Chapter One

England, September, 1945

Kydon Schmidt, in his hotel room in London, looked out of the window for the third time. Habit. A holdover from the days behind German lines as an agent, but he wasn’t spying for the British or the Americans at the moment.

He was about to begin a treasure hunt for Roman relics and the thought made him uneasy. The last such hunt—he’d been forced into it—left dead men, and he didn’t want to face that again. He had a choice with this job, he thought, as he looked out at the street. The same two people. Now, if he were spying ….

The tall fellow opposite the hotel and about to cross the street had been at Barclay’s Bank when Kydon was there earlier. Shouldn’t be the Gestapo, the war in Europe had been over for four months. But something about the man brought back memories of a small town in Germany a few weeks before the end of the war.

And the woman? She was perhaps in her mid-sixties, and was at the curb with a large shopping bag, an umbrella hanging on her wrist by a thick curved handle. She had been in the lounge when he left for the bank.

He must stop thinking like an agent. These people were ordinary people. He wasn’t on a mission in enemy territory, and no one was in danger.

He put on his coat and went down to the lobby. As he made a phone call, the older woman was seated in one of the big leather chairs, too far away to hear his brief, “I’ll meet you in twenty minutes.” Kydon rang off and started for the street door. The woman gathered her parcels and went to the lift. The tall man was across the lounge at a table strewn with newspapers, idly turning pages, when Kydon walked out of Alderwood’s Hotel.

Three blocks away, as Kydon skirted a pile of rubble from a bombed building, he saw the tall man behind him. Coincidence surely. It’s peacetime, the war is over.

* * *

Kydon sipped his whiskey and splash. It was cozy in the corner of the pub by a window where he could look out on the rain-washed street. At six feet three inches, he could see over the curtain covering the lower half of the steamy window. He could not see the bombed, burned buildings farther along the street. The building opposite must had been spared a bomb during the raids, it looked complete.

People passed with umbrellas shimmering from the light rain and among them was Harry Seton in an old Burberry, his graying hair under a fedora. Harry came in, slapped coins on the bar, and ordered a pint from the woman at the taps. As he lifted his ale, he saw Kydon and went to him.

“Hullo, Schmidt. I didn’t mind closing the shop. One poor old soul brought in a badly dented silver tankard to sell. She found it in her bombed out house, and I gave her a couple quid. She needed it.” Harry dug in a pocket, pulled out a scrap of paper, and handed it to Kydon. “We may not get full price but Mallory’s keen to see it.”

Kydon glanced at the paper, murmured, ”Nice address,” and shoved it into a pocket. “What’s this about Roman relics?”

“He thinks he knows where some can be found. He’s collected Greek and Roman pieces for years.” Harry took off his hat and smoothed his hair. “He knows your code name.”

Tension bubbled up. “What did you tell him?”

“Pretended I didn’t know anything.” Harry looked up at the young blond. “He said he had connections with Whitehall. If it hadn’t been for me meeting you at that damned prison camp—”

“What did you tell him about the pitcher?”

“The truth as I know it, an impoverished aristocrat in France was selling family heirlooms and we’re merely go-betweens.” Harry took out a cigarette and a match. “You have an appointment for nine in the morning. You can use my car.”

“Thanks, Harry.” Kydon sipped his whiskey and soda.

“I’m betting he’ll offer five and that’s a good price.” Harry nursed his pint of ale. “How’s your father?”

“I hope he’ll be digging in Egypt soon.”

“I see. Jolly good.”

Kydon wanted to say, No, you don’t see, Harry, you have no idea of what I did, what I had to do because of a bastard in Washington, so my father can be free to work on his own. But am I free yet? And what does Edwin Mallory really want with me? Kydon said nothing of that. He said, “Harry, will you have supper with me?”

Lines crinkled around his eyes as Harry grinned. “How did you find this Frenchman who managed to hide his collection of ancient and medieval pieces?”

“By accident.” Kydon moved to one of the tables.

The landlord told them what was available, rarebit or mutton stew. Harry drained his pint and went to the bar for fresh drinks.

As the food was served, Harry said, “Mallory’s cousin by marriage has a fine Greek marble of Apollo. He’ll ask you to spy out where it came from, is my guess.”

The past wouldn’t leave him alone as Kydon listened to Harry Seton talk. During the war, Kydon had joined MI6 and, using the code name Apollo, worked for the French Resistance and the OSS. His tall blond looks made him a perfect Aryan to be cast as Nazi officers or soldiers. When the war ended, he was twenty-seven years old, he planned to use his share of the Gervaise Hoard to finance his archeological work and that of his father.

So Edwin Mallory knew his MI6 code name, but Mallory could know nothing about the Chateau D’Ancienne, the castle Bellemir, or the cave beneath it which once held the Gervaise Hoard.

Kydon would know in the morning what the man wanted.

* * *

The sun was shining weakly the next morning when Kydon rang the bell of the house in St. John’s Wood. The door opened. A tall woman in her mid-twenties with ash-blonde hair looked at him expectantly.

“I have an appointment with Mr. Edwin Mallory. I’m Kydon Schmidt.”

“Do come in. I’m Pamela Mallory.” She looked him over and added, “His daughter. You sound American. I was expecting someone a bit more Teutonic.”

“I could sing some Wagner but I’m not in my best voice.”

“At least you have a sense of humor. This way.”

Edwin Mallory rose from his heavy walnut Victorian desk and held out his hand. “Schmidt, I appreciate your coming so promptly. Seton says it’s very good.” He offered a chair.

Kydon opened his case and took out an object wrapped in dark velvet. He unwrapped it and held out a small silver ewer with moonstones and amethysts set in a raised band around the bulbous belly of the piece. “Twelfth Century and in very fine condition.”

Mallory took the pitcher and went to the window. The light on his hair made it as silvery as the pitcher. “Wonderful. Where did it come from?”

Kydon felt tension in his neck. “The eastern Mediterranean area. Byzantium probably.”

Mallory ran his fingers over the satiny surface. “Perfect, as if it simply sat in a cupboard all these centuries.” He came back to the desk and placed the ewer carefully before he sat down. He touched it. “Seton gave me a price,” he said and opened a drawer to take out a leather covered book. “I’m a bit hard up at the moment. I can’t afford fifty-five hundred but I can pay five thousand. Would the owner agree to it?”

Kydon thought a moment then said, “Yes, five thousand will do.”

“Payable to you?”

“To Harry Seton. He represents the owner, I’m only the messenger.”

Mallory wrote the check and handed it to Kydon. “You aren’t working now?”

Kydon put the check in his jacket pocket. “I’m here to see a former professor at Oxford University. I took classes with him before the war.”

“You were at Oxford?” Mallory didn’t hide his surprise. “That doesn’t hurt anything, you know.” Both men laughed and then Mallory said, “Schmidt, I’d like to hire you.”

“So I understand.. Something archeological since that’s my field.”

Edwin Mallory stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. “Have you heard of the Eastham Apollo? Shan’t be surprised if you haven’t, not publicized. One article in Country Life years ago.”

“Harry mentioned it.”

“My cousin Maud is married to George Eastham. Neither George nor his father ever had it authenticated. You could do it.”

“Simple enough, but I had the idea from your message that there was more.”

“Roman antiquities. Something’s come to light, and since—” Mallory took out his handkerchief. He had a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. “I know of your connection with MI6, I worked for them, nothing like the Underground as you did, but I know of your first job for the Allies before you joined MI6, about the search for the Gervaise Hoard.”

It was like a dash of cold water, the first time anyone had mentioned it to him. If there were more questions, the OSS would have asked them long ago, hunted him down to ask. No one knew but the baron, Val, the men who were there. What could Mallory know? Not what von Steyr and I actually found in the caverns under Castle Bellemir, and certainly not what we did with it.

Mallory said, “My work for MI6 was as a courier to Madrid, Lisbon, trips to Zurich, so I have friends in the Section. When I heard of you, of Apollo, I took the liberty of asking questions.”

“I see.” As easy to get classified information as that was it? Ask your friends. Well, I’ve been told the Whitehall men made up a cozy little network of their own.

Mallory stirred and shifted. “You shouldn’t mind, you have the best references. Our governments, yours, mine, were quite pleased. No complaints, I assure you.”

Kydon said nothing. Mallory turned the silver pitcher and watched the play of light. He finally looked up at Kydon. “I hoped that you’d do this job for me.”

Kydon lifted one eyebrow. “Authenticating a statue is interesting but you used the plural, Roman antiquities.”

Kydon thought how ludicrous it was that both of them were apprehensive and trying not to show it. Mallory pushed a malachite ashtray toward Kydon. “There are standing stones and several barrows, not your field of course, but the Eastham Apollo is in your field. A Greek or Roman torso of the Classical period, Doctor Schmidt.”

All right, Mallory knew his credentials and degrees. Whitehall and the man who was Kydon’s Chief, who would run him as a spy whenever he pleased, would have checked him thoroughly.

Mallory said, “The Apollo was supposedly brought to England from the Continent by George’s father, William Eastham, in 1876. There is no such record and I’ve been through the library at Old Priory myself.”

Kydon said, “It’s been nearly seventy years and records get lost or destroyed.”

“It’s the absence of records, don’t you see, that makes it possible for you to go to Old Priory and authenticate it.”

“And what else?”

Mallory’s uneasiness evaporated in the wake of his enthusiasm. “I need your confidence as well as your academic expertise.”

“Now you are getting my interest, Mallory.”

Mallory’s voice was intense. “I believe there is more at Old Priory than some standing stones and rather extensive ruins of medieval monastic buildings. If a twelfth century priory was built there, what may lie under it?”

Kydon stretched his legs. “Assuming you’re right, don’t you have to report such things?”

Mallory stared at the window, studying something in the garden. Kydon saw a figure walking among the shrubs and trees.

“Assuming there is anything to interest the government,” Mallory replied. “It may not be possible to excavate if it should be under the house itself. Old Priory dates back to 1565 and it is private property. My interest is purely that of an amateur scholar.” He glanced out of the window again.

Kydon looked at the floor-length window as he caught sight of movement in the garden. Whoever Mallory was watching, someone tall and slender, had moved out of sight. Kydon tipped his head to regard Mallory through half_closed eyes.

Mallory’s eyes went back to Kydon. “Something showed up in a shop I visit, a small bronze bowl, first century Roman.” Mallory pushed his chair back but left his hands resting on the desk. “The dealer wouldn’t say where the bowl came from of course, but as I arrived, I saw someone I knew leaving the shop. He didn’t see me.”

“Did you buy the bowl?”

“Harry had already told me of this—” Mallory stroked the silver ewer. “— and I couldn’t afford both at the moment.”

“The person you saw,” Kydon prompted, “you think it’s this person who sold the bowl?”

“Exactly. Someone who knows Old Priory and who spends a good deal of time there. He must have found it. I’m so certain of that, Schmidt, that it’s worth two hundred pounds to me to find the truth,” Mallory said in a low voice.

“Why didn’t you ask him?”

“You know the answer. If he gets the wind up, he’ll bolt and he could destroy whatever he’s found. The entrance or evidence of it.”

“Have you considered offering him what you’re offering me?”

Mallory blushed. “I want to keep things quiet. I can’t do this myself. Think of it as one of your missions.”

“I can’t simply walk in and say I’m hunting for antiquities buried under their garden, Mallory,” Kydon said.

Mallory tried to smile. “You can go down to Dorset with our cousin,” he said, “and say you’re two Yanks seeing what they can while they’re here. I’ll ring Maud and tell her that you’re qualified and will vett the statue as a favor to me.”

“Your cousin is an American?”

“Robin Wyngate. He’s on leave from the American 1st Army, and visiting his English relations before going back to the States. He can provide entre for you, but he won’t get in your way.”

Kydon wondered about the soldier having a tame furlough, visiting a manor house in Dorset when London had more attractions.

Mallory looked relieved. “Don’t decide this moment. Lunch with us. If you do this, I’ll be grateful to you.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Take a walk in the garden, get a bit of air, while you think over my offer.”

* * *

The garden showed the wear of summer and the lack of adequate help by the weeds in the rose beds and among the yellow and purple chrysanthemums, the blue and pink Michaelmas daisies. Grass insinuated itself along the graveled walks. Kydon was glad he didn’t have a garden of his own to wonder if it might please Val. The nightmare was over and the memory, so vivid in his mind for so long, of seeing Val fall in a rocky gorge on the border between France and Spain, was fading now he knew that Val was alive. The memory was almost as blurred and worn as the fading flowers around him.

Kydon saw a gazebo, heard water falling in a fountain close by. He walked toward the gazebo, leaving the walk to move in a silent, direct line across the grass. Four tall narrow cypresses marked a square. He saw the stone curb of a pool, and at the same time, although his view was blocked by one of the cypress trees, he saw a man’s legs in gray slacks.

Kydon moved back a step and leaned to the side.

It was like a jolt of electricity. The sounds of birdsong, the bubbling water, every sound was lost as the blood rushed in his ears.

The young man leaned over the edge of the pool and reached toward a lily pad on the water. Dark brown hair fell below the man’s eyebrows and, from where Kydon stood, it threw the line of forehead and nose into relief against its silky darkness. Even from his distance, Kydon could see the thick dark lashes.

Val!

It can’t be, he’s in Spain with the Baron. God, what a shock. It’s the dark hair and he’s Val’s age. Stop it! Stop thinking of Val. Look at him, touching the water with his fingers, daydreaming, or sad.

The young man’s head turned at the sound of footsteps coming from the opposite direction. Kydon lifted his head to see Pamela Mallory stop at the other end of the pool. She watched the young man for a few seconds before she said, “Robin, lunch is ready.”

The young man got to his feet in a quick, graceful movement and threw back his hair like a young animal tossing its head. “I wanted to see it all again before I go.”

That’s him, the cousin? Dear God, the echoes in his voice, the lilt he can’t quite hide. Oh Val, he’s so like you were in the garden at Mont D’Ancienne or when you saw the castle.

Pamela said, “You haven’t seen a blond man have you? American, much taller than Daddy, and very attractive.”

“I’d remember seeing someone like that. Shall I look for him?”

Kydon took a few hasty steps backward keeping the tree between himself and the two by the pool as he called, “Hello! I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

“Oh, he’s found us, Robin.” Pamela turned to Kydon. “I was coming to get you, Mr. Schmidt. This is my cousin Robin Wyngate.”

“Kydon Schmidt.” Kydon put out his hand, his eyes on the dark ones staring back at him. “That’s Kydon with a ‘K.’ Call me Ky.”

Robin gripped the strong hand firmly. “I’m happy to meet you.”

“Robin’s using his leave to visit relatives,” Pamela said. “He’s going to visit our cousins down in Dorset.”

“Are you?” Kydon looked down into Robin’s brown eyes. Same size as Val, about six feet and slender. Stop it, he’s not Val. They must be about the same age, twenty-three, twenty-four. But this is not Val.

Robin brushed back his hair unconsciously. “Edwin and Maud Eastham are my grandfather’s cousins. Maud lives in a Tudor house nearly four hundred years old. Isn’t it exciting to visit a place like that? I never dreamed I would.”

He spoke artlessly, with exuberance, and just as suddenly as if aware that he sounded like an over-enthusiastic schoolboy, he drew back. His eyes seemed darker as he shifted his gaze from Kydon to Pamela. He was embarrassed.

“I’ll say it’s exciting,” Kydon replied. “A Tudor house is something to see.”

Robin’s enthusiasm couldn’t be subdued. “Pamela says they haven’t got any ghosts. You would think so—at least I would think so—there was a monastery there first for hundreds of years before the house was even built.”

“Not even a priest’s hole,” Pamela said. “And you wouldn’t want ghostly monks trooping about in the garden.”

“I’d love to find a ghost.” Robin laughed. “It would be really exciting, don’t you think, Mr…Ky?”

Looking at Robin, at the light in his eyes and the sunlight on his hair and face, Kydon felt a tremor of pleasure in his chest.

“You don’t know what you might find, Robin.”

Cover Art by Maggie Dix

If you see this, you do not have java enabled in your browser,
which is necessary for the shopping cart to function.



Click here to return to ebooksonthe.net home page.