The King's Deception (20 page)

A
NTRIM LED
G
ARY FROM THE OFFICE OUT INTO THE WAREHOUSE
, the space brightly lit by an array of overhead fluorescent fixtures. Two tables held stacks of old books, some tucked safely inside plastic bags. Another table supported three iMacs connected to an Internet router and a printer. This was where Farrow Curry had worked, trying to make sense of Robert Cecil’s journal, deciphering what seemed impossible to understand.

But the past twenty-four hours had changed his mind.

Not only was it possible, somebody was willing the pay him five million pounds just to walk away from whatever was there.

Gary noticed the stone slab lying on the floor. “What is that?”

“We found that in an interesting place. Not far from here, near a palace called Nonsuch.”

“Is it a big castle?”

“The palace no longer exists. Only the ground where it stood. Henry VIII built it as the grandest of all his residences. A magical site. He called it Nonsuch because there was nothing else its equal. None. Such. All we know of what it looked like now comes from three watercolors that survived.”

“So what happened to it?”

“Centuries later, Charles II gave it to his mistress and she sold it off, piece by piece, to pay her gambling debts. Eventually, there was nothing left but the dirt on the ground. We recovered this slab from a nearby farm where it had been used for centuries to support a bridge.”

Gary bent down and examined the stone. The CIA memo from the 1970s had made mention of the slab’s existence.

A series of symbols were carved on its face.

He stepped close and said, “They’re mainly abstract markings,
but some are Greek and Roman alphabet letters. They turned out to be the key, though, to a four-hundred-year-old mystery.”

He could see that the boy was intrigued. Good. He wanted him to be impressed.

“Like a lost treasure?” Gary asked.

“Something like that. Though we’re hoping there’s even more to it.”

“What do these symbols mean?”

“They’re the way to solve a code that was created long ago by a man named Robert Cecil.”

Back in the 1970s, when those Irish lawyers first delved into the mystery, there were few sophisticated computers and the decryption programs were little more than elementary. So the slab’s secrets had remained concealed. Thankfully, modern technology changed all that.

He watched as the boy traced the symbols with his fingers.

“Would you like to see the most important thing we found?”

Gary nodded.

“It’s over here.”

M
ALONE WALKED WITH
M
ISS
M
ARY BETWEEN THE SHELVES
. Her store was a tad smaller than his, but she possessed his same penchant for hardcovers. Not too many repeats, either, which evidenced how careful she was with her buying. No danger of running out of inventory ever existed, since people loved to trade books. That was the great thing about the business. A steady supply of inexpensive inventory always came and went.

She turned into the history section and scanned the spines.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need your help,” she said, pointing to one of the top shelves.

He was six feet tall. She stood a good foot shorter.

“At your service.”

“It’s there. The fourth book from the left.”

He spotted the red-bound volume and reached for it, maybe ten inches tall, four inches wide, and not quite an inch thick. In good condition, too. Late 19th century, he estimated from its bindings and cover.

He read the title.

Famous Impostors
.

Then noted its author.

Bram Stoker.

K
ATHLEEN PARKED HER CAR
. D
URING THE DRIVE BACK FROM
Oxford she’d become convinced that she was being played. There was no Eva Pazan, or at least not one who worked at Lincoln College. Maybe Pazan was told to lie. But why? Weren’t they all on the same side? And Mathews had sent her specifically to meet with the professor. If Pazan was a sham, what had been the point? She’d re-checked Jesus College and found a deceit. Now she’d returned to the Temple Church. Things about what happened here earlier bothered her, too.

She parked again outside the walls and entered the Inns of Court through the unmanned vehicle gate. King’s Bench Walk was wet and, thanks to the late hour, empty of cars.

Sometimes she regretted never actually practicing law. Neither her father nor her grandfathers had been alive when she chose SOCA. She hardly knew her father—he died when she was young—but her mother kept his memory alive. So much that she decided that the law would be her career path, too. Being back among the Inns, recalling her days here and at Oxford, had definitely reawakened something inside her. At thirty-six she could easily re-hone her skills and perhaps earn entry into the practicing bar. A tough path, for sure. But soon that might be her only option. Her SOCA career
seemed over, and her short foray into intelligence work would probably end before it ever started.

Quite a mess she’d made of her life.

But she had no time for regrets.

Never had, really.

She knew that tomorrow, Saturday, visitors would be everywhere among the Inns, enjoying the grounds and touring the famous Temple Church. But little about the ancient building was original. Centuries ago Protestant barristers, wanting to efface all emblems of Catholicism, whitewashed the interior and plastered the columns—a puritanical cleansing that destroyed all of the olden beauty. Most of what the visitors now saw was a 20th-century reconstruction, the aftermath of German bombs during World War II.

At this hour the church was dark and locked for the night. Midnight was fast approaching. Lights burned, though, in the nearby master’s residence, the custodian charged with the church’s upkeep, a servant of both the Middle and Inner Temples.

She approached the front door and knocked.

The man who answered was in his forties, dark-haired, and identified himself as the master. He seemed perplexed she was there, so she displayed her SOCA identification and asked, “What time does the church close each day?”

“You came here, at this hour, to ask me that?”

She tried a bluff. “Considering what happened earlier, you should not be surprised.”

And she saw that her words registered.

“It varies,” he said. “Most days it’s 4:00
PM
. Sometimes it’s as early as 1:00
PM
, depending on if we have services or a special event planned.”

“Like earlier?”

He nodded. “We closed the church, at four, as requested.”

“No one was there after that?”

He tossed her a curious look. “I locked the doors myself.”

“And were the doors reopened?”

“Are you referring to the special event?” he asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m referring to. Did everything perform brilliantly?”

He nodded. “The doors were reopened at six, locked back at ten. No personnel were on site, as requested.”

Improvise. Think. Don’t waste this opportunity.

“We are having some … internal issues. There were problems. Not on your end. On ours. We’re trying to backtrack and trace the source.”

“Oh, my. I was told that everything must be precise.”

“By your supervisor?”

“By the treasurer himself.”

The Inns were run by benchers, senior members of the bar, usually judges. The senior bencher was the treasurer.

“Of the Middle or Inner Temple?” she asked.

The church sat on the dividing line between the two Inns’ respective land, each contributing to its upkeep. Southern pews were for the Inner Temple, northern pews accommodated the Middle.

“Inner Temple. The treasurer was quite emphatic, as was the other man.”

“That’s what I came to find out. Who was the other man?”

“Quite distinguished. Older gentleman, with a cane. Sir Thomas Mathews.”

M
ALONE LAID THE BOOK ON THE COUNTER
. M
ORE CUSTOMERS
wandered in through the front door and browsed the shelves.

“They do come after the final curtain in the theaters, don’t they?” he said.

“The only reason I stay open this late on weekends. I’ve found it to be quite worthwhile. Luckily, I am a bit of a night person.”

He wasn’t sure what he was. Night. Morning. All day. It seemed he simply forced his mind to work whenever it had to. Right now, his body was still operating on Georgia time, five hours earlier, so he was okay.

Miss Mary pointed to the book he held. “That was published in 1910. Bram Stoker worked for Sir Henry Irving, one of the great Victorian actors. Stoker managed the Lyceum Theatre, near the Strand, for Irving. He was also Irving’s personal assistant. Stoker penned most of his great works while in Irving’s employ,
Dracula
included. Stoker idolized Henry Irving. Many say the inspiration for the title character in
Dracula
came from Irving.”

“I hadn’t heard that one.”

She nodded. “It’s true. But in 1903, while searching for some land Irving might be interested in purchasing, Stoker came across an interesting legend. In the Cotswolds. Near Gloucestershire and the village of Bisley.”

She opened the red volume to the table of contents.

“Stoker became fascinated with hoaxes and pretenders. He said that
‘imposters, in one shape or another, are likely to flourish as long as human nature remains what it is and society shows itself ready to be gulled.’
So he wrote this account and detailed some of the more famous, and not so famous.”

He studied the table of contents, which listed thirty-plus subjects scattered over nearly 300 pages. The Wandering Jew. Witches. Women as Men. The False Dauphin. Doctor Dee.

“Stoker wrote four nonfiction books to go with his novels and short stories,” Miss Mary said. “He never quit his day job and worked for Irving right up to the great actor’s death in 1905. Stoker died in 1912. This book was published two years before that. When I read what was on that flash drive, I instantly thought of it.”

She pointed to the last section noted in the table of contents, starting on page 283.

The Bisley Boy.

He carefully turned to the page and started reading. After only a few lines he glanced up and said, “This can’t be real.”

“And why not, Mr. Malone?”

K
ATHLEEN BID THE MASTER GOOD NIGHT AND LEFT THE
I
NNS
of Court. Both she and possibly Antrim had been led here. Then she’d been directed to Oxford.

I am of the Inner Temple. A member fifty years
.

That was what Mathews had told her earlier.

Then, at Oxford, about the Daedalus Society.

The man who accosted you inside the chapel, we have dealt with his group before. They also confronted Blake Antrim earlier in the Temple Church
.

Yet it had been Mathews, through the treasurer of the Inner Temple, who’d arranged for the church’s use.

Not some Daedalus Society.

What was happening here?

Her suspicions had turned to outright distrust.