Faro waited a moment. 'Did she by any chance wear corsets?' he prompted her gently.
'Of course, all ladies wear corsets, Inspector.'
Faro frowned. 'If you are finding this too painful and embarrassing, miss, perhaps you'd be good enough to write it down, as you kindly wrote the jewel-box list. And a drawing would be most helpful if you could manage that.'
'A drawing. I couldn't possibly draw Her Highness,' she said indignantly.
'I meant a drawing of her clothes.'
Miss Fortescue sighed. 'Oh, very well. If I can.'
'If you can, it would be most helpful,' he repeated.
They emerged from the formal garden in silence and both were relieved to find that the castle was in view.
Miss Fortescue's pace quickened and Faro was aware of the servant keeping then within range. He was desperately searching for some safe conversation when she suddenly said: 'When last we met you were rushing for a train. I presume you missed it.'
'I met Mr Stuart Millar, the historian. He lives on the edge of the estate and I allowed him to persuade me to return to his cottage. He was kind enough to give me supper and a most interesting account of the Crusader and the Luck o' Lethie.’
'Oh, indeed,' she said vaguely. 'You would see it when you were staying at the castle, Sir Terence is very proud of it.'
'I had to leave early.' He consulted his watch. 'But perhaps, if I have time - I'm quite curious -'
Miss Fortescue pushed open the front door. 'There is Sir Terence now.'
Sir Terence, thought Faro, was looking mightily relieved to see her. He had the look of an anxious father repressing reproaches to a wayward and obstinate child.
'Inspector Faro would like to see the Luck o' Lethie,' she called, and leaving them to it, she ran lightly upstairs.
Sir Terence smiled. 'Our family mascot - come this way.'
Faro followed him into the library.
'This is the oldest part of the house, you will observe the original stone walls.'
He pointed to a niche above the ancient fireplace where a glass case, its velvet backing long devoid of colour, had resting on it a golden horn anchored by metal clips. It was not like any horn Faro had ever seen, resembling a fiery dragon's head, with the mouthpiece at the back of the neck. Its eyes glittered with the blue of sapphires and its scales were embossed with green and red stones which Faro did not doubt were emeralds and rubies.
At his admiring murmur, Sir Terence said: 'Brought back by our Crusader from Jerusalem. According to legend, one of the treasures the Templars stole from King Solomon's Temple after the city fell.' He paused. 'Or so Mr Stuart Millar tells us.'
Faro didn't doubt there was something in the legend. The horn looked exceedingly old and not a little battered, but if this was the head of Solomon's Rod, then it predated Christianity by a thousand years.
'Could do with a bit of a clean-up,' said Sir Terence apologetically. 'Has hardly left this room since the castle was built in 1670.'
'So it has been carefully preserved by your family for two hundred years. Remarkable.'
'Yes, indeed. We're very superstitious about preserving the Luck o' Lethie.' Sir Terence surveyed it proudly. 'As long as it survives, so will our line continue. It is supposedly a cure for barren women and the only time it has ever been removed from its case was when there were, er, problems.'
His brooding gaze rested suddenly on a painting of himself and the first five of their eight children. 'Not one of ours, I need hardly add,' he added heartily. 'Our women are never barren.'
Faro, aware of someone behind him, turned to see Miss Fortescue framed in the doorway, his cape over her arm. Her gaze was watchful and she betrayed an air of listening very intently to their conversation.
Thanking them both, Faro announced that he must hurry or he would miss his train.
'Train, Inspector. By no means. You shall have the carriage.' He cut short Faro's protests. 'It is sitting in the coach-house idle, and you have already suffered enough inconvenience for one day. See, it's raining again.'
As they stood together on the front steps, smiling, to wave him goodbye, Faro was not at all displeased to sink into the luxury of the Lethie carriage and be transported home to Newington, where he was greatly looking forward to mulling over the day's events with Vince.
His stepson could be relied upon to be helpful. Vince's suggestions and encouragement were both urgently needed.
Although Faro had, without difficulty but with considerable reliance on his intuition, found a plausible explanation to the two-hundred-year-old mystery of Major Weir's staff and the building of Lethie Castle, a ten-day-old mystery was at present beyond his powers.
Chapter 11
Vince was not at home. Much in need of his stepson's buoyant presence to banish his anguished thoughts, Faro had to wait until breakfast next morning to relate Stuart Millar's story of King Solomon's Rod.
Vince was intrigued, knowing something of the Templars from his Freemason friends. 'I'm told that the oldest Scottish lodge at Kilwinning was founded by Robert the Bruce for the reception of those Knights Templars who had fled from persecution in Europe. A Templars contingent fought at the king's side, you know, on the field at Bannockburn.'
'After inflicting such a crushing victory over King Edward II, one would presume that their future was guaranteed,' said Faro.
'True. But there was more to it than that. Edward's army was considered invincible and some said that his was no normal defeat of a powerful army. Rumour had it that witchcraft and magic were involved -'
Faro laughed. 'Not unknown sentiments for losers to indulge in. They have to have a better excuse than telling their people they just weren't good enough to beat the enemy.'
'I agree. But rumour also claimed that the Templars had some holy relic, which they carried before their king. Certainly it was extraordinary that,
