now isn’t that considerate of you? Mighty kind, I call that.”
Anthony smiled at him. “Why do you say that? Did you already know?” Mr. Bathurst’s tone was bland and his inflexion ingenuous.
