Chapter Eight

With the combined efforts of all three men, the flagstone was lifted and slowly dragged to one side. A black hole yawned beneath, into which Holmes lowered the lantern, revealing a small chamber about seven feet deep and five feet square. At one side of it was a squat, brass-bound wooden box, the lid of which was open, and appeared at first glance to be empty. None of the trio had much thought for the chest at that moment, however, all eyes riveted upon the figure crouched beside it: a man in a black suit, overcoat and galoshes, squatted down on his hams with his forehead resting on the edge of the box and his arms thrown out on each side. The face was hidden, but the corpse's height, dress and hair colour were enough to identify him as the missing butler.

"Dear God..." Musgrave murmured in dismay. "Poor devil! But how on earth did he become trapped down here? He couldn't have lifted that stone by himself, surely – it took all three of us just now!"

"Exactly," Holmes said grimly. "Watson, my dear fellow, would you be so kind?" There was barely room for one other in that space, and he would prefer not to move the body until they'd examined it and the scene together.

Watson nodded in resignation, climbing down carefully and accepting the lantern. "Well, I should say he's been dead for approximately... ten hours? His position has been drawing the stagnant blood to his face, it's beginning to distort the features. Hm, I'm not finding any obvious wounds... or any bruising, either. It looks as if he simply suffocated. And see here..." He moved the lantern nearer to one of Brunton's hands, where the bloodied fingertips and broken nails told their own story. "That stone would have been like a cork in a bottle, he'd have run out of air inside thirty minutes."

Musgrave shivered in sympathy. "What a ghastly way to go!"

"Which means he was still conscious when he was trapped, if he was making such a concentrated effort to escape from under it," Holmes mused, not at all keen to try turning the stone over to look for fresh bloodstains. "What does he have in his pockets?"

Watson duly searched. "The usual so far: matches, handkerchief, penknife – oh, that's rather a nice one..."

"His breast pocket, Watson!" Holmes said impatiently. "That chart Musgrave saw him consulting last night should give us at least a little more data."

"Here it is." Watson fished out the paper and unfolded it. "Well, that's curious."

"What?"

"It's a map all right, but... Here, see for yourself." Watson handed up the paper and the lantern. "It hardly looks like Brunton sketched it in a spare moment, does it?"

"No..." Although the quality of the paper was ordinary foolscap, this drawing of the estate was almost of a professional standard. "It looks rather like Brunton has copied this directly from a blueprint." And where would the butler have gotten his hands on something like that? "Where are the estate archives kept?"

"Well, some of it's kept here, like Sir Ralph's commission," Musgrave said, "and the rest, I suppose, would be at the church with the other parish records."

"Then visiting Reverend Heyer should probably be our next move," Holmes nodded, "once we've finished here." They had indeed thrown a light upon Brunton's fate, but how had that fate come upon him, and what part had been played by his confederate? For Brunton had clearly discovered, just as they had, that the stone was far too heavy for one man to move unaided. What would he do next? He could not get help from outside at that time of night without considerable risk. Far better to have his helpmate from inside the house, but whom could he ask? Rachel Howells, perhaps? A girl of fiery Welsh blood, she had at one time been devoted to him. Had he tried to make his peace with her, engaged her as his accomplice?

"But raising that stone would have been heavy work for just the two of them," Watson exclaimed when Holmes had outlined his theory, "and with Rachel still recovering from her illness! What about his new paramour, Miss... Alice, did you say, Musgrave?"

"No, Tregellis, Janet Tregellis. No, that wouldn't do, she lives with her father on the east side of the wood. I doubt she'd have the wit to help him, anyhow!"

"And if we examine some of the nearby billets," Holmes replied, "I think we may find... ah, see here! Several of these pieces are flattened at the sides, as if they've been compressed by a great weight. As the pair dragged the stone up, they must have thrust them into the chink, till at last..." He picked up a billet about three feet long, with a deep groove at one end. "They held the stone up with this once the opening was large enough."

"So Brunton climbed in, opened the box..." Musgrave shivered, eyeing the massive stone uneasily. "Well, that would certainly explain Rachel's hysterics this morning! D'you think, perhaps, she...?"

"I think it would be a mistake to theorise further until we've questioned the girl herself," Holmes said firmly. The detective wished he didn't have such a vivid mental picture of Rachel's hand dashing the support away, the slab crashing back down into its place, the maid then flying wildly up the winding stair, her faithless lover's muffled screams and drumming hands ringing in her ears... "...It may very well be that the wood simply slipped, and Rachel Howells is merely guilty of silence. Now, let us proceed to the chest."

Brunton's stiffened corpse was lifted out of the hole with due care and laid to one side; the cellar was chilly enough to serve as a temporary morgue until the police arrived. Watson then gladly switched places with Holmes, as the box couldn't be raised without the risk of it falling to bits. Damp and worms had eaten through the wood, and a crop of livid fungi was growing inside. The only other contents, now that Holmes was close enough to inspect properly, were a few old coins, so heavily corroded that they were all but invisible at the bottom of the chest. The detective carefully polished one of them on his coat sleeve, and the black coating began to change to a dirty silver, a distinctive profile emerging from the tarnish. "These are coins of Charles the First!" Holmes called up excitedly. "I was right about your family's connections, Musgrave: they have been safeguarding something of considerable value!"

" 'For the sake of the trust,' " Watson quoted thoughtfully. "But was it only money, do you think, or something more?"

"Really, Watson," Holmes tutted, "can you imagine even a loyal Cavalier swearing to give 'all that is ours' for a bag of silver? This chest most certainly held something other than money." And now there was only one living person who knew what the treasure was, or what had become of it... and confound it, they were lying in a drugged stupor upstairs.