A Crowded Coffin(73)
Delicately, infinitely slowly, savouring the moment, he negotiated the catch on the front of the little coffer. There was no key and he lifted the tiny latch. Inside, wrapped in faded silk, lay a small, jewelled object, the gold untarnished by the centuries.
Rory and Harriet forgot, for a moment, their predicament, and craned their necks to look at the treasure. Harriet frowned but stayed silent. Rory stared at it, puzzled. It was clearly the jewel in the portrait, the knotwork casing that held the large garnet, surmounted by small pearls, but why did he feel cheated? To his dismay he realized he was not the only one to feel that way.
‘What the hell is this?’ It was a howl of rage from John Forrester. ‘This isn’t Aelfryth’s Tears, this is a copy.’
Furiously disappointed he flung the little silver chest with its bejewelled contents onto a small table and turned on Harriet and Rory. ‘Don’t you see?’ he demanded. ‘Look at the workmanship. Oh, I grant you it’s not bad, in fact it could be considered very good, of its kind. Of its kind, though…. I couldn’t say offhand what date it is, but I don’t even know that it’s real gold, could be pinchbeck, and they’ve just made random marks instead of the correct runic inscription. It should read, “Joy, Prosperity and Fruitfulness”. And as for the pearl….’
It was almost a wail of fury and despair. ‘I don’t know about the garnet, could be glass and the pearls don’t look right either. At a guess I’d say it’s an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century fake.’ He picked it up again and fiddled with it. ‘Could be earlier, I suppose, parts of it recycled, perhaps.’
His probing brought results at last and the garnet in its basketwork casing swung back on a minute hinge, revealing a cavity the size of a hazelnut. ‘See? In the real jewel, this compartment would be smooth and polished. This isn’t bad, but it’s not the quality you’d expect. The real one ought to have a glass inner seal too because of the Virgin’s tears inside.’
He fidgeted for a few minutes, eyeing up the aperture behind the panelling, then he turned to them with narrowed eyes. ‘I’m going to try and get through there,’ he said, glancing at the gun. ‘You’ll stay here and not try anything clever. I’d rather not shoot you, the noise will draw unwelcome attention, but it won’t bother me if I have to.’
Rory was surely looking more grey and weary than just now. Harriet slid a sidelong look at him, her own head throbbing badly. She turned away and nodded slightly in response to a lifted eyebrow from the vicar, watching as he wrestled with the outer door, a struggle in the cramped space as he wrenched at the ancient, rusted bolts. At last he succeeded and the door creaked open, revealing a minute platform on the leads and slates of the roof; probably an access door for maintenance, Harriet supposed, but not in use for a very long time now. It was bolted on the inside, she noted, so maybe those workmen on the roof, back in the twenties, could just have assumed it was sealed up and disused.
As John scrambled back down into the gallery, Harriet checked her watch. Oh God, what if the cavalry turned up now? She ventured a question.
‘What will you do now?’ she asked. ‘Join Colin Price wherever he’s hiding out? You won’t get away with it, you know.’
She was fleetingly aware of Rory’s consternation and realized he had, like Harriet herself, begun to formulate a theory about the missing man’s disappearance and was afraid lest she remind John of any of his previous opponents. However, John merely smiled at Harriet with the patronizing air he reserved for most women and she was close enough to Rory to catch his sigh of relief. He clearly understood now that she was trying to distract the other man. Perhaps – perhaps it would turn out all right.
‘I mean, did he go abroad as the police have suggested?’ she persisted. ‘Did you help him to go away?’
He laughed at her this time. ‘Oh yes, I helped him to go away. You could say that.’
His meaning was unmistakable, even to Harriet’s reluctant ears, but she couldn’t restrain herself. ‘You’re a man of the cloth,’ she whispered and he looked amused, relishing her naivety.
‘But – how did you manage it?’ She was stammering slightly now, praying that she could keep John’s attention long enough for the police to arrive. Where the hell were they? She didn’t dare sidle over to the window to look. ‘I mean, the police checked his room and he’d paid his rent in full, they said. And taken a bag of clothes. His passport was gone and he had money, so he could just disappear.’