© 2007

They will never ignore him again. They will never patronize him as they have too often of late. Nor will they ever forget him. They will not be allowed to. Fame and scholarly acclaim will see to that; fame-and a place in history. They will not be able to refuse him a fellowship now. They will offer him one. They will beg him to accept one. They will come crawling. And for all their slights and condescensions… he will pay them back.

Godfrey Shillingstone smiles to himself and sips his brandy. He gazes contentedly into the dying fire that has warmed the room where he is taking his solitary ease and reflects that he could hardly be more obscurely located or more thoroughly disregarded than he currently is. But soon, very soon, that will change. His certainty on the point has made these past days of waiting bearable. Several more must elapse before he can be on his way. Those he can also bear, savouring as he does the thought of what awaits him in London. When his discovery becomes known, his circumstances will be transformed. His life will at long last become what it should be. His labours will be rewarded. His ambitions will be fulfilled.

He drains his glass and rises from his chair. The clock in the hall strikes the half-hour as he does so. The house is otherwise silent, save for the smouldering sputter of the logs in the grate. He moves the fire-guard into position and takes up his candle. There is no sense in waiting for his host and hostess to return from their engagement. They will have nothing of the slightest interest to report. What passes for society at this intellectually impoverished toe-end of the kingdom holds no appeal for Godfrey Shillingstone, the soon-to-be-widely celebrated antiquarian.

This, though, was no more the reason he declined to accompany the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Borlase to the Treweekes’ supper party than the one he disingenuously offered up: a migrainous headache. The truth was quite otherwise, as he is happy to acknowledge, albeit only to himself. He recoiled from the notion of being separated by any appreciable distance from the great treasure he has recently laid hands upon. As far as the Borlases are concerned, it is a crate of geological specimens that he has lodged under lock and key in one of their outhouses, pending shipment to London, and he has no intention of disabusing them of the notion. Its true nature will be revealed when the time and place are right. Its true nature will be his to unveil when-and only when-he is ready to do so.

Shillingstone steps out into the hall, closes the drawing-room door behind him and turns towards the stairs. Then he stops. A breath of air before bed, perhaps? A reassuring tug on the chain securing the outhouse door? The idea is suddenly irresistibly appealing. The children and their maid are asleep. There is no one to remark his coming or going. He sets down the candle on the table beside the clock and heads towards the front door.

The night is breezy and mild; a fullish moon flits between fast-moving clouds. An owl hoots in the woods above the house as he pulls the front door softly shut behind him. The whisper of the wind in the trees makes for a soothing sound. The world about him is at peace. All is as it should be. He feels happier than he can ever recall feeling. And he suspects that in the weeks and months that lie ahead he will feel happier yet. He smiles to himself. He walks along to the corner of the house and on round the circular lawn at the head of the drive towards the stable-yard.

He is halted abruptly before he is halfway to his destination by a noise that is neither bird nor breeze. His smile yields to a frown of puzzlement. There is the noise again: the creaking of a hinge somewhere in the yard ahead of him. And another noise follows it: the clink of a horse’s harness. His puzzlement turns to anxiety. He strides hurriedly forwards.

The scene reveals itself as he passes through the gateway into the yard. He is pulled up short by his own incredulity. The door of the outhouse where he has stored his great treasure is open; a lamp burns within. A man he does not recognize-short, thin, meanly dressed-stands by a horse, clutching its bridle, in front of the open doorway. Two other figures can be seen beyond in the lamplight, stooping over an object Shillingstone does recognize, very clearly-all too clearly.

“Stop,” he cries, recovering himself and plunging across the yard. “Stop at once.”

The man by the horse looks round at him, his face in shadow. The horse whinnies. The animal is wearing a pack-saddle. They have come prepared. There can be no doubt of their intentions. It is the fulfilment of a fear Shillingstone has considered irrational-until now. The two men within stand upright. One of them releases his hold on the rope fastening the crate and steps forward, letting the lamplight fall upon his face, deliberately, as it seems to Shillingstone in that moment, boldly, brazenly.

“Tozer.” The stupefaction audible in Shillingstone’s voice is not to be wondered at. Jacob Tozer is the estate steward, who dwells with his wife and children in the cottage adjoining the yard. His assurance several days ago that there was only one key to the padlock he supplied to secure the outhouse was obviously a lie. He possessed a second key all along and must even then have been planning to use it.

“Mr. Shillingstone,” Tozer responds, his gaze open and unabashed, his tone drained of all his customary subservience. “You ought to be abed at this hour.”

“Who are these people? What is the meaning of this?”

“The meaning’s clear, I should’ve reckoned. As for my friends here, they’re folk you took no heed of when you’d have been wise to. They’ve come to take back what you should never have formed the godless purpose to steal in the first place.”

“I stole nothing. I had formal sanction from Lord Godolphin to-”

“There’s a mightier lord than the noble earl whose business we’re about, Mr. Shillingstone. And we mean to carry it through. You shouldn’t have come out here.” Tozer shakes his head in evident regret. “You really shouldn’t.”

“Unhand my property this instant or I’ll see you all hanged as common thieves.”

Tozer and his two mute companions do not move. Shillingstone glares at them each in turn, clinging to the hope that he can browbeat them into submission while stifling as best he can the growing conviction that for them there is no turning back.

“Give this up now, Tozer. Send these men away. Leave the crate where it is. Lock the door and give me the key. Then perhaps I’ll consider saying nothing to Dr. Borlase of your conduct tonight.”

“You’ll consider?”

“Yes. I will.”

“No need to trouble yourself so far, Mr. Shillingstone. No need at all.”

There is the faintest nod of Tozer’s head in the direction of the man holding the horse. Then, too swiftly and too darkly in the jumbled shadows for Shillingstone to forestall, the man moves, in a darting lunge. The blade of a knife gleams fleetingly in a shaft of lamplight, then strikes home, the force of the blow and the weight of his assailant’s body behind it flinging Shillingstone against the open door of the outhouse. As it swings back behind him, he falls.

He is on the ground, the cobbles hard and moist beneath him, before the realization that he has been stabbed forms as an organized thought in his brain. And Tozer’s hand, rough and hard-sinewed, has clamped his mouth shut before he can cry out for help. There is no pain yet, but something hot and liquid is flowing between his skin and his shirt, something he knows, though can barely believe, is his own blood.