Agatha emerged into the gloom of a thicket. “If we crouch down, we can get out of here without tearing our clothes,” said Paul. “There’s a sort of tunnel through the bushes.”
Agatha followed the beam of his torch. Outside the thicket, they found themselves quite a way away from the house in a remote part of the garden which looked as if it had never been tended. Thick grass and bushes grew all around.
“Now we know how someone got in,” said Paul.
“Let’s get out of here.” Agatha looked around uneasily. “I’m beginning to get the creeps.”
“All right. Down the ladder with you and I’ll replace the trapdoor and try to get as much of the camouflage back on the outside of the lid before I do. Don’t want anyone to know we’ve been here.”
Agatha waited at the bottom of the stairs until Paul closed the trapdoor and joined her with the torch.
With Paul leading the way, Agatha followed him at a half-crouch to avoid bumping her head on the roof. But half along the passage, he came to an abrupt stop. “What is it?” hissed Agatha.
“There’s an alcove here, a niche. Sort of thing you get in railway tunnels for the workmen to back into when a train is coming.” He shone the torch in. “Nothing here.” He shone the torch upwards. “I think this is a sort of chimney, like an old ventilator. But it’s now got blocked at the top. If you stand on my clasped hands, Agatha, and I heave you up, you could feel around and see if anything’s been hidden up there.”
“Oh, all right,” muttered Agatha. “But I won’t be safe until I get out of here.”
Paul heaved her up. Agatha thrust up her hands and dislodged dry leaves and rubble. A stone hit Paul on the face and he lost his hold on Agatha just as her hand located a piece of iron sticking out of the inside on the alcove. She hung on desperately, but the iron spike or whatever it was began to give. She tumbled down onto Paul and they both fell onto the floor as more stones and leaves clattered down on them.
“You’re a heavy woman,” grumbled Paul, pushing her off him. “I’ve dropped the torch and the damn thing has gone out. Help me feel around for it.”
On their hands and knees they groped around, until Paul cried, “I’ve got it,” and at the same time, Agatha said, “There’s a packet or something or other here. Must have fallen down. Shine the torch.”
“I’ll see if it’s still working. Good, it is. What have you got there?”
The thin beam of the torch shone on a dusty leather wrapped package. “Must have fallen out of somewhere,” said Agatha. “Let’s take it with us. I don’t want to spend any more time in this house. Not the jewels, anyway. Feels like some sort of book.”
She felt relieved when they were finally up the stairs to the cellar and then up and out of the cellar and out of the house. They hurried to the car.
“I hope no one saw us,” panted Agatha when she finally sank into the car seat. “Now, what do we do? We should tell the police about that passage. That’s how someone got into the house to frighten her.”
“We can’t tell them,” said Paul. “They’d want to know how we found it. Let’s get back to your place and have a look at what we’ve found.”
Once back in Agatha’s cottage, she placed the leather package reverently on the kitchen table. Paul carefully unwrapped it, revealing a leather-bound book. He opened it. “It’s a diary!” he said. “It’s Lamont’s diary.”
“Does it say anything about his treasure?” asked Agatha.
“Let’s see. It’s a detailed account of the preparations for the Battle of Worcester and an inventory of provisions and arms.” He turned the pages. “Then there’s a description of the battle.”
“Skip to the end,” said Agatha excitedly. “He’d hide the treasure when he knew the battle was lost.”
“Don’t rush me!”
Paul turned the pages to the end of the book with what seemed to Agatha maddening slowness.
“Here we are,” said Paul. “He must have written this last bit when he took refuge with Simon Lovesey. ‘Such Gold and Jewels as I had with me, I buried in Timmin’s Field, north of Worcester, before making my Circuitous Way to Hebberdon to seek Refuge. I have not told Mine Host this although he pressures me for Information in an odd way. I shall hide this record until I am sure that his Sympathy with Our Cause is safe.’”
Paul closed the book, his eyes shining with excitement. “So now we know where the treasure is.”
“Let’s go and look for it tomorrow,” cried Agatha. “If we find anything, we can see if Lamont’s got any remaining descendents alive.”
“Timmin’s Field,” mused Paul. “Timmin was probably a farmer.”
“I’ve got an ordnance survey map of the Worcester area,” said Agatha. She hurried off and came back with the map. But although they searched the names of all the farms to the north of Worcester, they could not find the name Timmin.
“The farm could have been sold to other people ages ago,” said Paul. “We need some seventeenth-century maps.”
“We’ll go to the records’ office in Worcester tomorrow,” said Agatha. “We’d better get some sleep.”
She saw him to the door. “You’re a Trojan, Agatha,” said Paul, smiling down at her. “This is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me!”
He flung his arms round her and bent and kissed her on the lips.
Agatha blinked up at him in a dazed way.
“Good night,” he said gently. “See you at ten in the morning. Get a good sleep.”
Agatha carefully shut the door behind him and then danced up the stairs to bed, her heart racing. He would divorce Juanita and marry her! James Lacey would see the announcement of their wedding and she hoped like hell he suffered!
Murder was forgotten as the excited pair set out for Worcester in the morning. The sun shone down on the Vale of Evesham, stretching all the way to the Malvern Hills. Agatha was driving. She was in control. She had a handsome man beside her who had kissed her last night and she was off on a treasure hunt.
The first cloud appeared on the horizon of her mind when she parked outside the records’ office and Paul said cautiously, “ Worcester ’s a very big place. Must have been relatively small by comparison in the seventeenth century.”
“Don’t be a downer,” said Agatha. “Timmin’s Field, here we come.”
Inside the records’ office, they asked for maps of Worcester for the period covering the mid-seventeenth century.
“Rats!” said Agatha as they both bent over it. “ Worcester is small.”
“Let’s see. North,” said Paul. “Look north.”
His long finger moved to the north of the city. “There it is!” he cried. “Timmin’s Field. Timmin must have been a tenant farmer. It’s part of the Burnhaddomm estate.”
“Let’s go,” said Agatha, beside herself with excitement. “We should buy a metal detector first. We-”
“Agatha,” said Paul, “I think we should look at a present-day map of Worcester. That field might be covered over by now.”
“Oh, I’ve brought the map with me.” Agatha fished it out of her capacious handbag.
They opened it up and compared it with the seventeenth-century one.
“It’s been built over. It’s a shopping mall. And houses for miles around as well.”
“We’ll go and look anyway,” said Agatha, determined. “Timmin’s Field might be a car-park now or something that could be dug up.”
“But Worcester continued to spread out since 1651,” said Paul. “I think we should look at eighteenth-and nineteenth-century maps first.”
“Why?”
“Think, Agatha. Any building on that field means the ground would be dug up. Deep digging to make cellars for houses. The treasure would be found, and believe me, whoever found it would keep quiet about it.”
They got the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century maps and pored over them. “Look here,” said Paul. “The nineteenth-century one. Rows and rows of houses right over where Timmin’s Field was, and even a church.”
“That can’t be right. They wouldn’t bulldoze a church!”
Paul got to his feet and returned with a map of Worcester dated 1945. “There’s your answer,” he said. “That area was bombed during the war. Let’s return all these maps.”
Outside, Agatha said stubbornly, “I still want to see it.”
