“I’m on it.” Caitlyn checked her tablet hurriedly. “And here we go. Nowhere does it offer the information that Hyde Park Corner sits above anything but solid ground, but when you add the word ‘tunnel’ we get several items of information. It seems that a large tunnel was built under here in the 1950s to help channel the traffic fumes away. There’s a vent over there,” she pointed at the arch. “Actually inside.” She shook her head. “These people and their secret subways.”
Crouch read on. “The fire brigade still get on average three calls a year from the general public warning of a fire inside the Wellington Arch because of warm air and dust coming up through the massive hidden ventilation shaft,” he said. “And yet they still keep it all quiet.”
“You build one tunnel and say it’s a ventilation shaft,” Russo said. “You could easily build another. Or place it over an old one.”
“No mention of a third,” Caitlyn said.
Crouch followed the line of the mysterious third tunnel. “It heads directly in that direction to start.” He pointed toward Hyde Park. “Which is interesting because isn’t that building there Apsley House?”
“Wait,” Caitlyn said. “I just came across this. An account of a man’s visit to the Arc du Carrousel. He blogs ‘it was exciting to take the underground passageways to and from the monument and feel as though you were a part of something larger’. So the Arc had tunnels too.”
Alicia let them work, their brainstorming part of the process of discovery and idea generation. To know that even now they were sitting above a network of hidden tunnels was exhilarating. Hyde Park Corner sat over a secret tunnel and had done so for untold years.
What were these people hiding?
THIRTY THREE
“How many secrets of this nature does London hold close to its heart?” Crouch wondered quietly. “You have both Marble Arch and Wellington Arch constructed and designed as entrances to Buckingham Palace and then later moved. Is that a clue? You have the Duke’s original statue placed atop the Wellington Arch, also later moved in favor of the quadriga. You have tunnels built alongside other tunnels and hidden by the simple fact that they’re never spoken of. And by mis-information. What do all these monuments conceal? That old abandoned house up Piccadilly?” He pointed to where they could just see crumbling gates and a huge, decrepit, once-stupendous house left to rot. “Is it really empty or is that a clever façade? Thousands of brass nameplates on buildings up Mount Street and Aldford Street and all over Belgravia, companies that mean nothing to anyone and yet on the street outside sit Maybachs, Rolls Royces and matt-black specials. Secret clubs. How many tunnels are there? Underground stations not in use? Offshoots nobody knows about?”
Alicia was becoming acutely aware of the passage of time. She wondered if Kenzie and Riley might be out there, watching even now. “So what’s the next move?”
“That arch,” Crouch said. “We need to look inside.”
Alicia tailed the group as they studied the inside of the Wellington Arch. Even to her it seemed larger inside than it appeared to be from the exterior. Crouch saw almost immediately that an undisclosed door could easily be secreted inside here, even with the inclusion of a police station. As they walked he pointed out the closed-off areas, giving them such a surreptitious wink that Alicia laughed.
“No Michael,” she said. “That doesn’t look creepy at all.”
Exiting again into the warming day, Crouch spoke as he walked. “Question is,” he said. “Where’s the subterranean entrance and can we get to it?” He re-examined the readout from the vibrometer device.
Alicia scanned the area for hostiles. Russo hovered at her side.
“Wait. I never noticed that before.”
Alicia turned. “What?”
“The direct line of our third tunnel enters Hyde Park, yes?”
Caitlyn jumped in. “Yes!”
“Well.” He traced the line on a map of London. “Then it definitely goes directly underneath there…” He pointed at a remarkable old Bath-stone clad building with high spiked green-painted railings outside. “Apsley House.”
Alicia shook her head, lost in the swamp of information. “And what’s Apsley House?”
“The home of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington. The very man who beat Napoleon at Waterloo. Also knows as Number One, London. It stands right along our route.”
“It stands alone,” Caitlyn observed, again using her tablet. “The Duke’s house. Surprisingly close to the place where his monument ended up, despite it being isolated on a traffic island and made hard to reach. It’s where Wellesley entertained, strategized and lived for much of his life. It now contains his collection of paintings, porcelain, a magnificent silver centerpiece and…” Caitlyn gasped out a breath. “No.”
Even Alicia looked around. “What?”
“A heroic marble nude of Napoleon himself! Standing three and a half meters high he holds a gilded Nike in his right hand and a staff in his left. It was originally displayed in the Louvre and then around 1815 transported here by the orders of the Duke after victory. The timeline is spot on for the dating of the Congress of Vienna.”
“And it is still there?” Healey asked.
Caitlyn nodded. “One of the house’s main draws.”
“A Napoleon statue in the Duke’s house?” Crouch said wonderingly. “Is that a clue to the Hercules being there too?”
“Oh dear, oh wow.” Caitlyn squealed suddenly. “Remember the final part of the verse?” She reminded them all of the as yet unsolved riddle.
“By the Pillars of Hercules he endures, a part of the soil, hiding among New Arches envisioned, to the victor the spoils,” Crouch recalled. “I guess we still need to find the Pillars of Hercules.”
Alicia scanned the horizon as if expecting to see two great marble columns. Crouch set off in the direction of the spotless-looking old house, but Caitlyn’s voice rooted them all to the spot.
“How about this? Apsley House, built around 1771 stands on the site of an old lodge that belonged to the crown. Immediately before the start of the house’s construction it was occupied by a tavern called Hercules’ Pillars.”
The whole group stared in wonder across at Apsley House.
“That place was once a tavern called Hercules Pillars?” Crouch said.
“Yep. It was immortalized in print in the book A History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding as the location where Squire Western resides when he first journeys up to London.”
“Then the Napoleon statue might be more than the spoils of war,” Crouch said. “Much, much more.”
Caitlyn stared at him, still shellshocked. “You’re thinking X marks the spot?”
Crouch grinned. “What could be better? A naked statue of your nemesis and your country’s vilest enemy, standing in your own home above the greatest treasure he ever owned, that you now possess? It’s pure conquest. The perfect triumph.”
“Even I have to admit,” Alicia said. “There are simply too many coincidences for this not to be significant.”
Crouch plonked himself down on the grass that bounded the Wellington Arch. “This does throw up several rather large flags though,” he admitted. “If we’re correct. Somebody knows what we know. Somebody of importance and in authority. And they’re keeping the Hercules hidden for a reason, probably greed. Why don’t they want it found? Is it still too precious for the masses? If so then I certainly don’t agree with them.”