The Ely Testament (30 page)

They encountered each other for a second time, apparently by chance, in an Eastcheap chop-house. Here Tomlinson unfolded a little more of his scheme for acquiring wealth. It transpired that he had come into possession of a handwritten document that told a story and, almost as an aside, indicated the whereabouts of an item of great value. A piece of treasure. Here was a tale from the English Civil War, a tale about the occupants of an isolated house in a fenland village, a noble fugitive from a terrible battle, the aid provided by daughters of the household, the priceless trophy carried by the fugitive, his violent death, and so on.

Previously, Mute considered Tomlinson's talk to be so much flimflam even though he'd given him money on the strength of it. But now he saw that behind the other man's banter Tomlinson was quite in earnest. Tomlinson actually believed in what he was saying. So Mute began to believe in it too. That second encounter in the chop-house was followed by other meetings, more relaxed ones. There was eating and drinking, then there was more drinking than eating. Mute not only found himself paying for their refreshment but also making further ‘investments' in Tomlinson's schemes. It was hard to resist Tomlinson when you were in his company.

Occasionally Charles Tomlinson dropped round at the St Dunstan's Alley office. Mute introduced Tomlinson to Jenkins, his editor. Tomlinson promised Jenkins an article on funerary habits of the Southern Seas. Mute did not think that the article had been written. It would never be written now.

Whether he was in liquor or not (and he was generally in liquor, his hip flask often in his hand), Tomlinson was an easy talker. In addition to the story of the treasure, Tomlinson fed Mute with his Eastern tales. Appetizing or revolting accounts of foreign customs and tribal rites, of native women and savage men. Mute adopted a man-of-the-world attitude but really he lapped this stuff up. All of it, but especially the details of the lost treasure.

Gradually, from the details that Tomlinson let drop, Mute started to build up a picture, piece by piece. The treasure was a portable item of great value – an almost priceless object – in the possession of the noble runaway. He was betrayed, pursued and struck down in the churchyard. His death was a shameful, bloody business. He was interred in the vault of the very church where he met his end. With his body was buried the treasure.

The treasure was still there, said Tomlinson. Still down there.

Mute asked how his friend could be so sure, at the same time noting from Tomlinson's comment that the treasure must be buried underground. He already knew that it was connected to Tomlinson's visits to Ely and the cousin who lived near the city.

‘How am I sure it's there? Because, my dear Mute, I am certain that not a soul has seen this document for at least two hundred years, and because the document describes the whereabouts of the treasure.'

‘Document?'

‘It is more of a journal, I suppose. A female diary. Put away and forgotten about for more than two centuries. I think of it as . . . as the Ely testament.'

‘A testament uncovered by you, Tomlinson?'

‘Yes. Aren't I the lucky one!'

‘Suppose that someone else has come along in the meantime and, by chance or otherwise, stumbled across this item of treasure? What is it, by the way?'

‘You won't get that information from me. I have no intention of telling you what “it” is. As for your other question, there is no one who could have stumbled across the thing. It is tucked away tight, all walled up.'

‘If you know where it is, why haven't you laid hands on it already?'

‘Patience, Mute. “Softly, softly, catchee monkey”, as the wise natives say under hotter skies than these. I need time, I need assistance.'

Mute stayed silent. Was Tomlinson about to request that he, Mute, should help? Mute couldn't resist a thrill of pleasure at the idea.

This last conversation between Mute and Tomlinson was taking place, not in the office of
Funereal Matters
or in a cheap eating-place or a pub but on the viewing platform of the Monument to the Great Fire. When Tomlinson suggested for a second time that Mute might like to accompany him to the top, so as to get ‘the measure of the city', Mute did not refuse. By now he was on better terms with his old friend. They were almost intimates again, as in their student days.

He and Charles Tomlinson climbed the tight spiral stairs inside the fluted column and, breathless, emerged on to the viewing platform. The platform was like an animal cage in London Zoo, with iron bars all round and a mesh overhead to prevent people from tumbling over or throwing themselves off. A handful of other sightseers were already up there. Mute and Tomlinson snugged themselves into a corner. While they recovered their breath, they gazed at the curve of the river and the dark path of the Monument's own shadow across the rooftops of the houses. It was smoky down below but fine up above.

Tomlinson took out his hip flask and downed a swig. He said, ‘I can see from the look in your eyes, my dear Mute, that you would like to join me in this quest for treasure. But no, I am afraid not. I owe you an explanation, though. There is a very useful suffix in Hindi. It is
wallah
, which may be translated simply as “man”. One attaches to it all sorts of words to describe a fellow's occupation. As in a kitchen-wallah or a punkah-wallah – that's the servant who operates the great hanging sheets which serve as fans in India. Well, Mute, when I think of you it is – without disrespect – as a word-wallah. Someone who makes his living by juggling with words. Quite safe, really, words are. They cannot cut or bruise you as you juggle them. You are better off in the realm of words. You are not equipped for, ah, dubious enterprises.'

‘What about my money, Tomlinson? The money I've been giving you over the last couple of months.'

‘Those are investments. Haven't I made that plain? Anyway, you've already had your return, Mute.'

‘What return? What are you talking about?'

‘You've had my company and my conversation. That is what you've really been paying for, isn't it? Haven't I given good value? Cheap at the price I would have thought.'

Had there been no bars or mesh around the platform where they were standing, Mute would have pushed Charles Tomlinson to his death hundreds of feet below. If he'd possessed the strength of ten he would have torn aside the mesh with his bare hands in order to create a large enough gap to propel his old friend out into the smoky air of London.

‘No, you are not cut out for adventure,' mused Tomlinson. ‘I was rather thinking I might approach that Fort man. The one I met in your office lately.'

Once again Charles Tomlinson was toying with Mute. Leading him on, seducing him, only in order to enjoy the look of rebuff on his face when he was rejected. Not for the first time Mute recalled the joke that Tomlinson had played on George Eames, their Cambridge friend destined for holy orders. Previously he'd seen only the funny side of the joke. Now he experienced a stab of sympathy for Eames, though it came years too late.

Mute felt rejected and insulted. To be referred to as a word-wallah and, earlier, as a galley-slave! To be told that he had been purchasing the other's company and conversation, as though he were buying a friend! Throughout their talk Mute had been smiling in a game sort of way, but these last remarks caused the tight smile to vanish.

There and then, standing on top of the Monument to the Great Fire, he swore to himself that he would take revenge on Tomlinson. If his old college friend thought of him, Mute, as an effete, desk-bound fellow while he, Tomlinson, was a romantic wanderer about the globe, well, so be it. He'd show the other man the kind of action of which he was capable.

When they parted company at the base of the column, they shook hands and even talked of meeting again for a chat and a drink or two. Tomlinson really seemed oblivious of the mortal snub he'd just delivered to Mute. As for the funereal columnist, he decided it was best to maintain the appearance of ‘friendship' while he plotted his revenge. As his eyes bored into Charles' retreating back – still conscious of that threadbare coat, which it was a pleasure to see his friend could not afford to replace – Mute determined to scupper Tomlinson's ridiculous treasure hunt or, better still, to lay hands on the precious item himself.

For some reason he did not doubt the truthfulness of Tomlinson's story. As Mute saw it, there really must be an article of genuine value tucked away in some fenland village, and Tomlinson had the key to finding it. Why shouldn't he lay hands on it before Tomlinson? Or take it from Tomlinson once the other obtained it? Getting the ‘treasure' would not only be a satisfactory revenge on his old friend but also a very useful source of funds for a scheme which Mute was presently engaged on and which was not so far from being realized.

It happened that Mute was on good terms with Eric Fort, who did occasional jobs for Willow & Son. Mute was welcomed at Willow & Son as someone whose favourable comments were good for business. Like Mute, Eric Fort had a deep knowledge of the burial trade. In Fort's case it amounted almost to a love of the profession and all its appurtenances. The man had recently lost his wife, but his funereal obsession long pre-dated her death. Sometimes he brought to the
F.M.
office a juicy titbit to do with interment, partly for the pleasure of doing so and partly for the small change Mute slipped him if the story was juicy enough for his column. A typical item was the information about the coffin-bird, invented by Cyrus Chase but lately presented to Willow & Son by Tomlinson as his own idea, although neither Mute nor Fort were aware of these details. Fort was glad of any monetary reward from his tips. He seemed constantly on the edge of impoverishment.

Charles Tomlinson and Eric Fort had coincided on one such visit to Mute's room at
Funereal Matters
, and the talk among the three became so animated that editor Jenkins poked his nose round the door to see what all the good-humoured noise was about. And now it appeared that Charles was going to get Fort to help him in his dirty business.

Fort was already eager to please Mute, and he willingly agreed to keep the journalist informed of what Tomlinson was up to. He did this partly out of friendship and partly because, Mute suspected, he was a little frightened of Tomlinson. If that was the case, he wasn't alone.

From Eric Fort, Mute gleaned a few more details. He learned that the village where the ‘treasure' was to be found was called Upper Fen and that it lay a couple of miles outside Ely. In the village was sited Phoenix House, the home of Mr and Mrs Lye. It was Mrs Lye who was Tomlinson's cousin. Her presence in Upper Fen provided the pretext for Tomlinson's visits there. The church which had been the scene of a killing during the Civil War and whose crypt was the burial place of the murdered royalist was called St Ethelwine's.

The one thing that Fort was unable to discover was the nature of the supposed treasure. But, like Mute, the little undertaker's man was convinced that it existed. Not only did Charles Tomlinson talk about it in terms of absolute certainty but he really did possess a document that he called the ‘Ely testament'. This was a battered, leather-bound little volume filled with handwriting which (from the brief glimpse that Fort had been permitted of it) was ‘old-fashioned'. In this valuable book was the account of the royalist who took shelter in Upper Fen, his violent death and his hasty interment.

Mute wondered why, since Tomlinson already knew so much, he wasn't racing to get hold of the treasure, breaking into the crypt and so on. According to Fort, Tomlinson liked to take things slowly (Mute remembered ‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey'). In any case, the black sheep seemed to be enjoying himself in the fen country. He spent time at Phoenix House. He stayed at the Lion Hotel in Ely. He had befriended a married couple in the city, or rather befriended a woman whose husband, he said, was a silly inventor. This was in addition to his friendship with Mrs Lye. According to Fort, Charles Tomlinson liked to refer casually to his ‘harem', an allusion which Mute considered to be almost indecent.

So things went on for two or three months over the summer, with no action taking place and Tomlinson apparently waiting for the darker evenings of autumn before he began his treasure hunt in earnest. Eric Fort was primed to alert Mute when it looked as though things were about to begin. Mute rather enjoyed employing Fort in this surreptitious way. He felt that he was getting one over on Charles Tomlinson. It was like having a spy in the enemy camp. Even so he wondered whether the hunt for the Ely treasure was ever going to begin. He hoped it would be soon, since he was in need of funds for the scheme which was near fruition.

Then matters took a bizarre and worrying turn. By chance, Mute bumped into a young solicitor by the name of Will Evers at Willow & Son. Mute was there, partly to fish for gossip but mostly because he enjoyed the deference paid to him as the pseudonymous columnist for
Funereal Matters
. If ever he needed reminding that he was an individual of influence, he only had to drop into a funeral establishment. By contrast Will Evers was calling at Willow & Son on business, not pleasure. He was making some arrangements to do with the Abney Park funeral of one of the senior partners of Scott, Lye & Mackenzie of Furnival Street. A couple of mornings previously, Alexander Lye, a gentleman of advanced years, had died suddenly and unexpectedly in his own room.

Mute's ears pricked up at the name of Lye. Immediately he thought of the Lyes of Upper Fen. Were they by any chance related? It wasn't difficult to get Will Evers to chat once they left Willow & Son together. The difficulty would have consisted in getting him to stop chatting. Mute claimed he was travelling in the same direction, towards Holborn, and during a short walk and a longer omnibus ride, he picked up several pieces of information, some of them useful, some not. He learned that Will Evers was hoping to get married, and trying to pluck up courage to speak to the girl's father. That there were some decent fellows in the office where he worked, especially a chap called Tom Ansell who was married to a fine-looking lady who wrote ‘stuff'. That old Alexander Lye had died following a sneezing fit, it seemed. That there was the question of a missing testament, which might possibly be mislaid out at some isolated country house and which that good fellow Ansell was going in search of . . .