Carver's Quest Page 26

  ‘I can help you to research Euphorion of Thrace further,’ Fields said. ‘If you think it would be valuable to do so, of course.’

  ‘It can do no harm to learn more of the man. Who knows? A little more information may throw light on the puzzle.’

  ‘I cannot be certain without checking, but I believe the library will have a copy not only of Munro’s Edinburgh edition but of the earlier volume as well. The college has rather a fine collection of Aldine books.’ The professor yawned again and placed his empty glass carefully on the table by his chair. ‘But looking for them is a task for the morning. At present the chimes of midnight are upon us and it is time to retire. You have a room awaiting you in First Court, I believe.’

  * * * * *

  ‘There is a passage here in Latin. It is not part of Euphorion’s Greek text.’ Sitting at a reading desk in the college library, Adam looked up from the book he was examining. The professor, hunched over his pocket volume of Thucydides, did not raise his head from its pages. Adam watched his old mentor turn a page in the book. Not for the first time, he wondered how old Fields really was. Fresh-faced on his arrival at Shrewsbury School and first encountering him, he had thought him ancient, a man long teetering on the brink of the grave. Fields had left Shrewsbury for the professorship at Cambridge when Adam was in his final months at the school. A year into his own soon-to-be-interrupted Cambridge career, Adam had had chance to think again about the professor’s age and had taken ten years off his original schoolboy’s guess. Then the two of them had been companions on the expedition into Turkey in Europe. After two months of trekking the arduous terrain of Alexander’s one-time kingdom and watching Fields take each day’s travel in his stride, Adam had been obliged to revise his opinion again. Now, poring over the volume of The Peloponnesian War, the professor looked every inch a decrepit and decaying scholar, but Adam remembered well enough the vigour he had shown during their months away from civilisation.

  ‘It will be a note of exegesis by the editor,’ Fields said, head still bowed over Thucydides. ‘It was a common practice in the Aldine volumes.’

  ‘No, I do not think that is what it is. Not exactly, anyway. “In hoc libro dignissimus et famosus Euphorion…” ’ Adam began to translate. ‘“In this book, the most worthy and renowned Euphorion listed the villages and towns and cities of the fair land of Greece which he had visited and recorded their places of worship and their ancient traditions.” ’

  ‘I doubt very much Euphorion himself had visited many of them.’ Fields’s tone was dismissive. ‘He was mostly copying what Pausanias had already written.’

  ‘Perhaps not. There is more to this Latin note, though. The Aldine editor, assuming it was he, writes of the manuscripts he has seen.’

  ‘The three of which I told you.’

  ‘Possibly, possibly not. “In one manuscript only does the most worthy Euphorion write of the golden treasure that lies hidden where the ancient kings buried it. Of this treasure I have learned no more and I have chosen therefore not to transmit to posterity words which are most probably but lies and idle fantasies.” What do you make of that?’

  The professor finally looked up from his volume of The Peloponnesian War. He took the Aldine book from Adam and read the passage himself.

  ‘Hmm, interesting. What could have been the treasure to which the manuscript referred?’ He gave the book back to Adam. ‘But, as Palavaccini says, probably no more than an idle fantasy of hidden riches.’

  ‘But what if it was more than fantasy? What if one of the manuscripts of Ellados Periegesis did contain details of some ancient treasure? And what if Creech had come into possession of it? That would be reason enough to speak of a “very great secret”.’

  Fields waved his hand in dismissal. ‘There can be nothing in the three manuscripts,’ he said, with apparent certainty.

  ‘Perhaps there is a fourth manuscript,’ Adam went on, his excitement growing as his thoughts raced ahead of him. ‘Last night, you said yourself that Creech might have found another.’

  ‘I said it was a possibility, Adam. I do not believe it is particularly likely.’

  ‘I am not sure that it is not the only explanation. Other scholars have no doubt seen the three manuscripts that are known to exist and found nothing in any of them which can possibly justify the remark about the golden treasure. Ergo, there must be another manuscript. One which Palavaccini saw in the sixteenth century but which had disappeared by the time Munro put together his edition two hundred years later. Creech must have seen that missing manuscript. He must have known where it is. Or was.’

  ‘As I say, it is not beyond all bounds of possibility that another manuscript exists.’ Fields still sounded dubious. ‘This man Creech might have read it and realised what he was reading. But it still seems improbable to me.’

  Adam thought for a moment.

  ‘I don’t think Creech was sufficiently a scholar to have read the manuscript himself. I remember at the Marco Polo dinner he did not seem to recognise a very familiar phrase from the Iliad. He must have had someone whose Greek was very much better than his own to translate it for him.’

  ‘Creech’s Greek may have disappeared with the passage of time. I know of men who were fair enough scholars in their youth who could not now construe a Greek verse if their lives depended upon it. Some of them continue to teach in the university. However, as I have said, we do not know that such a manuscript exists.’

  ‘You must admit, Professor, that there is – at the very least – a possibility that one does.’

  ‘I have acknowledged as much already, Adam. But I will go no further than to reiterate that it is only a possibility. Nothing more. If another early manuscript of Euphorion does survive, it cannot be anywhere in Western Europe. Scholars would know of it.’

  ‘Creech might have seen it in Greece or Turkey.’ Adam felt a rising certainty that he was correct. ‘He spent much of his life in the lands of the Ottoman Empire.’

  ‘That is true.’ Fields seemed to have caught some of the excitement which was stirring his one-time pupil. His voice now possessed an animation it had not so far done. ‘There are undoubtedly manuscripts that have never been properly catalogued or recorded. In obscure libraries and isolated monasteries.’

  The professor stood. He thrust his small volume of Thucydides into his jacket pocket.

  ‘We must both read more of Euphorion, Adam. There is a riddle here to be answered.’

  ‘I shall continue to read here this afternoon.’

  ‘No, no, you must return to London. There is a train at three.’

  Fields retreated into the darker recesses of the library. Adam could hear him moving books on one of the shelves.

  ‘I could stay longer in Cambridge,’ he called.

  ‘There is no need for you to do so, my boy.’ A book fell noisily to the floor. There was a muffled curse and then the professor appeared again by the reading desks, holding an old volume bound in calfskin. He blew gently on it and coughed as clouds of dust rose from it. ‘Here is a copy of the Munro edition. No one has looked at it for decades, it would seem. Possibly since it was first published. Take it back to town. I cannot countenance the borrowing of one of the college’s Aldine volumes, but the Munro is another matter. Perhaps there is some further clue to be found within its pages.’

  ‘And you shall read the Aldine edition here?’

  ‘I shall.’ The professor ran his hand through his hair where much of the dust from the book had settled. ‘I shall also make more enquiries of my confrères at high table. I shall even speak to Dandridge again. Together you and I will get to the bottom of this mystery.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Word from Cambridge, Quint,’ Adam said, waving a letter in his manservant’s direction. ‘It can only be from the professor. Who else would write to me from the college? And in such a wretched scrawl.’

  Quint, standing by the window and staring down into Doughty Street, said nothing. His interest in Cambridg
e and the professor, his attitude very clearly said, was limited.

  Adam opened his letter and began to read it.

  ‘You must depart on a quest for provisions, Quint,’ he said after a moment. ‘Fields intends to visit this afternoon. We must offer him some refreshment after his journey. He has news to deliver to us and a proposal to make, he says. The least we can do in return is set afternoon tea before him.

  Adam placed the letter by his plate and turned to look at his manservant.

  ‘Cucumber sandwiches are still de rigueur on such occasions, are they not?’ he said. ‘And muffins, perhaps. Or scones? I leave the choice to you. The baker’s on the Gray’s Inn Road sells both, I am sure.’

  ‘We paying with ready gilt?’ Quint asked, turning from the window. ‘Or we still looking for tick?’

  ‘I think we shall make Mr Gregory’s day and pay him for once with coin of the realm.’

  Adam took a florin from his jacket pocket and spun it through the air. His manservant caught it and pocketed it in one swift motion.

  * * * * *

  ‘What a ferocious woman your landlady is, Adam! Medusa shaking her serpentine locks at Perseus could scarcely be more terrifying. Unlike the hero of old, I possess no mirrored shield but I have escaped her petrifying gaze. Somehow I have mounted the stairs to your rooms unscathed.’

  As he entered the sitting room at Doughty Street, it was clear that Fields was in an exuberant mood. There could be no doubt that he had awakened that morning in the best of spirits and the journey from Cambridge had done nothing to dampen them. Not even a close encounter with Mrs Gaffery had been able to dent his ebullience. He shook hands with Adam as warmly as if they had last seen one another a year ago rather than a week, and nodded amiably at Quint, who was still employed in ferrying the materials for afternoon tea from the kitchen. The professor skipped around the manservant like a small boy and moved towards the side table where Quint had placed muffins for toasting and a plentiful supply of butter, jams and preserves. Fields gazed down at it as if he had never seen such riches spread before him.

  ‘A feast fit for Lucullus,’ he exclaimed. ‘The recipe book of Apicius himself does not contain anything more appetising.’

  ‘It ain’t finished yet,’ Quint said, attempting to elbow the professor out of his path, but Fields was not to be moved.

  ‘What have we here?’ he asked, seizing a jar from the table and peering at its label. ‘No less than the honied wealth Hymettus yields, I do believe.’

  ‘It is honey certainly, sir,’ Adam replied. ‘But I think it is more likely to have come from the beehives of Kent than from the slopes of Hymettus.’

  ‘No matter. It will be equally agreeable, I am sure.’

  Waving Quint on with his work, Fields retired from the side table and sank into one of the armchairs by the hearth. A small fire was burning there and the professor held out his hands to warm them as if it were December rather than July. Forgetting for the moment that he was guest rather than host, he gestured to Adam to join him. Smiling to himself, the young man obeyed. He settled himself in the other chair.

  ‘However, we are not here solely to indulge in the Epicurean pleasures of the table,’ Fields said. ‘I have no doubt that, like me, you have now spent much time with Euphorion. I had thought that there could be no more tiresome guide to the ancient lands of Greece than Pausanias but I was mistaken.’

  ‘His Greek is certainly more workmanlike than elegant,’ Adam acknowledged. He patted a leather-bound book that was resting on a round walnut wine table by his chair. ‘I have read the Munro edition you lent to me.’

  ‘And you found nothing further to pique your curiosity?’

  ‘No, I could find no references to treasure or to anything else that might have excited Creech’s interest. But you said yourself that you had found nothing in Munro’s volume. What of the older edition, the Aldine? Did you read that again?’

  ‘I did, but there is nothing beyond that enigmatic reference to the golden treasure that lies hidden where the ancient kings buried it. The one you saw when you came to Cambridge.’

  ‘So, we are at a dead end.’ Adam was disappointed. He had hoped so much that Fields might have something new to tell him. ‘There is nothing more to be learned from Euphorion.’

  ‘I would not go so far as to say that.’ Fields was almost hugging himself with delight.

  ‘You have discovered more of our mysterious author?’

  ‘I have done more than that. I have located another manuscript.’ The professor looked about the room with the air of a man expecting a hidden audience to reveal itself and burst into sudden applause. ‘I sent a telegraph to an old friend in Athens. Professor Masson at the French School there.’

  ‘He knew of another manuscript?’

  ‘He did not. He is an archaeologist. His interest lies in the Eleusinian Mysteries. He believes that he has found a shrine to Demeter on the road from Athens to Eleusis.’ Fields waved a hand in dismissal of his friend’s archaeological concerns. Shrines to Demeter, he seemed to suggest, were pretty small beer in comparison with what he and Adam were chasing. ‘But he made enquiries on my behalf. And he is of the opinion that there is another manuscript of Euphorion’s work in the Greek National Library.’

  ‘And it is one that is unknown outside Greece?’

  ‘There can be no doubt about it. Scholars in the West know of three manuscripts only. One is in the Harleian collection in the British Museum. Another is in Paris. The third belongs to Sir Granville Tukes of Tukes Hall in Buckinghamshire. It has been in the family for at least a century and a half. If Masson has really found another, it is a new one.’

  ‘Although Palavaccini may have known of it in the sixteenth century?’

  ‘That is certainly a possibility.’

  Adam took a muffin from a plate that Quint thrust unceremoniously in front of him. He placed it on a toasting fork and pointed it towards the flames of the fire.

  ‘And yet this manuscript that your friend has located must have been in Athens for some time?’

  ‘Not necessarily. You forget that the modern Greek state has been in existence for a few decades only. The National Library is also a young institution. The Euphorion manuscript must have only come into its possession recently.’

  ‘So where was it before that?’

  The professor shrugged. ‘Who can tell?’ he said. ‘A monastery library, perhaps? They will have some record in the National Library of its provenance, I assume. I am not sure that it is of any great import. It is enough that it is there now.’ He paused. ‘I do believe that muffin is toasted more than adequately for consumption.’

  Adam, who had forgotten his toasting duties while thinking of the manuscript, pulled the fork from the fire. He scrutinised the muffin impaled on it.

  ‘I have allowed it to burn.’

  ‘It will serve its purpose.’ The professor seemed untroubled by the muffin’s blackened state. Lifting it off the fork, he helped himself to the butter and honey that Quint had set out on the small table beside his chair and began to eat it with apparent relish.

  ‘There is but one way to learn more of this mysterious manuscript that Louis Masson has unearthed,’ he said between mouthfuls, spraying crumbs carpetwards. ‘And that is to travel to Athens and inspect it.’

  ‘I do not see how that is easily possible.’ Adam was surprised by the professor’s sudden enthusiasm for another journey to Greece. He was not even sure he wanted to leave London in the near future. He had returned to his photography and his dark room was filling up with plates awaiting his attention. Nor had he lost all hopes of meeting once more with Emily Maitland. ‘We cannot drop everything and make our way across Europe in pursuit of one manuscript.’

  ‘Why not? The long vacation is nearly upon us. What better way for me to spend my time than in journeying to Greece in search of mysterious manuscripts? The college would be only too delighted if I could unearth some others that were equally unknown.’


  ‘It is a long journey to make on what might turn out to be a wild goose chase.’ Adam continued to sound doubtful.

  ‘Nonsense, my boy. We can be in Athens within ten days if we so desire,’ Fields said. ‘If we make our way to the south of France, we can take the steamer from Marseilles to Malta. And then on to Athens. Or we could go by rail to Trieste and then join an Austrian ship to Greece.’

  ‘That would probably be cheaper.’

  ‘But the Malta route would be more convenient and comfortable. And I am inclined to think that convenience and comfort should trump expense.’ The professor leaned forward, dripping butter from the muffin he was eating onto the lapels of his jacket. His eyes were shining with excitement. ‘Shall we go? The two of us? And the bold Quintus, of course. It will not be so challenging an expedition as the one we made in sixty-seven but – who knows? – the results may prove more rewarding.’

  Fields’s enthusiasm for the journey he proposed was oddly infectious. Adam, who had been about to recite a list of objections to the plan, began instead to consider its benefits. Within the hour, it had been decided. The two of them, with Quint in tow, would depart for Athens as soon as the long vacation began.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  As Adam and Cosmo Jardine entered the Café Royal, the artist was telling his friend of some social excursion he had made the previous evening.

  ‘The champagne tasted like varnish and as for the girls…’ He grimaced.

  ‘As bad as that?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Worse.’

  They made their way to one of the tables.

  ‘There’s that fellow Gilbert,’ Jardine said, nodding towards a florid and heavily moustached man in his early thirties who was sitting nearby with a group of other men.

  ‘Should I know him?’ Adam asked.

  ‘He writes lyrics and one-acters for German Reed – the musical entertainments in the Gallery of Illustration, that theatre just around the corner. If you recall we saw one together last year. Some nonsense about haunted castles in Scotland and pictures coming to life and stepping out of their frames. Was it entitled Ages Ago? Something like that.’