Death at Blenheim Palace

Lord Charles Sheridan stood at the door of the Ashmolean’s Knossos exhibit, just off the main gallery, and looked around the room, shaking his head in disbelief. It was overwhelming, this immense collection of pottery, stone, and metal artifacts, all of it dug up on the island of Crete, where Arthur Evans, the Ashmolean’s chief curator, had recently uncovered a remarkable Minoan palace. It looked as if, Charles thought, the entire contents of the palace were being crated up and transported, bit by bit, to England.

Charles admired Evans’s archaeological work and hoped that the new site would open the way toward a better understanding of a hitherto unknown civilization, whose princes had once thought themselves the lords of the earth. But this wholesale exportation of artifacts-Well, some critics argued that it was little more than thievery, just another example of the British Empire’s habit of pilfering the priceless treasures of other cultures, and on the whole, Charles had to agree with them. If the precious antiquities could be safeguarded against the attacks of time and human greed, Crete’s ancient treasures had better be left in Crete, rather than put on display in an English museum.

If Charles had thought about it, he would also have had to admit that this was rather an odd point of view for a British peer. He was, after all, the fifth Baron Somersworth, patrician owner of a sprawling family estate and country house in Norfolk and holder of a hereditary family seat in the House of Lords. He should have been entirely committed to maintaining and preserving, at all costs, the long and proud traditions of his landowning family and governing class. He should have been wholeheartedly and unreservedly delighted to see the British Empire extending its influence to the far corners of the globe and acquiring the treasures of ancient civilizations to burnish its own.

But these were not traditions from which Charles took any comfort. He had the feeling, as Joseph Chamberlain had remarked in the House of Commons, that the center of power was shifting, the old order giving way to a new, founded on democratic rather than aristocratic principles. In time, he suspected, the landed aristocracy of England would find itself entirely anachronistic, every bit as extinct and forgotten as the unremembered kings and queens of ancient Minoa, and exactly as dead and dusty as the dinosaurs.

“Sheridan!” a voice exclaimed. “So glad to see you! And what do you think of our little exhibit, eh? Quite a sight, is it not?”

Charles turned. The man striding energetically toward him, hand extended, was John Buttersworth, the Ashmolean’s Curator of Classical Antiquities.

“Little exhibit?” Charles managed a chuckle. “I must say, Buttersworth, you and the museum have outdone yourselves this time.”

“Indeed.” Buttersworth beamed. “And there’s more to come, Sheridan, much, much more. The number of artifacts Evans is uncovering is simply astounding, and each of them is a treasure in its own right.” His smile became broader, the light glinting off his gold-rimmed spectacles. “And it’s all to be shipped right here, every bit of it. A real feather in the Ashmolean’s cap, if I may be permitted to say so. The museum shall be acknowledged throughout the world as the chief repository of the glories of Minoan Crete.”

“I’m sure,” Charles said dryly. There was no point in confiding his feelings about the exhibit to Buttersworth, who could neither understand nor share them. Instead, he raised the question that had been his real purpose for coming to the Ashmolean.

“I haven’t been upstairs to look,” he said, “but I take it that the Warrington Hoard has been restored to its proper place.”

“Indeed it has,” Buttersworth said warmly. “I must admit that we would have been lost without your assistance, Sheridan. To work through the usual channels would have been to risk scandal, and that was out of the question. I was utterly at my wits’ end when you came to tell me that you’d got word of the Hoard.”

By “the usual channels,” of course, Buttersworth was speaking of the Oxford police. Charles understood the museum’s reluctance to involve them in the theft of a major holding, such as the Warrington Hoard. While local constabularies were adequate to the tasks of suppressing street crime and preserving order, they lacked the tools and finesse required to perform complex investigations. And once the police were brought into a case, all hope of confidentiality flew out the window.

This was a special problem where adverse publicity-“scandal,” as Buttersworth put it-might cause just as much damage as the theft itself. The museum’s reputation would have been irretrievably ruined if the public had got wind of the theft of the Warrington Hoard, causing prospective donors to think twice before they trusted the Ashmolean with their precious collections. If the museum couldn’t safeguard the Hoard, how could it protect other acquisitions?

The Hoard-a dozen major pieces of fine jewelry and tableware, perhaps the most exciting cache of Celtic gold and silverwork ever unearthed in England. It had been one of the Ashmolean’s most popular exhibits until some six months before, when the museum had abruptly closed it-for cleaning and conservation, officials said. The truth was that the Hoard had been stolen. Suspicion had fallen on a recently hired char woman, who, it appeared, possessed a remarkable talent as a screwsman (or in this case, a screws-woman) and had made copies of all the necessary keys. Charles Sheridan, known to his friends and associates as an amateur sleuth of some reputation, had been instrumental in the Hoard’s recovery. He felt he could hardly claim any credit in the business, however, since his involvement had been entirely fortuitous.

It was an interesting story. Mr. Rupert Dreighson of Castlegate Hall, some fifteen miles from Oxford, had retired from a profitable career as the owner of a string of drapers’ shops in Liverpool and Manchester and, now that he could afford such things, had become an enthusiastic collector of Celtic antiquities. In his passionate search for treasures to add to his collection, Mr. Dreighson had suggested to antiquities dealers that if a hoard should happen to turn up, he would be willing to pay a handsome price for it. Of course, everyone knew that such a transaction would have to take place on the wrong side of the law, for one who dug up a cache of gold and silver objects was required to turn over everything to the Crown. But these days there were a great many collectors who possessed more money than scruples, and the legalities were frequently disregarded.

In the event, Mr. Dreighson was delighted when an unknown lady-a well-bred woman of quiet demeanor and modest dress-called upon him at Castlegate Hall one day and offered to sell him an antique golden earring, with the suggestion that if he were interested, several similar pieces might be available, the price to be negotiated. The earring’s workmanship being quite extraordinary and Dreighson, being confident that it was without a doubt the real thing, handed over the money without demur, expressing an enthusiastic interest in the remainder of the collection.

Within a few days, he received a letter describing the pieces in detail and quoting a price for the whole. While the amount was high enough to raise Dreighson’s eyebrows, he was not the sort of man to quibble when it came to something he wanted as badly as he wanted this. Arrangements were made, the required amount was deposited, in cash, in the designated London bank, and the collection-a dozen pieces of great beauty and rarity-was safely settled in Dreighson’s capacious private vault.

And there it might have safely remained, if Rupert Dreighson had not been a braggart. He could not resist the temptation of showing off his newly acquired treasures to a friend from London, who had come for a weekend’s fishing to Castlegate Hall. A few days later, the friend happened to bump into Lord Charles Sheridan, and casually mentioned that a chap in Oxfordshire had privately got his hands on something rather remarkable, which-dash it all-had not come up for auction so others might’ve had a go at it. Charles, who had heard a whisper of rumor about the Warrington Hoard going missing, made a discreet inquiry at the Ashmolean, and Buttersworth was forced to admit the theft.

The next bit of business proved surprisingly easy. Under the guise of having a gold Celtic bracelet to sell, Charles arranged an introduction to Mr. Dreighson and talked his way into the Castlegate vault. Then, armed with the Ashmolean’s catalog and documentary photographs of the Warrington Hoard, he confronted Dreighson, who gave him a cock-and-bull story about buying the lot from a pair of navvies who had turned it up while digging a drain in a field in Essex. But the story soon fell apart and the truth about the clandestine purchase emerged.

Dreighson, of course, claimed that he had not had an idea in the world that the pieces were stolen property, that he had purchased them fair and square, and that they were his. But a visit from the museum’s solicitor persuaded him of the wisdom of returning the items in exchange for the addition of his name to the patron’s list-a distinction that would polish Mr. Dreighson’s prestige quite brightly indeed, and allow him to shine like a star among all the other retired drapers in the kingdom.

The Ashmolean, of course, was overjoyed at having regained the Hoard without having to admit publically that it had been lost. But Charles did not share in the general pleasure, for while the stolen property had been returned, the thieves were still at large. As was to be expected, inquiries at the bank turned up nothing; the account had been opened under the unrevealing name of George Smith and closed immediately upon the withdrawal of the money. The postal address also yielded no clues. What troubled Charles most was the apprehension that this theft might be just one of several. He had recently heard, for instance, of a theft at the Duke of Portland’s establishment in Nottinghamshire, which could only have been carried out by a ring of clever thieves, some of them working as servants.

“By the way,” Charles said, looking around, “I haven’t seen Ned Lawrence today-your young helper. Does he still come to the museum?”

Charles had met young Lawrence during his dealings over the Hoard and had been impressed with the boy’s knowledge of the local archaeological sites and his passion for exploring. Since Charles planned to be near Oxford for a few days-he and Kate, his wife, were staying with the Marlboroughs at Blenheim-he thought he might drive the Panhard to Chipping Norton for a look at the Rollright Stones, a Neolithic stone circle which, in Charles’s view, held every bit as much interest as the more famous Stonehenge. Young Lawrence might like to come along.

“Ned?” Buttersworth asked. “Oh, yes, I wouldn’t part with the boy-although I’d be glad to lend him to you, if there’s something you want him to do.” He smiled. “He’d be delighted to lend you a hand, you know, if you had another investigation. He was enormously impressed with the way you handled that business with Dreighson.”

Charles chuckled. “I know. He offered to come on as my assistant-without pay. Watson to my Holmes, he said. Very keen.”

“That’s Ned,” Buttersworth said, amused. “Like most boys his age, he loves adventure. Too much Stevenson, I’m afraid. He’d sail off to Treasure Island in a minute. However, he’s far above other boys in his competence and his range of interests.” He smiled. “Why, he reads the newspaper’s police reports as religiously as he reads his lessons.” His smile faded. “Something of a sad story, though, and rather a mystery. His family, that is.”

“Oh?” Charles asked.

“His father is an Irish gentleman of some consequence named-” He stopped, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “On second thought, perhaps Ned would rather tell you himself, if the opportunity arises. Were you thinking of taking him out with you?”

“I was,” Charles said, “if he can be spared. My wife and I are staying with the Marlboroughs, so I’ll be in the area for a few days.”

Buttersworth seemed to hesitate. “With the Marlboroughs, you say. At Blenheim, I take it.”

Charles nodded. “I’d like Ned to see the Rollright Stones, if he’s not been there already. I want to encourage his interest in archaeology-although I suppose he’ll be disappointed to hear that I don’t have a case he can help investigate.”

“Oh, by all means, take him with you,” Buttersworth said. Behind his glasses, his eyes became more intent. “But speaking of cases-”

“There’s not been another theft, I hope,” Charles said warily.

Buttersworth fluttered a hand. “Oh, no. At least, not here at the museum, I’m glad to say. It’s only that-” He broke off, obviously troubled. “But perhaps I shouldn’t mention it. It is only speculation, after all. My suspicions, if that’s what they are, are probably quite unfounded.”

Charles waited, feeling that there was more here than the man wanted to say-more, perhaps, than he wanted to hear.

“On the other hand,” Buttersworth went on after a moment, “since you are staying with the Marlboroughs, perhaps I ought to-” He looked in both directions up and down the hall, then lowered his voice. “I was visited by a rather remarkable woman on Friday, you see.” He paused.

“Remarkable in what way?” Charles asked.

“Well, her appearance, for one thing. Her nose, quite classical, exactly like that of Sappho, whose bust we have in our collection.” Buttersworth seemed to reflect on this phenomenon for a moment.

“And this remarkable woman-” Charles prompted.

Buttersworth started. “Ah, yes. Well, she claimed to represent her employer. Wanted my opinion on several antique pieces.”

Charles smiled. “I shouldn’t think such a request would be all that unusual, in your line of work.”

“It was not the request, it was the items themselves. One was a rather ordinary scarab seal-people are always fetching those things home from holiday in Egypt. But she also had a Minoan prism seal and three very fine Greek seal stones, and she suggested that there were more.”

Charles tipped his head to one side, remembering Dreighson’s story-when the truth had finally been forced out of the man-of being visited by a woman who had sold him an earring. “I see,” he said. “I suppose you thought of the Dreighson affair.”

“I did,” Buttersworth said ruefully. “But I was also reminded of the Marlborough collection. The Marlborough Gemstones.” He paused. “I suppose you know of them.”

“Ah, yes,” Charles said reflectively. “A large assemblage of very fine gemstones-more than seven hundred, as I recall-gathered at enormous expense by the fourth duke. And sold by the seventh duke, who needed the money to keep the palace going.” He smiled crookedly. “Alas, they went for just thirty-five thousand guineas, although they were said to have been worth twice that.”

Buttersworth cleared his throat. “But there’s something else, you see,” he said, distinctly uneasy. “The woman who brought the stones-she let it slip that she had been sent by the Duchess.”

“The Duchess?” Charles repeated with a chuckle. “Come now, Buttersworth. You can’t be serious.”

“I know,” Buttersworth said gloomily. “Well, of course it could only be the Duchess of Marlborough. And I wondered, you see… Of course, it was just a thought, but I couldn’t help asking myself whether some of the gemstones might have escaped the auction block, after all, and were now being offered for sale, clandestinely. Although I must say,” he added quickly, “that it does seem rather strange. The Duchess was Consuelo Vanderbilt before she married the Duke, as you know. The Marlboroughs’ pockets are said to be empty, but I doubt that a Vanderbilt would need money. Or, if she did, that she would stoop to sell the Duke’s family jewels.”

Buttersworth’s story, Charles thought, was highly unsettling, and not because the Duchess would be involved in anything underhanded. “There may be a scheme afoot that doesn’t involve the Marlboroughs,” he said, thinking of the Dreighson affair. “A plot of which the Duke and Duchess know nothing.”

“It’s possible,” Buttersworth agreed. He gave Charles an anxious look. “You’ll keep it in mind while you’re there?”

“I shall,” Charles said. “I shall indeed.”

Robin Paige

Death at Blenheim Palace