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April 2 - April 12, 2023
He was conscious of a sudden wave of heat passing over him, of an odd shock that made his heart jump unpleasantly. He was looking at his own name, written on a battered envelope lying face upwards among the other litter. He picked it up and was astonished to see that his hand was shaking. The name was unmistakable. ‘P St J W Gyrth, Esq’, written clearly in a hand he didn’t know. He turned the envelope over. It was an expensive one, and empty, having been torn open across the top apparently by an impatient hand. He sat staring at it for some moments and a feeling of unreality took possession of
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It was over a week since he had possessed any address. Yet he was convinced, and the fact was somehow slightly uncanny and unnerving, that someone had written to him, and someone else had received the letter, the envelope of which had been thrown away to be found by himself. Not the least remarkable thing about a coincidence is that once it has happened, one names it, accepts it, and leaves it at that.
A man who is literally destitute is like a straw in the wind; any tiny current is sufficient to set him drifting in a new direction. His time and energies are of no value to him; anything is worthwhile. Impelled by curiosity, therefore, he set off across the square, the storm blowing up behind him.
a mountain of a man with the largest and most lugubrious face he had ever seen. A small tablecloth had been tied across the newcomer’s stomach by way of an apron, and his great muscular arms were bare to the elbow. For the rest, his head was bald, and the bone of his nose had sustained an irreparable injury. He regarded the young man with mournful eyes.
a couple o’ Zepps in a smoke screen.
Zepps in a cloud, post WW1 British slang for bangers and mash. (Meta-slang?)
Now, for the first time in days, he realised that he was free from that curious feeling of oppression which had vaguely puzzled him. There was no one in the street behind him as he turned from dark corner to lighted thoroughfare and came at last to the cul-de-sac off Piccadilly which is Bottle Street.
a Rosenberg dry point
A type of etching. Rosenberg was a relatively well-known American artist.
Val Gyrth took the paper with casual curiosity, but the moment he caught sight of the photograph he sprang to his feet and stood towering in Mr Campion’s small room, his face crimson and his intensely blue eyes narrowed and appalled. As he tried to read the inscription his hand shook so violently that he was forced to set the paper on the table and decipher it from there. When he had finished he straightened himself and faced his host. A new dignity seemed to have enveloped him in spite of his ragged clothes and generally unkempt appearance.
‘Hear my piece, and you shall have my birth certificate afterwards if you want it.
The young man was still incredulous, but considerably startled. All the vagueness had for a moment vanished from his host’s manner. Mr Campion was alert, eager, almost intelligent.
‘Now, listen, Val Gyrth,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to believe me. I’m not nearly so ignorant of the position that the Gyrth Chalice holds in your family, and in the country, as you imagine. By warning you I am placing myself at direct variance with one of the most powerful organisations in the world. By offering you my assistance I am endangering my life.’
Val took a deep breath. The last barriers of his prejudice were down. There was something in his host’s sudden change from the inane to the fervent which was extraordinarily convincing.
‘I am — or rather I was — a sort of universal uncle, a policeman’s friend, and master-crook’s factotum. What it really boiled down to, I suppose, is that I used to undertake other people’s adventures for them at a small fee. If necessary I can give you references from Scotland Yard, unofficial, of course, or from almost any other authority you might care to mention. But last year my precious uncle, His Grace the Bishop of Devizes, the only one of the family who’s ever appreciated me, by the way, died and left me the savings of an episcopal lifetime. Having become a capitalist, I couldn’t very
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I have a slightly personal interest in the matter. I’ve been practically chucked out by my family. In fact, most of it is under the impression that I went to the colonies ten year ago…’ Gyrth stopped him. ‘When you took off your spectacles a moment ago,’ he said, ‘you reminded me of…’ Mr Campion’s pale face flushed. ‘Shall we leave it at that?’ he suggested. A wave of understanding passed over the boy’s face. He poured himself out another drink.
barbola work,
Decorative models of flowers, fruit, made with a plastic paste.
you see our difficulty there. If we call in the police when nothing has been stolen they won’t be very sympathetic, and they won’t hang about indefinitely. Once the treasure has been stolen it will pass almost immediately into the hands of people who are untouchable. It wouldn’t be fair dos for the policemen. I have worked for Scotland Yard in my time. One of my best friends is a big Yard man. He’ll do all he can to help us, but you see the difficulties of the situation.’
should the expert whom they have chosen meet his death in the execution of his duty — I mean, should the owner of the treasure in question kill him to save it — then they leave well alone and look out for someone else’s family album.’
It’s only if their own personal employee gets put out that they get cold feet. Not that the men they employ mind bloodshed,’ he added hastily. ‘The small fry — burglars, thugs, and homely little forgers — may die like flies. “George” and “Ethel” don’t have anything to do with that. It’s if their own agent gets knocked on the head that they consider that the matter is at an end, so to speak.’ He was silent.
‘What you are saying is, in effect, then,’ he said, ‘if we want to protect the one thing that’s really precious to me and my family, the one thing that must come before everything else with me, we must find out the man employed by this society, and murder him?’
Reluctantly he had allowed himself to be equipped and valeted by his host and the invaluable Lugg, and he looked a very different person from the footsore and unkempt figure he had then appeared. After his first interview with Campion he had put himself unreservedly into that extraordinary young man’s hands.
Interesting that his current behavior is described as undertaken both reluctantly and !unreservedly all in the course of a single paragraph.
He could not doubt that, unless his host proved to be a particularly convincing lunatic, there was genuine danger to be faced.
One of these damn women-with-a-personality.
A lot about this text seems hard to believe it was written by a woman.
the studied rudeness which is the hallmark of her type.
I told him he hadn’t got the sense to train properly; and that man he’s got is a fool.
Always a winning approach!
funny chap with a beard. An arty bloke. I tell yer wot — ’e reminded me of that Bloomsbury lot ’oo came to the flat and sat on the floor and sent me out for kippers and Chianti.
Mrs Bullock, who had sensed the urgency of his request, was wise enough to ask no questions. She had been the faithful friend and confidante of the children at the Tower ever since her early days as cook at that establishment, and their affairs were as always one of her chief concerns.
‘Up in your flat the story sounded incredible enough, but down here with everything exactly as it always was, so quiet and peaceful and miles away from anywhere, it’s just absurd.
I suppose you know you bashed that chap up pretty permanently, and he didn’t even mention to the hospital authorities that he had a fare on board? If someone doesn’t try to murder one of us every two days, you seem to think there’s nothing up.
A more unemotional greeting it would have been difficult to imagine, but her delight was obvious. It radiated from her eyes and from her smile.
A quick comprehending glance passed between him and the elder girl, a silent flicker of recognition, but neither spoke.
Penny was plainly ill at ease. It was evident that she was trying to behave as she fancied her brother would prefer, deliberately forcing herself to take his unexpected return as a matter of course.
‘The gypsies are Mother’s fault,’ she said. ‘She thinks they’re so picturesque. But four of her leghorns vanished this morning, so I shouldn’t wonder if your Dad’s grievance would be sent about its business fairly soon.’
‘Val, you’re extraordinary,’ she said. ‘You seem to smell things out like an old pointer. It doesn’t matter talking in front of Beth, because she’s been the only person that I could talk to down here and she knows everything. There’s something awfully queer going on at home.’
You remember the Cup House chapel has been a sacred place ever since we were kids — I mean it’s not a place where we’d take strangers except on the fixed day, is it? Well, just lately Aunt Diana seems to have gone completely mad. She was always indiscreet on the subject, of course, but now — well—’ she took a deep breath and regarded her brother almost fearfully — ‘she was photographed with it. I suppose that’s what’s brought you home. Father nearly had apoplexy, but she just bullied him.’
she developed a whole crowd of the most revolting people — a sort of semi-artistic new religion group. They’ve turned her into a kind of High Priestess and they go about chanting and doing funny exercises in sandals and long white night-gowns. Men, too. It’s disgusting. She lets them in to see the Chalice. And one man’s making a perfectly filthy drawing of her holding it.’
‘Since you went he’s sort of curled up in his shell and he’s more morose than ever. There’s something worrying him. He has most of his meals in his room. We hardly ever see him. And, Val’ — she lowered her voice — ‘there was a light in the East Wing last night.’
Left to himself he closed the door carefully, and sitting down at the table, he removed his spectacles and extracted two very significant objects from his suitcase, a small but wicked-looking rubber truncheon and an extremely serviceable Colt revolver. From his hip pocket he produced an exactly similar gun, save in the single remarkable fact that it was constructed to project nothing more dangerous than water. He considered the two weapons gravely. Finally, he sighed and put the toy in the case: the revolver he slipped into his hip pocket.
And I don’t know wot you think you’re up to swankin’ about the cash your uncle left you. I know it paid your tailor’s bill, but only up to nineteen twenty-eight, remember. You’ll land us both in regular jobs workin’ for a livin’ if you’re so soft-’earted that you take on dangerous berths for charity.’
‘But it’s a fac’, as it ’appens. They’ve got a secret room in the east wing containin’ some filfy family secret. There’s a winder but there’s no door, and when the son o’ the house is twenty-five ’is father takes ’im in and shows ’im the ’orror, and ’e’s never the same again. Like the king that ate the winkles. That’s why they leave comin’ of age till the boy is old enough to stand the shock.’ He paused dramatically and added by way of confirmation: ‘The bloke ’oo was telling me was a bit tight, and the others was tryin’ to shut ’im up. You could see it was the truth — they was so scared. It’s
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the oldest part, and by far the most important, was the east wing, from which the house got its name. This was a great pile of old Saxon stone and Roman brick, circular in shape, rising up to a turreted tower, a good sixty feet above the rest of the building. The enormously thick walls were decorated with a much later stone tracery near the top, and were studded with little windows, behind one of which, it was whispered, lay the room to which there was no door.
I thought she was disgustingly full of beans at dinner last night.’
Being picked up in the Pharisees’ Clearing like that. What on earth did she want to go wandering about at night for?’
The boy put his arm round her and shook her almost roughly. ‘Don’t think of it,’ he said. ‘She’d got a bad heart and she died, that’s all. It’s nothing to do with — with the other thing.’ But there was no conviction in his tone and the girl was not comforted, realising that he spoke as much to reassure himself as to soothe her.
‘You dear,’ she said. ‘You’re trying to hush it all up for us.’ ‘My dear child!’ The old man appeared scandalised. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense. There’s nothing to hush up. A perfectly normal death. I’m merely considering your father, as I keep on telling you. You young people are too eager to listen to the superstitious chatter of the country folk. There’s no such thing as a look of horror on a dead face. It’s death itself that is horrifying. A case of sudden end like this is always shocking. I’ll make you up a sedative, Penny. One of the men can come down for it. Take it three times a day
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‘Val, he suspects something,’ she said. ‘All this quiet funeral business — it’s so unlike him. Don’t you remember, Mother used to say that he was as proud at a funeral as if he felt he was directly responsible for the whole thing? He doesn’t like the look of it. Poor Aunt Di, she was a thorn in the flesh, but I never dreamed it would all end so quickly and horribly as this. I’d give anything to be able to hear her explain her psychic reaction to sunset over Monaco again.’ Val was troubled. ‘Do you mean you think it wasn’t heart failure?’ he said. ‘Oh, nonsense,’ said Penny. ‘Of course, it was.
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‘Look,’ she said, ‘you can see the Cup House from here.’ Her companion followed the direction of her eyes and saw a curious rectangular building which had been completely hidden from the front of the house by the enormous eastern wing. It was situated in a little courtyard of its own and consisted of what appeared to be two storeys built of flint cobbles reinforced with oak, the lower floor being clearly the Chapel of the Cup, while the upper section had several windows indicating a suite of rooms.
‘I’m afraid all this talk of painting my aunt with the Chalice has given you a wrong impression. There were always two of the servants there at the time — Branch and someone else — and the relic was returned to its place and the doors locked after each sitting. There are three rooms up there over the chapel,’ she went on, ‘the Maid of the Cup’s private apartments in the old days. Aunt had the big room as a sort of studio, but the two small ones are the bedrooms of the two men who have charge of this garden and the chapel building. There’s an outside staircase to the first storey.’
Penny shook her head. ‘I don’t think there’s a man, woman or child in the whole of Sanctuary who’d come within a mile of Pharisees’ Clearing after dark,’ she said. She hesitated for some seconds as if debating whether to go on. ‘I get on very well with the country folk,’ she added suddenly, ‘and naturally I hear a good deal of local chatter. They believe that this wood and the clearing are haunted — not by a ghost, but by something much worse than that. No one’s ever seen it that I know of, but you know what country people are.’
She pointed to a patch of sunlight at the far end of the path. ‘That’s the entrance to Pharisees’ Clearing,’ she said. ‘Pharisee means “fairy”, you know.’ Mr Campion nodded. ‘Be careful how you talk about fairies in a wood,’ he said. ‘They’re apt to think it disrespectful.’
It was a tiny valley, walled in by high trees on each side, and possessing, even at that hour of the morning, a slightly sinister aspect. The grey-green grass was sparse, and there were large stones scattered about; a bare unlovely place, all the more uninviting after the beauty of the wood.
Is this a description of standing stones?
