The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

Glancing at his watch, Rutledge saw that it was half past one o’clock in the morning. The house was quiet, and he thought perhaps Mrs Gravely had gone up to her bed. Still, he sat down at a table in the parlour and read the faded cutting. It told him very little more. Picking up the book, he thumbed through the pages, looking for any reference to the Royal Mews. There was nothing of interest. He went back to the study, searched for other books on Edward I, and carried them into the parlour. Had it been only coincidence that the cutting was in that particular history?

It was close on five when Mrs Gravely came in with sandwiches and a pot of tea. He ate absently, his mind on the hunt. When she came to take away his plate and cup, she said, looking over his shoulder, “He must have loved that book. I can’t count the times I’d find it on his desk when I was dusting.”

Rutledge turned to see what she was pointing to. A slim volume bound in worn leather, printed a hundred years ago.

It was written by a man called Baker, and it purported to offer an account of the crusade the then Prince Edward Longshanks made to the Holy Land. He had already turned homeward in 1272 when he learned of the death of his father, Henry III, and that he was now King. He was two years in reaching England to be crowned. Legend claimed that with him he brought a small gold reliquary, encrusted with precious stones and containing a piece of the True Cross. It remained with him through the early years of his reign — although it was more common to give such relics to a church in thanksgiving for a safe return. As he’d been sickly as a child, it was thought he kept the relic for his own protection. But when it failed to save his dying Queen, Eleanor of Castile, in a ferocious fit of temper, he ordered it buried in the largest dung pit in the stables.

According to Baker, it had been lost to history from that time forward, until a workman had discovered it during the demolition of the stables in the eighteenth century. The man had shown it to his brother-in-law, a yeoman farmer in Kent, who paid him handsomely for it, and the object had remained in the farmer’s family, passing from father to elder son in each generation. It had become known, Baker went on, as the Middleton Host, although the family had denied any knowledge of it, and with time, the Host and the family itself had been lost to history. The remodelling of the land once occupied by the stables had revived the tale, but Baker had been unable to prove whether the tale was true or not. He had contacted a number of families by the name of Middleton in Kent and elsewhere, but had failed to find any trace of the story.

Rutledge sat back, considering what he’d just read. Then he rose and went back to the study to look at the small wooden box by the bookshelves.

There was no way of knowing what it had contained. Even Mrs Gravely, when questioned, had no idea what had been kept inside — if anything. She had dusted it, but never opened it.

But suppose — just suppose — it had held the Middleton Host.

That would match with the message that the dying man had tried to pass on to his housekeeper.

Trafalgar. Not the name of his late wife’s home, but the square in the heart of London. Would he have told the secret to Althea Barnes? A great joke, that, one she might have appreciated and passed on to her father and her brother.

What would such a reliquary be worth? Monetarily and intrinsically.

What would it be worth to Dr Barnes, working daily with men whose minds were destroyed by war? Had he come, in December, to ask for the use of the Middleton Host? And instead been pawned off with promises of the house in Dartmouth? A house he had no use for and couldn’t afford to keep up? An albatross, compared to the cure the reliquary might achieve in men who could be brought to believe in its power.

Rutledge went to the door, called to Mrs Gravely that he would be back shortly, and hurried to his motorcar. Driving into Cambridge as dawn was breaking, he went to the telephone he’d used before and put in a call to the clinic where Barnes worked.

He was informed that Dr Barnes was with a patient and couldn’t be disturbed.

Swearing under his breath, he walked out to his motorcar and was on the point of driving to London when another thought occurred to him. Even tired as he was, it made sense.

The old dog.

Mrs Gravely had claimed that Sir John had spoken to Dr Taylor just before he died. She had nearly been sure that he’d asked about his dog. And the doctor had responded with a single word. No. She had thought that the doctor was telling Sir John that the dog was dead.

Turning the motorcar around, he drove back to Mumford. He searched the High Street of the little town, then looked in the side streets. Shortly after nine, he found Dr Taylor’s surgery, next door but one to the house where the doctor lived — according to the nameplates on the small white gates to both properties.