‘So do I of him,’ said Toby in a small, shocked voice, and sat and thought about this indigestible revelation for some minutes in silence. ‘Obviously I’ll do anything that may help,’ he said at last, dazedly. ‘But how in the world did he get himself into such a jam? Good lord, what does Bossie know about faking antiques? The man was a dealer, and knowledgeable, it would be tough going to fool him, even for a pro. Bossie didn’t have anything he could even make halfway presentable for a job like that.’
‘Apparently he did. He told us all about it quite frankly, except that he said he’d found it among the old magazines and papers in a chest in the church tower. That we doubt. There seems no reason at all why just one leaf should be there, when the rest is nineteenth-century trivia, but he sticks to his story. All he did was doctor it up a little, and clearly it did engage Rainbow’s attention – and someone else’s, too – not because of Bessie’s effort, but in spite of it.’
‘Leaf!’ whispered Toby, enlightened and appalled.
‘A single leaf of vellum. It bore characters we’re led to believe might date back to the thirteenth century. And we’re fairly sure it never came from among the old copies of Pears’ Annual and Ivy Leaves up there in the tower. Though why he should tell us everything else, but clam up on where he got it, is more than I can work out.’
‘Oh, help!’ said Toby childishly, in a very small voice indeed. ‘Now isn’t that just like him, the idiot! I’m afraid I know where he got it. And why he wouldn’t tell you. It’s got to be the same one. I know where he got it, because I gave it to him. And I know why he wouldn’t tell you that. Because I pinched it, and he knows it, and he probably thinks you’d run me in for it like a shot, even now, if he blew the gaff on me. Bossie would never split on a pal. Oh, now we may really be able to get something more out of him, if he sees it’s all come out, and nobody’s after my blood. Hell, it was years ago, when I was young and daft.’
‘Tell me all!’ invited George with interest. ‘This is the first lucky break we’ve had. This was while you were at school up there?’
‘The last year. I never turned down a dare in those days, they only had to throw one at me and I did it, however idiotic. I can’t remember who it was, but one of the kids bet me I couldn’t break into Mottisham Abbey and get out again without anyone knowing. So of course I did. It was easy, anyhow, I’d broken into far trickier places than that. I brought this bit of parchment out with me just to prove I’d really been there, I didn’t consider it was of any value, or that I was pinching anything that mattered. It was a trophy, that’s all. I gave it to Bossie as a souvenir, and of course he was sworn to secrecy. Silly kid’s stuff, but then, I was a silly kid!’
‘Well, he certainly kept his oath.’ George drew hopeful breath. ‘Who knows, it may be a load off his mind to know it’s all out in the open, and nobody’s putting handcuffs on you for it. It may even sharpen up his memory to produce a clue for me. So that’s where it came from – the abbey! We ought to have thought of that possibility.’
‘I don’t know why. There never was any word said about any records surviving there, the place has always been reckoned a dead loss, without a history.’
‘Yet this came from there. And it really looks as if Rainbow was killed to get possession of it. Not for itself alone, no doubt – for what further it might lead to. Bossie didn’t know his own strength!’ They were already through Mottisham, and heading for Abbot’s Bale on an almost deserted road. George accelerated purposefully. The sooner they got to Bossie now, and relieved him of the fear of disloyalty to his idol if he talked freely, the sooner they might move on to pursue the real provenance of the membrane that had been the death of Rainbow.
‘Do you remember exactly where you picked up this leaf? Was it in the house itself?’
‘No. I did get into the house, mind you,’ owned Toby candidly, ‘I had to, that was the dare. But I didn’t like to take anything from inside there, not even to prove it. No, this was in the stables, in the rubble and weeds under the one wall. I took it for granted it was rubbish, lying there among old junk of planks and mortar, and yet it was something special. I thought it would do nicely.’
It had done nicely for Rainbow, and brought Bossie Jarvis into considerable danger.
‘Is there really something so important about it? Now you’ve had time to get it vetted…?’
‘We’ve never even seen it,’ said George. ‘We know of it from Bossie, and from one person to whom Rainbow showed it, and that’s all. If there’s one thing certain, it is that at this moment the murderer has it.’
They passed the first cottages of Abbot’s Bale, rounded the wall of the churchyard, and turned into the comparative darkness of the lane where Bossie had suffered his adventure. ‘This,’ said George, ‘is just about where he was hit.’
‘That funny, fool kid!’ sighed Toby thankfully. ‘Praise the lord, you’ve got a thumb firmly on him now, he can’t get himself into any more trouble.’
At about this time Bossie was just threading a wary way through the shrubberies, where he had been holed up comfortably enough in a derelict shed with his provender, and had eaten most of it. The students measuring and brushing and marking had gone on working as long as even a gleam of light remained, but they were all gone now, and the whole enclave was silent.
Bossie emerged where the bushes came closest to the brick walls of the stable-block, and allowed him to peer out from cover towards the archway. He remembered the pattern of the gate clearly, and considered that he had two ways of getting to the inner side. One, the bars might very well be wide enough apart to allow him to wriggle through; he was small-boned and agile, and cats can get through wherever their whiskers will pass, as every student knows. Two, the gate did not reach to the summit of the archway, and its surmounting spikes were purely decorative, and could be circumvented with ease. He had no doubt that he could climb it if necessary.
The shadowy bulks of walls and trees loomed immense in the remnant of the light. It appeared to Bossie as still fairly light, for his eyes had grown accustomed to it, having spent some waiting hours adjusting as twilight fell and night came on. But in fact it was a very respectable darkness, as large and awe-inspiring as the silence that was its natural music. There was nothing stirring, not a soul living but himself, and the infinitesimal, furtive night-life of bird and beast. The shrubbery at his back felt like a forest, virgin and strange, but not unfriendly. He was not afraid. When he had stood motionless for some minutes, listening and watching, and was sure he was solitary, he slipped across to the solid reassurance of the wall, worked his way along it to the archway, and slid into the deep embrasure to consider his mode of entry. It was almost disappointingly simple. On the cat principle, he was convinced he could go wherever his head could go, and his head passed between the bars with ease. Sideways, lissom as an eel, Bossie followed his head into the cloister.
It was annoying, after that achievement, to discover that the gate, though meticulously latched, had been unlocked all the time!
Willie Swayne’s Land-Rover was parked in the drive of Sam Jarvis’s cottage, filling the narrow space from clipped hedge to grass-verged rose-bed. The front door of the house was open, and several people were involved in obviously valedictory exchanges just within. George drew up behind the Land-Rover and got out of the car, with Toby hard on his heels.