The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

The Stuart Sapphire by Peter Tremayne

Peter Tremayne (b. 1943) is best known for his series of historical mystery novels set in seventh century Europe and featuring Sister Fidelma. The first of them was Absolution by Murder (1994) and you will find several impossible mysteries amongst the novels and stories. Under his real name, Peter Berresford Ellis is a noted Celtic scholar, author of such books as The History of the Irish Working Class (1972), The Celtic Dawn (1993) and The Ancient World of the Celts (1999). He has also written biographies of the authors H. Rider Haggard, W.E. Johns and Talbot Mundy. The following story features a puzzle involving the last of the Stuart Pretenders to the throne of Great Britain.

A full-grown man in the grip of uncontrolled panic is not a pleasant sight. Worse still, was the sight of His Majesty, James II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Duke of York, Earl of Ulster and Duke of Normandy, wringing his hands, his lips quivering and eyes flitting from side to side in fear, pacing the entrance hall of Dublin Castle.

“Are the horses ready yet?” he paused and demanded of Henry Fitzjames, the Lord Grand Prior of England, who stood nervously near the great doors that opened onto the cobbled courtyard. It was not for the first time that he had asked his son the same question in petulant, fearful tone.

“Your Majesty’s Life Guards are not yet fully assembled.”

“God rot them! What ails them to be so negligent of the safety of their King at such an hour?”

“Sire, it is hard to obtain fresh horses in the city at this time. His Grace, the Duke of Powis, has scoured every stable unsuccessfully for fresh mounts.”

“It is already dawn.” The King pointed with shaking hand to the early morning light outside. “Have I not been given intelligence that my son-in-law’s army,” he referred to William, Prince of Orange’s relationship to him, with a sneer, “that his piquets have already marched within cannon shot of the outer defences of the city?”

“A report greatly exaggerated, sire. My brother, His Grace of Berwick, has his regiments encamped far to the north and there are no rumours of any alarums.”

The King was not listening.

“Men of the like that flock to the banners of the Prince of Orange captured, tried and executed my poor father when I was but sixteen years old. They cut off his head in front of his own palace of Whitehall. I do not intend to suffer the same fate. We must mount immediately and ride for the coast, fresh horses or not. See that it is so!”

The Lord Grand Prior left to obey his father’s orders.

Her Grace, Lady Frances, the Duchess of Tyrconnell, had roused herself in the early morning hours to witness the King’s departure from the city of Dublin. Now she stood watching him with a look of contempt. With her in the hall was the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Terence McDermott, while at her side stood Father Taafe, her husband’s chaplain who had just arrived in the city. Her husband, Richard, was James’ Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and was even now in continued danger at the head of his cavalry regiment somewhere between Dublin and the River Boyne, facing the Prince of Orange’s army. Her Grace had tried her best to calm the panic of the King.

“Majesty, our Irish troops will hold the army of the Prince of Orange long before they reach the city. You are safe as yet.”

“Hold them?” The King sneered, turning an ugly countenance to her. “Did they hold them at Oldbridge, madam, when the Prince of Orange and his men swarmed across the Boyne River? Cowards, every one. They fled before William like greyhounds in a race. Your countrymen, madam, can run well.”

Her Grace of Tyrconnell’s lips twitched in anger. She was not Irish. She had been born near St Albans in Hertfordshire but she felt a desire to defend her husband, the Duke of Tyrconnell, and his countrymen against this insult.

“Not so well as your majesty,” she snapped back, “for I see that you have won the race.”

Her companions could not disguise the smiles that sprang to their lips, for King James had been in continued panic since he had galloped into the city at midnight, directly from an engagement at the Boyne, shouting that all was lost.

“The horses are ready, Your Majesty,” cried the Lord Grand Prior, coming swiftly back into the hall and saving the King from trying to think of a suitable retort.

James turned quickly, without even bidding farewell to the wife of his Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Tyrconnell. The King seemed to have forgotten her presence and those of her companions as he scuttled towards the doors. Then a thought seemed to strike him. He paused and crashed one pale fist into the palm of his hand.

“Pox take me! Have I no one to remind me?”

The Lord Grand Prior looked in bewilderment as his father turned and almost ran towards the room where he had spent the last few hours. It was a small study in which he had previously been engaged in writing his final orders to the Comte de Lauzun, commander of his army. The King hurried to the desk. Ah, thank God he had remembered. A small metal box stood on the desk where he had left it. He picked up the heavy object, unlocked and pushed back the lid. It was filled with jewellery. On top of the diamonds and emeralds and assorted jewels lay a glittering blue stone about one and a half inches in length by an inch wide. The Stuart Sapphire was the pride of his collection. His brother, Charles II, had saved it from falling into Cromwellian hands after his defeat at Worcester. It was worth a king’s fortune; it was the fortune of this King, anyway. These were all that were left of the Crown Jewels of the Stuart Dynasty. He snapped the lid shut and turned the key again.

“This casket is to stay with me at all times. It is the guarantee of the survival of the House of Stuart,” he grunted at his bewildered son, the Lord Grand Prior. “Now, let us ride for Waterford with all speed.”

Without another word, he swept by Lady Tyrconnell, who performed a courtly curtsey; her every movement was filled with irony. Her companions merely inclined their heads.

Lady Tyrconnell waited a few moments until she heard the clattering of horses leaving the castle yard and then her features twisted in disdain.

“I wonder if His Majesty knows what his good subjects of Ireland are already calling him?” She smiled grimly at the troubled faces of the Lord Mayor MacDermott and Father Taafe. “I learnt the Irish from my maid. Seamus an Chaca - James the Shit! Methinks my sister, Sarah, the Lady Marlborough, is right when she agreed with her husband that these realms will be better off without such a petty, devious and faint-hearted man as James Stuart on the throne.”

Conte Salvatore Volpe of the Ordo Equester Nobile de Nostro Signore, the Papal bodyguard, paused for a moment outside the tall ornate doors with their gilt covered carvings and brass fixtures. He adjusted his sword and raised a hand to ensure his cravat was in place. Then he nodded to the nervous looking sacredotti who stood ready. The young trainee priest smote the door twice and then opened it and announced in a whispering tone to the occupant:

“Count Volpe, prefect commander of the Order of the Noble Knights of Our Lord.”

Volpe strode into an antechamber and then halted in momentary surprise. He had been expecting to be greeted by the elderly Cardinal York of Frascati but a ruddy-faced man with dark hair and clothes that bespoke more of a man of fashion and elegance greeted him. He was fair of skin and his features seemed to identify him as a foreigner but he greeted Volpe in fluent courtly Italian as one born to the language.

“I have surprised you, count,” the man observed. “I am sorry but it is necessary to have a word with you before you are received by my master. I am…”

“The Marchese Glenbuchat.” Volpe had difficulty pronouncing the Scottish name.

“You are well informed, Conte.”

“It is my duty to be so, Marchese, for I am placed in charge of the safety of all the Cardinal princes of Holy Mother Church who are gathering here.”

“Then you may also know, who my master is? I want to tell you, before you speak with him, that I have met with great reluctance from him in allowing you privy to a matter, which is of the greatest gravity to him and his cause. He does not want this matter to be voiced abroad. So I must hear from you that you are willing to treat it in utmost secrecy.”

“Without knowing the nature of the matter, I cannot take such an oath,” replied Volpe. “But if it does not offend the holy office that I hold sacred, I will treat the matter with discretion. Perhaps I can be told the nature of this problem that your master wishes to consult me about?”

Lord Glenbuchat hesitated.

“I will leave that to him.”

He crossed to a door and knocked on it discreetly, opened it and announced Volpe’s presence.

Count Volpe crossed the marble tiled floor to the chair by an ornate fire carved in the same stone. The slight figure of the elderly man in the robes of a Cardinal was seated to receive him. Volpe came to a halt and bent to kiss the ring of the frail hand that the Cardinal had reached out towards him.

He wondered how he should address someone whom many recognized as the rightful King of England, Scotland and Ireland, but who was Bishop of Frascati and known to his fellow prelates as Cardinal York.

“Eminence,” he managed to mutter as he bent over the bishop’s ring. He paused a moment and then straightened looking into the pale face and dark haunted eyes of Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart, grandson and only surviving legitimate heir of James II who had fled his kingdoms to a life of exile over a century before. Since the death of his elder brother, Prince Charles Edward in 1788, the Cardinal had been hailed as Henry IX of England and I of Scotland. The last of the Stuart claimants to the throne.

“How may I serve your Eminence?” Volpe said, taking the regulatory step backwards from the Cardinal’s chair. He was aware that Lord Glenbuchat was standing anxiously behind him.

The old man sighed deeply, raising his tired eyes to gaze on the commander of the Pontifical Guard.

“You are acquainted with my family’s sad history?” he asked.

“Eminence.” Volpe made the word an affirmation, feeling sorry for this apparently exhausted old man. However, these were times of hardship for everyone. The armies of revolutionary France were scouring the Italian countryside, looting and plundering, and with Pius VI recently dead in Valence, after a mere six months in office, and the godless French agents suspected of complicity in his death, the Cardinals had been unable to find a sanctuary to meet to elect a new Holy Father. They had even been driven from Rome by the French invasion. Volpe was uncomfortably reminded that the old man before him had also had to flee from his villa at Frascati, when it had been attacked and sacked by the French army. Now the Cardinals were gathering on this little island in Venice, in the old Benedictine Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, to enter into the conclave in the hope of electing a new Holy Father.

Count Volpe had only recently been appointed to command the old aristocratic bodyguard of the Papal successors. He was a young man and conscious of his office.

Cardinal York spoke in a tired tone.

“A thief has broken into these apartments and made off with jewellery worth a great fortune.”

Volpe’s eyes widened but he said nothing. After a moment, the Cardinal continued.

“The jewellery was my personal property, family property, bequeathed to me by my brother, Charles.”

Volpe knew well of the dissolute and drunken Prince Charles Edward, pretender to the English throne who had died of apoplexy in Rome some ten years before.

“Eminence, what manner of jewellery has gone missing?”

“The wealth of over three centuries of my family’s history as Kings of Scotland and then of England and Ireland,” replied the old Cardinal. “Among them, the great Stuart Sapphire. I brought them safely from Frascati, as my grandfather had also brought them safely when he was forced to flee into exile. Before that my great-uncle had hidden them safely when his father was executed by his subjects.”

Volpe tried to restrain a grim smile.

“Eminence, your family have borne many misfortunes,” he remarked with what he hoped was sympathy.

“The Stuart Crown Jewels are beyond mere commercial wealth,” intervened Lord Glenbuchat. “They are the symbols of His Majesty’s rightful claims to the throne that has been usurped by the family of the Duke of Brunswick-Lúneberg-Celle, the so-called House of Hanover. The jewels must be found and the culprit punished.”

“Eminence, I shall do my utmost to bring this matter to a satisfactory and immediate conclusion,” Volpe assured the old Cardinal, addressing him rather than turning to Lord Glenbuchat.

The old man sighed and waved his hand to the Marquess.

“I have had my chamberlain, Lord Glenbuchat, make out a list of the items that are missing.”

“You say that these apartments were broken into?” Volpe queried. “May I see where the entrance was forced?”

Cardinal York coughed nervously.

“I did not mean to be taken literally,” he said as if in bad temper. “There was no sign of anyone actually breaking into these chambers, was there, Glenbuchat?”

The Marchese shook his head.

“No doors nor windows bore signs of forced entry nor even the secret cabinet in which the jewels were kept for safety.”

Volpe frowned.

“I presume that the doors to these apartments are locked when there is no one present?”

“Of course, though there is usually myself or my chamberlain here. If we are not, there is my bodyguard, Colonel O’Sullivan, and my manservant, Iain.”

“These have access to the chamber where the jewels were kept?”

The Cardinal nodded.

“No one else?”

“None that have free access to these rooms.”

“If someone will be so good as to show me where these jewels were kept…?” asked Volpe after a moment’s reflection.

Cardinal York glanced to his chamberlain.

Lord Glenbuchat took Volpe by the arm and led him to another door.

“This is His Majesty’s bedchamber,” he confided. Volpe could not get used to the form of address. He supposed that, to his followers, the Cardinal was totally accepted as the rightful king. Glenbuchat had opened the door and pointed to the key in the lock.

“This key is always in the possession of His Majesty or myself when His Majesty was not in this room. The room was always kept locked because of the presence of the jewels.”

“There is only one key?”

“So I am told by the abbot of this monastery.”

“And where were the jewels kept?”

Lord Glenbuchat led the way into the chamber, which was covered with frescoes from the time of Palladio who had built the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. Most of them were framed either in the ornate cornices of the ceiling or with raised plasterwork on the walls. There were copies of Tintoretto paintings such as the“Gathering of Manna” which had been executed by his students. The room was also sumptuously furnished. Volpe saw that there was one window, a small one that he knew only gave access of view to an inner courtyard, some ten metres below.

The Marchese went to the head of the bed, by the right hand side and leaned forward, pressing a panel, which slid aside and reveal a small iron door. He reached for a key on the table and unlocked the door, swinging it open to reveal a tiny metal safe beyond. Apart from some papers, it was empty.

“This is where the jewels were kept,” he said, standing aside.

Count Volpe glanced quickly at the safe. It would tell him nothing, except that the lock had not been forced.

“Where was the key kept?” he asked.

“So far as we knew, it was with His Majesty the entire time.”

“There being no other key?”

“Again I was assured by the abbot that there was none.”

Volpe moved to the window and noticed the latches were secured. He opened it and peered out. It was only a tiny window, no bigger than to allow one’s head to be put through. Certainly no one could exit nor gain access through this aperture, even if they had a ladder long enough to reach up from the courtyard.

“Who knew of this secret panel and the safe?”

“Apart from His Majesty and myself as chancellor, only Colonel O’Sullivan and the manservant.”

“I presume the previous occupants of this chamber and, of course, the abbot, would know of the safe,” Volpe dryly pointed out.

“But they would not have known of the valuables that had been placed there,” replied Lord Glenbuchat.

Volpe conceded that it was a point.

“Who knew about these jewels? I do not mean their exact location but of their existence?”

“Of the existence of the Stuart Crown Jewels? I would say, countless people. Now and then emissaries from the usurper Hanoverian court came to make offers to His Late Majesty, when I served him.”

“His Late Majesty?” frowned Volpe.

“Charles the Third,” replied Glenbuchat irritably. “And, when his brother succeeded, twice they came with offers. The House of Hanover would like possession of the jewels in order to boost the legitimacy of their claims. But the exact whereabouts was only known to we of the household. Indeed, Colonel O’Sullivan deemed it best, when we fled from Frascati, to put it abroad that the French had taken the jewels when they sacked the villa at Frascati.”

Volpe was thoughtful.

“Are you saying that no one outside the four of you knew that these jewels were here in the monastery?”

“That I am.”

“Then this makes my work either very easy or very hard.”

Lord Glenbuchat turned with a quizzical gaze.

“Let us return to His… His Eminence,” Volpe suggested. “I would like to hear when the jewels were last seen and when and how they were discovered to be missing.”

The elderly Cardinal was still sitting before the fire but now there was a young man in attendance to him, serving a pewter goblet whose contents proved to be with mulled wine. Volpe presumed, with accuracy, that this was the Cardinal’s servant, Iain, and sought confirmation after he had withdrawn from the room.

“Now, Eminence, would you recall for me the last time you saw the jewels secured in your room?”

Cardinal York pursed his lips.

“I think I ascertained their safety late yesterday.”

“It was in the evening, Majesty,” added Glenbuchat quickly. “You will recall the evening Angelus was sounding but you had felt a distemper, deciding to retire early for the night.”

“Ah, so I did, so I did.”

“And why were the jewels inspected?” queried Volpe.

“Some papers had arrived, which I felt that His Majesty should lock away for safekeeping until we were able to deal with them.”

“Papers?”

“A report from our chief agent in London which was not for eyes other than myself and His Majesty,” replied Glenbuchat.

“And did they also disappear?”

“They did not. Only the jewels.”

“So, Eminence, you retired to bed early last night… and then what?”

“My servant Iain had brought me some hot brandy and, having partaken of it, I fell asleep and was not roused until this morning.”

Volpe unconsciously stroked his chin in thought.

“So you were not disturbed during the night?”

“I slept soundly.”

“And, Marchese, you told me it was the custom for His Eminence’s bedchamber to be secured?”

Glenbuchat nodded.

“There have been, from time to time, agents of the Hanoverians who might believe assassination was a solution to the claims of His Majesty to the throne of England. This is the first time in years that we have been in a more public place than in the confines of the villa at Frascati. We have to be vigilant. Indeed, you must know that there are some representatives of the clergy attending this conclave who declare their allegiance to the Hanoverian usurpers. Even the Irish bishops have had their allegiance bought by promises of seminaries and an easing of the Penal Laws against the Catholic population in Ireland.

“The Archbishop of Dublin, for example, Troy, is bending over backwards claiming that only those expressing loyalty to the Hanoverian Kings in London should be promoted as Irish bishops. He has condemned the uprising of the Irish last year and is even preaching legislative union of Ireland with England and Scotland. If such is the position of Irish Catholics, then the Stuart cause is lost forever. Such supporters of Archbishop Troy have the effrontery to come here to Venice to support the election of the new Holy Father.”

It was clear that Lord Glenbuchat was impassioned with his cause.

“So the bedchamber was secured?”

“We ensure that His Majesty secures his bedchamber door from the inside. And when he retires for the night O’Sullivan or Iain take it in turn to stay outside the door.”

“And this was faithfully carried out last night?”

“It was.”

“So when were the jewels discovered missing?”

“About mid-morning,” replied Glenbuchat.

“In what circumstances?”

It was the Cardinal who answered.

“I arose early and Iain helped me to dress so that I could go to the church to attend the early morning Angelus and mass. As I left my chamber, I locked the door behind me, as was my custom. When I returned I opened the chamber door so that Iain could clean my bedchamber and prepare the bed.”

“You were in the chamber when this was being done?”

The Cardinal shook his head.

“I was sitting here with Lord Glenbuchat on matters of business. I dictated some letters, for his lordship acts in the position of my secretary as well as chancellor.” The old man smiled wanly. “Thus have the Kings of England and Scotland in exile fallen on hard times.”

“It was the secret report from our agent which prompted me to open the safe,” added Glenbuchat. “I saw the jewellery box was gone. We questioned the household first. His Majesty was reluctant to send for outside assistance in case the news was spread abroad. But I hope we have your assurance of discretion.”

If it was an implied question, Volpe chose to ignore it.

“So, what you are saying is that the theft must have occurred in the hours when His Eminence left the bedchamber and went to attend early morning mass and the time when he returned to this apartment, there being no other opportunity for anyone to enter the chamber and remove the jewels?”

Glenbuchat shrugged helplessly.

“It would seem so. But His Majesty had taken both keys. Iain was here, as was I, awaiting the return of His Majesty. O’Sullivan had accompanied His Majesty to the mass as bodyguard. So we would have surely heard if anyone had forced an entry and remember that there were no signs of a forced entry.”

“No, whoever took the jewels had a key,” agreed Volpe.

“And we have been assured that there was no other key. Neither key to the safe nor to the bedchamber.”

“With your permission, Eminence, I would like a word with your servant, Iain, and also with Colonel O’Sullivan,” Volpe said rising.

“They can tell you nothing more than what my lord Glenbuchat and myself have furnished you with,” the old Cardinal pointed out.

Volpe smiled softly.

“In such an investigation as this, Eminence, it is always best to confirm things at first hand. A word here, a gesture there, may tell one far more… And, with your permission, I would like to see them alone, in their own quarters.”

He questioned the manservant Iain, a lad whose great-grandfather had come from Scotland to serve the House of Stuart, but whose connection with that country was solely his name. He was a young, excitable man with a Roman accent and a fast way of speaking, uttering half a dozen words in one breath, pausing and uttering half a dozen more. To Volpe, he seemed rather naïve. At first, Volpe thought he might be somewhat simple but then realized it was due to the youth’s unworldly attitude. He confirmed everything that the Cardinal and Glenbuchat had said. During the morning he had not stirred outside the apartments, as his task was to clean and maintain them for the Cardinal’s entire household. He was in and out of the main chamber, where the Marquess of Glenbuchat was working on some papers, within sight of the locked bedchamber door, until the return of Cardinal York and Colonel O’Sullivan.

Count Volpe then went to see Colonel O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan was a tall man with a mane of golden-red hair, flushed fair features and a ready smile. Unlike the others of the Cardinal’s household who were descended from exiles, O’Sullivan was an Irishman born but had spent ten years in Dillon’s Regiment of the Irish Brigade in French service until the French Revolution had caused the Brigade to be disbanded in 1792. Too many Irish families, in service with the Irish Brigade of France, had risen to be ennobled in the French aristocracy. The new National Assembly of the French Republic did not trust the loyalty of the Irish regiments as many of their commanders had declared themselves as royalists.

Colonel O’Sullivan had made for Rome and offered his service to the Stuart household. He was too bombastic for Volpe’s liking. A man quick to temper and equally quick to humour. He was of too ephemeral a nature.

Volpe interviewed him in the colonel’s small, rudely furnished bedchamber in which there was room for scarcely anything other than a camp bed, a canvas campaign chair and a travelling chest. Volpe perched himself on the chest and motioned the big man to be seated. O’Sullivan dropped to the bed with a grin.

“Well, it seems as if this is the last throw of the dice for the Stuarts. After this I scarce imagine His so-called Majesty will be able to employ the likes of me.”

Volpe’s brows drew together. There seemed a certain amount of disrespect in O’Sullivan’s tone for one whom, so Volpe presumed, he regarded as his rightful king.

Catching sight of his expression, O’Sullivan slapped his hand on his knee and let out a laugh.

“Lord bless you, but I am a pragmatist. Sure, the Stuarts have provided me with an income after the French disbanded my regiment. But I am not the fool to forget that they never did my poor benighted country any good. Wasn’t it the Stuart king who sent the English and Scottish colonists pouring into Ireland and driving the likes of me to their deaths by the thousands? Thousands more of us had to escape to France, Spain or Austria. I serve the money, not the man.”

Volpe’s eyes widened.

“You are either an honest fellow or a fool,” he observed. “You have just provided me with a reason why I should suspect you of this theft.”

O’Sullivan grinned.

“You are at liberty to search my room. What you see is all I have. But as for stealing these jewels… why, I might have done had I known of their whereabouts. I didn’t know until this morning of the cunning hiding hole in the wall. Then that plumped-up jackanapes, Glenbuchat, started his ranting and raving. The old man was a closed mouth. As for Iain, God help him, he knows his station and will not depart from it. If he had found the Crown Jewels in a dark alley he would have come obediently to his master and handed them over without thought of recompense.”

“Are you saying that you did not know of their existence?”

“Sure, my Italian is not fluent but I think I made myself clear,” chided the other. “I knew of their existence. I knew the Cardinal had them but I did not know where he had hid them until this morning when I was told they had gone.”

“So you were told after you returned with His… His Eminence from mass this morning?”

“Lord, but you are a sharp one,” chuckled the big man.

“And during the preceding night you and Iain, the servant, took turns to stay outside the door of the Cardinal’s bedchamber.”

“That we did. The Cardinal returned to bed early, so Iain took the early part of the evening. I took my turn on watch when it lacked an hour until midnight. I did a four hour watch and then Iain relieved me and, of course, his watch was relatively short being but two hours before he had to rouse the old… the Cardinal to get him up for the Angelus and Mass.”

“And you were not disturbed during this time?”

“Not I. No, I had a candle and good reading to occupy me. A countryman had sent me Mister Tone’s Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland… a fascinating little book the like of which I wish I had come across sooner. It put me in mind of returning home and offering my sword arm to these United Irishmen to strike for the liberty of my own country. I’d be better occupied than with a lost cause like…”

He nodded towards the door.

“Nevertheless, you are paid to be a bodyguard to His Eminence,” pointed out Volpe.

“And, by the saints, I earn my pay,” replied O’Sullivan quickly. “I guard the old man and no one can claim that I have allowed a single assassin to get near him.”

“You believe there are such assassins abroad?”

Again, O’Sullivan laughed sharply.

“The enemies that the Stuarts have in London are not beyond paying a fellow a few golden sovereigns to rid them of an irritant if they cannot buy them off. The old man has been growing fearful in recent years. It is not to be wondered at. Why, I’ll tell you an irony, an English agent in Madrid in Spain assassinated my own kinsman, The O’Sullivan, chieftain of Beare. The irony being that assassin was sent by a Stuart king who feared poor wee Felim O’Sullivan. The current King of England, Farmer George as he is called, has more to fear from the last of the Stuarts than ever the Stuarts had to fear from my forebear.”

Volpe frowned, not really understanding.

“So,” he said, trying to make sense of things, “you believe there is justification to fear assassination?”

O’Sullivan leaned forward with a wink and tapped Volpe’s arm in a conspiratorial manner.

“Justification, indeed. Didn’t I see that wee man, Father Vane, sneaking near these chambers these last two days?”

“Father Vane?” Volpe mentally tried to remember the delegates and their attendants.

“Aye, a weasel of a man. One of the delegates from England. A Catholic? What Englishman is truly a Catholic these days? I’d sooner believe that he has an assassin’s dagger in his cassock than a rosary.”

Volpe smiled thinly.

“You are prejudiced, my friend.”

“If an Irishman can’t be prejudiced about the English, then I have no understanding of this world.”

“Are you saying that this Father Kane has been seen lurking near these apartments?”

O’Sullivan didn’t understand the word nascondersi and Volpe had to use a simile to express the action of someone hiding themselves near the apartments.

“Not exactly hiding themselves,” confirmed O’Sullivan, “but keeping to the shadows. In fact, before I took over my watch from Iain last night I was sure I saw the little ferret below in the courtyard.”

Now it was Volpe’s turn to be lost.

“You saw a furetto in the courtyard?” he exclaimed.

“Vane, the wee fella,” explained the Irishman.

“Ah. How did you observe him?”

O’Sullivan rose and went to the tall windows, the porta-finestra, in his room and opened one of them. Outside was a small balcony. O’Sullivan beckoned Volpe to join him.

“Was I not having me a pipe out here when I saw him. The old man does not like the smell of tobacco and, seeing that tobacco is one of the few pleasures I can indulge in, I have my smoke outside.”

Volpe saw that the balcony overlooked the courtyard below.

“It must have been dark at the time,” he said. “How could you recognize anyone down there as Father Vane?”

“Bless ye, and ye are no fool,” chuckled O’Sullivan. “However, at dusk along comes one of your own men and helpfully lights those torches you see on the walls there.”

“And you can swear that you saw this Father Vane standing down there… show me exactly where.”

O’Sullivan pointed to an area further along. It was a spot immediately below the small window of Cardinal York’s bedchamber some ten metres above.

“You say that you suspect Father Vane of evil intentions towards His Eminence and yet you had no fear when you saw him there? You raised no alarm?”

“Love you for a cautious man, but what harm? Have you seen the piddling little window in the old man’s bedroom? Even had he been able to climb the wall, he wouldn’t have gained entrance by that means. No, if Vane is your thief, he came in through the door. If he came in through the door, he must have had a key. If he had a key, then he must have taken it from somewhere. If not from the hand of the old man, then there must be two keys. And even if there was another key, he must have had the other key to the safe and knew of the secret panel. And if he had all that, then he also had the miraculous ability to have made himself invisible to pass either Iain or myself last night.”

“Then there are two possibilities,” observed Volpe in a dry tone.

The big Irishman stared at him for a moment.

“Which are?”

“Either Iain or yourself allowed the thief to enter or one or other of you are the thief.”

There was a silence. Then O’Sullivan roared with laughter.

“There is no denying that you are a sharp one, Count Volpe. There’s yet another explanation. If the jewels were not removed through the door then the only possible method was through the small window, and who can get through it but the wee fairy folk. Have you thought that the sídhe might be at work here… the wee folk of the hills?”

Volpe left O’Sullivan enjoying his obscure joke and returned to the main chamber.

Cardinal York had retired to his bedchamber for his private devotionals and the Marchese Glenbuchat was pacing the room in front of the fireplace.

“Well?” he demanded roughly, when Volpe re-entered. “Have you come upon a solution?”

Volpe smiled thinly.

“Let us say that I have a few lines of inquiry that need to be pursued. If I may suggest, Marchese, let us be seated for a moment.”

Reluctantly, Glenbuchat sat down and Volpe took a chair and pulled it opposite him.

“As I understand it, you are more concerned with His Eminence’s political position rather than his ecclesiastical one? You serve him as rightful claimant to the English throne than as Bishop of Frascati, am I correct?”

Glenbuchat frowned.

“As rightful King of England and Scotland,” he corrected. “I am a faithful subject and servant of His Majesty, Henry Ninth, by divine right…”

“Just so,” intervened Volpe. “How long have you served the Stuart Household?”

“All my life. My grandfather was a young man on the staff of His Grace, the Duke of Berwick. He served both His Majesty James the Second and James the Third while they were in exile at St Germain-en-Laye. He went back to Scotland and fought at Glenshiels in Seventeen-Nineteen. My father was born in St Germain-en-Laye and continued that service. He was in Lord Drummond’s Regiment when we defeated that fat German who called himself the Duke of Cumberland at Fontenoy and, a few months later, sailed with Prince Charles Edward back home to Scotland. When Charles Edward came back to exile and then became Charles III, my father returned with him. I was born in Rome and continued in that service. When Charles died, I went to serve the next Stuart monarch, King Henry at Frascati.”

Glenbuchat recited all this with a great deal of passion and pride in his voice.

Volpe nodded thoughtfully.

“So you know much of the politics of the conflict between the Hanoverians and Stuarts?”

“Of course.”

“His Eminence is considered the last of the Stuarts?”

“The last of the direct line although there are relatives by consanguinity.”

“I am told that His Eminence is poor?”

“This last decade has seen his fortune vanish because of this revolutionary fever among the French. The French have taken all the Stuart possessions that remained to them.”

“Except the Crown Jewels.”

“Except the Stuart Crown Jewels,” confirmed Glenbuchat. “The Stuart cause is bereft of wealth. Why do you wish to know this? Your task is to find the thief who took them last night.”

Volpe smiled.

“I know my task, Marchese. And that is precisely my intention. I am pursuing it in my own way. Tell me, do you really think that the people of England or Scotland are interested in the return of the Stuarts to the throne?”

Glenbuchat’s mouth tightened.

“Whether they are interested or not, the Stuarts are the rightful kings.”

Volpe sighed wistfully.

“Kings are not the currency they once were. They can be easily deposed as the French have just shown. The creed of the republicans has swept Europe like a forest fire.”

“The French!” sneered Glenbuchat.

“Wasn’t it the English who showed the way? They executed one Stuart king and chased another out of the kingdom. For over a hundred years the Stuarts have been in exile. Now we have a frail old man, a Cardinal no less, as the last of the line. Do you think anyone really cares now whether this old man can suddenly be restored to the throne of his grandfather?”

Glenbuchat had turned almost apoplectic with rage.

“How dare you, sir! You insult my King. I have fought duels for less.”

Volpe sat back unperturbed.

“I am prefect commander of the guard protecting all the princes of the church meeting at this monastery to elect a new Holy Father. You, Marchese, are here on sufferance only because you are employed by one of the Cardinal delegates. I should be careful with your threats. Now, I make the point, that monarchy is unfashionable, the Irish seem to have turned to republicanism, even your own Scottish nation with its Friends of the People seem to be declaring for a republic. The Stuart cause is no longer justified.”

Glenbuchat was still angered.

“I called you here to investigate a theft and bring a criminal to justice. My family and I have devoted our lives, our estates and our good name to the cause of the Stuarts and we are still prepared to defend that cause.”

Count Volpe rose abruptly.

“I can see that, Glenbuchat. I think that you may be what the English call the last of the Jacobites. I believe you to be an honest man in that cause.”

Glenbuchat regarded him in bewilderment at his conciliatory tone.

“Well, sir, are you to proceed in solving and resolving this theft and naming the culprit?”

“I think I already see a solution to this affair,” Volpe replied complacently. “Before the culprit is named, I would like another word with His Eminence.”

Glenbuchat looked surprised.

“You have… if you have the name of the culprit, give it to me. I am chancellor to…”

Volpe raised a hand.

“Please, Marchese. I have little time to indulge in discourse on protocols.”

Glenbuchat stood up in annoyance.

“I will see if His Majesty will receive you,” he said stiffly. He turned to the Cardinal’s bedchamber, knocking softly before entering. A moment later, he reappeared and beckoned to Count Volpe.

The old Cardinal was sitting in a chair by his bed.

When Glenbuchat made no move to withdraw, Volpe said: “Eminence, I would have a few words with you alone.”

At once Glenbuchat began to protest but Cardinal York said quietly: “You may wait outside, my lord. I will call you when needed.”

With an expression of annoyance, Glenbuchat withdrew, shutting the door behind him. For a few seconds the Cardinal and Count Volpe remained in silence, their searching eyes meeting as if duellists preparing to engage.

“Well, Eminence,” Volpe said, after a while, “is it worth my while to order a search of the room and belongings of Father Vane for your jewels?”

A few moments passed and then the Cardinal gave a long, low sigh.

“You are undoubtedly a very clever man, Count Volpe,” he said.

Volpe shook his head.

“It required little cleverness, only logic. To make this look like theft it was but poorly done. Little thought was given to arranging opportunities by which a thief might have stolen the jewels, which might have confused me. With few opportunities to dwell on, what was left, however improbable, had to be the solution. You, yourself, removed the jewels and dropped them out of the tiny window to where this Father Vane was waiting below to receive them. Is that not so?”

Cardinal York lowered his head.

“I thought that I would have had a little more time to arrange things, but before I had a chance, Glenbuchat demanded sight of the document which we had put in the safe the night before and, in doing so, realized the jewels were no longer there. I tried to stop him making an official furore but there was little I could do.”

“So no theft had been committed?”

“As you have deduced. Count Volpe, I am old and weary. Tired of pretending to something that I know that I cannot have and, frankly, that I do not want to have. My grandfather suffered a mental decline after his exile and took refuge in religion. My father was, all his life, a depressed and gloomy individual, resigned to failure from the years of ill fortune. He became a refugee, dying in Rome with only the Holy Father insisting on addressing him as King of England. My brother, as you well know, ended his life ended his years as a depressive and a drunk. I have found solace in serving Holy Mother Church. I live frugally and in poverty. Why should I keep these remaining baubles of happier times for my family? I will never be, and never want to be, King of England, Scotland or Ireland.”

Volpe waited patiently and then asked: “But the descendants of your family? They might have been entrusted with the jewels?”

“There is no issue after me. My brother had a daughter, illegitimate, who married the Duke of Albany and died the same year as my brother. I am the last of the Stuarts. Let the offspring of the Brunswick-Lúneberg-Celle family keep the throne. After all, they’ve had it for so long I’ll wager no one in England can even remember our family except with bitterness.”

“So I presume that this incident was but a surreptitious handover of these Crown Jewels to…?”

“Let us say that they have been passed on to the nations over which our family once ruled.”

“What will you tell the likes of Glenbuchat? He will be angered at the demise of his cause.”

“He has lived in the past too long. I will make my confession in due course and hope the new Holy Father, once we have elected him, will allow me to retire to Frascati to end my days in peace as a due servant of the Church.”

On 14 March 1800, after three months in conclave in the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, the Cardinals elected Giorgio Barnaba Chiaramonti as Holy Father. He took the name of Pius VII. One of his first acts was to disband the Order of the Noble Knights of Our Lord and replace them with a new unit called the Guardia Nobile del Corpo di Nostro Signore. Count Volpe refused to renew his commission and retired to his estates of Ferarra and Imola, south of Venice. In the same year, George William Frederick, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke and Elector of Hanover, agreed to pay to Cardinal York, Bishop of Frascati, a pension of £4,000 for life. The last of the royal Stuarts died at the age of 82 at Frascati on 13 July 1807, and was buried in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

And the mystery of the Stuart Crown Jewels? When the Princess Alexandrina Victoria was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India at Westminster Abbey on 28 June 1838, she wore a newly reworked State Crown. The famous Stuart Sapphire occupied a prominent position on it and today it is one of the two famous sapphires that rest in the collection of the British Crown Jewels.