‘I didn’t know!’ said Toby, concerned. ‘Sam never said a word about it when I called this morning.’
‘No, well, he’d be leaving it until you could see for yourself there was no damage. You’d have heard all about it tonight. But the thing is, there’s a possibility – in fact, we’re treating it as a very strong possibility – that his accident was no accident. Bossie happens to have come much too close to this case that’s bugging us. You’ll have read, at any rate, about Rainbow’s murder?’
Toby was gaping at him, aghast. ‘Well, yes, of course, I’ve seen all the headlines. But— You’re not seriously saying that somebody tried to run Bossie down with a car? On
‘I’m saying just that. It so happens that Bossie played a certain trick on Rainbow, using a faked antique as bait, and through watching to see what effect his plans were having, he actually saw Rainbow fall, and saw his murderer go to make sure he was dead, and plunder the body. Bossie hasn’t been able to identify the murderer, or give us any hint that will help us to finger him. It was a very dark night. Unfortunately,’ said George grimly, ‘we have good reason to be sure that the murderer was able to identify Bossie! Hence the attempt on him. We’ve suppressed any mention of that, naturally, and every care is being taken of him from now on, though it wouldn’t do to make that too obvious. What I’m hoping is that now, being further from the event, and in talking to you, not answering police questions, however tactfully phrased, he may pop up with something he doesn’t even realise he knows, something that will give us a lead. I’ll gladly make myself scarce, if that will help, and leave you to see what you can do with him in the safe surroundings of home. He thinks a lot of you.’
‘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.’
‘
‘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
‘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
