‘Not with a badly broken leg,’ Theo said. ‘That was apparent even without having to move the, er, remains. It looks as though he entered the crypt alone, closing the tomb behind him, the ladder collapsed causing him to fall and break his leg and perhaps creating other injuries. He could not get out, no-one knew he was there. If this happened early in the week he coul
d have lain there for days before the church was opened for the next service, by which time he was either dead or too weak to make his voice heard.’
‘Poor man. All alone in the dark waiting for a rescue that never came.’ Theo heard the shake in Laura’s voice but Will took her hand in his and she turned to him, not the other way towards Theo.
As if it matters, so long as she is comforted, he told himself. And I am the one recounting all the ghastly details. Why would she turn to me?
‘But we have not thought this through,’ Perry said. ‘He cannot have been the only person who knew about the crypt and the tomb. The sole reason for having such a large secret storage space is for a considerable amount of contraband – casks and bales of stuff. He could not possibly have managed that by himself.’
‘And we are not the first people to find him,’ Laura said, her voice strengthening. She let go of Will’s hand and sat up straighter. ‘Someone covered the body with that tarpaulin.’
‘There would have been a gang of smugglers working with Swinburn,’ Theo said, working it out as he went along. ‘They used the crypt, but the day he disappeared he must have gone there alone for some reason. He had the accident and was trapped. A hue and cry was sent up and the area must have been swarming with searchers looking for him, so the gang would have lain low, not knowing he was there. Even if they had casks down in the crypt that was not the time to be shifting them. By the time it felt safe to open the tomb it was already too late and they found him dead.’
‘So they took away their goods, closed the tomb and stayed clear. Without the connivance of the Rector it would be risky to keep using the crypt and the Reverend Gilpin who succeeded him was no supporter of free trade. I would guess they found alternative hiding places,’ Perry mused. ‘There are barns further inland along that track on Swinburn land.’
‘So we have solved the mystery of the tomb, but we still do not know why anyone should have attacked Will,’ Laura said. ‘If no-one is using the crypt for illegal purposes nowadays then why should whoever it is fear some antiquarian research?’
‘It is the Swinburns and they do not want a scandal about the Rector, their relative?’ Perry suggested.
‘If they knew about his body being there then I would have expected them to take the initiative and remove it one dark night,’ Will said as he leant forward to set his empty glass on the table. ‘Then, whatever is found down there, nothing links it to the family. And anyway, an old scandal like that is surely not reason for murder?’
The door opened behind them. ‘Excuse me, my lord.’ It was Pitkin holding something wrapped in handkerchief. ‘I thought this might be important. I was brushing the, er, garments Miss Darke used this morning and I found this in one pocket of the coat.’ He walked forward and, with rather more theatre than Theo would have expected of him, set the cloth on the table, just where a shaft of sunlight hit it
Pitkin flipped back the cloth and there was a collective gasp as they stared at the disc of bright gold nestling in the linen.
Chapter Twelve
‘Laura?’
She realised that they were all staring at her. Where had that coin come from? Then she realised. ‘It was on the floor of the cut under the tomb. I landed on it when I fell in. I was groping around and my fingers found that just after I felt what I thought was a human bone with my other hand. I must have pushed it into my pocket while I was flapping about panicking.’
‘A profitable business, smuggling,’ Perry remarked as Theo picked up the gleaming object.
‘I am sure it is.’ Theo brushed away a crumb of dirt and lifted the coin to eye level. ‘But this cannot be part of the Reverend Swinburn’s ill-gotten gains. This is a fifty franc Napoléon minted in the Revolutionary year An 12, which, if memory serves me right, is more or less equivalent to 1803. That is eight years after Swinburn died.’
He passed the coin to Laura and she bent over it. On one side was the profile of a young Napoleon with the words Bonaparte Premier Consol. On the other side, a laurel wreath with 50 Francs inside, surrounded by Republique Français, An. 12, a tiny cockerel and the letter A.
‘That is the mint mark for Paris,’ Will said when she passed it to him. ‘There was an article about the French currency in the Gentleman’s Magazine a while ago.’
Finally Perry put the coin back on the table. ‘So the crypt has been used since at least 1803.’
‘Wait a moment.’ Theo got to his feet and began to pace. ‘This is all wrong. Smugglers are importing goods into this country, yes? We no longer smuggle goods out, the days of illegal, untaxed wool exports is long past – ’ He stopped and stared at them expectantly. ‘Yes?’ When they nodded he began to pace again. ‘So the smugglers would be buying things in France – brandy, lace, tobacco and so forth, spending English money. That is one of the objections to smuggling – the flow of English gold into France, into the pockets of the regime we are at war with. So in that case, what is a high-denomination French coin doing over here?’
‘Picked up as a souvenir and dropped?’ Will hazarded.
‘Fifty francs? In gold? That is not going to change anyone’s life, but I’d be irritated if I lost it and a working man is going to be downright annoyed. He’d search for it, I’d have thought,’ Theo said.
‘So either he could not go back to look for it or whoever dropped it had so many that they did not notice one lost,’ Laura said. ‘But many French francs, in gold? Here? Someone has been selling something valuable to the enemy if that is the case.’
‘And that’s a wonderful motive for attempted murder,’ Perry said triumphantly.
‘What a relief to know why I was attacked,’ Will said faintly. ‘I feel quite relaxed about it now.’
‘Sorry,’ Perry said ruefully.
‘But all we need to do to make you safe is to announce our find,’ Theo said, coming to a sudden halt in front of the fireplace. ‘We tell the Swinburns and make certain the news is passed far and wide, even if they want to keep it quiet to save the family reputation. We don’t tell anyone about the coin. As far as we are concerned the story ends with the Rector’s death.’
‘So it wasn’t necessarily Sir Walter or Giles who tried to kill Will?’ Perry looked as though he was finding it hard to keep up.