'Such as?'
'King Solomon's Rod, the staff Moses carried when he received the Ten Commandments and which he used subsequently to divide the waters of the Red Sea to see his people safely over to the land of Egypt. But I digress -'
'You were telling me about this remarkable Major.'
'When he retired form the City Guard he became absorbed by spiritual matters. The West Bow was very respectable in his day, occupied by a hard-working and fanatically religious group of tinsmiths, known as the Bowhead Saints. The Major lived there with his sister and became known as Angelical Thomas for his powers of oratory. And according to the records he was never to be seen "in any holy duty without his rod in his hand".
'He had an imposing personality and presence, as well as the gift of the gab. Very tall and saturnine, he always wore a long black cloak. Possessed an astonishing memory too. Could quote reams from the Scriptures and had a genius for leading public prayer, quite irresistible to those who heard him, from all accounts. The staff, he said, was his gift from God, his Holy Rod. It had some strange power, could turn itself into a snake or a serpent, and he was able to work some minor miracles and produce magical effects from rags and powders thrown into the fire.'
'Gunpowder, of course,' said Faro, 'and very impressive for the superstitious. All you are telling me about the Major describes an alchemist who could convince ignorant folk that he was in fact some kind of a minor prophet.'
'Exactly,' said Millar. 'If he had kept it that way, all might have been well. But there was a dark side too. He had one weakness. Ladies could not resist him and he couldn't resist such earthly temptations. Eventually, in his seventies, he took ill, and knowing that his life was near its end, he made an amazing confession of depravity and blasphemy which included a statement that he and his sister had sold their souls to the devil on the road to Musselburgh. This so shocked the authorities that the Lord Provost of Edinburgh summoned the City Guard and thrust them both into the tolbooth for safe-keeping.’
'In prison, however, the sister lost her nerve, perhaps knowing all to well the dreadful fate that awaited witches and warlocks, and she implored the bailies to secure the Major's staff. He was, she assured them, powerless without it. But if he were allowed to grasp it then he could drive them all out of doors, regardless of any resistance they might make. She further explained that the devil had given the staff to her brother that momentous day in 1648 when, in exchange for their souls, they were transported to Musselburgh and back again in a coach pulled by six black horses which seemed to be made of fire.’
'The Major was burnt at the stake at Greenside in April 1670 - I expect you know it, a village between Leith and Edinburgh. A few days later his sister met the same fate in the Grassmarket. To the end, she was more concerned about her brother's staff than their terrible sentence. When she was told it had been burnt with him, mad with rage, she tore off all her clothes to die stark-naked.'
While Faro listened, a picture was taking shape in his mind. The road to Musselburgh passed through Aberlethie. Destroyed by the Reformation, the priory was in ruins and the Crusader lay on his ravaged tomb.
'The bailie in charge of burning the Major's rod described it as looking like a serpent, hissing like a snake, as it perished. The Major's money was entrusted to his care. He took it home with him and locked it in his study. None of his family slept that night. There were dreadful noises issuing from the locked room, as if the house was going to fall down on them -'
'This bailie,' Faro interrupted. 'Do we know his name?'
Millar smiled. 'Yes. Bailie James Lethie.'
'Lethie!' Faro exclaimed, and Millar nodded.
'In all probability a relation of the present-day family.'
'The original castle - when was it built?'
'Begun in September 1670, completed two years later.'
Surely it was no coincidence that it had been built by the same bailie soon after he had both the magic staff, which he had been entrusted to burn, and the Major's money, too.
No great feat of detection was needed to unravel this two-hundred-year-old mystery. Major Weir's secret was certainly in the staff he carried, and he issued warnings about its supernatural powers in order to keep it safe. Everyone who came into contact with him would be too terrified to steal it.
Intriguing as this information was, Faro decided that it contributed little to the more urgent matter of solving the mystery of the missing Grand Duchess. He did not greatly relish the prospect of facing an irate Prime Minister and having to give an account of his failure to the Queen herself.
When Faro took his leave of Millar, he decided to walk over to the priory before catching the next train.
The storm had cleared and left in its wake the legacy of a mellow autumn evening with the rich smell of damp earth and a sky, azure and cloudless, echoing with birdsong.
As he looked down at the Crusader's Tomb for the second time that day, his experience was quite different from his earlier visit. Gone was the electric atmosphere which he had interrupted between Miss Fortescue and the two men. Now he felt there was nothing left in this heap of mouldering stone, nothing in this effigy that could help solve his more immediate problem.
The truth or fiction behind the history so colourfully interwoven with legend that had once marked this spot had been lost for ever under the dust and ashes of centuries past.
Often, when
