Lessons in Solving the Wrong Problem - Charlie Cochrane Page 0,19
Herron. The family had gone to see his collection of artefacts and Richard had cast doubt on the provenance of one of them. Said he recognised a bit of fakery, himself being such an expert in the art.”
Beatrice, who’d been quietly listening to the conversation, chipped in. “Herron would have deserved having a such a trick played on him. He was a terrible little man. Do you know, he chased young George down the road, brandishing a walking stick at him, for no better reason than that the lad had been looking at the stones in the wall of his front garden?”
“That seems rather excessive,” Jonty said. “If he’d been scrumping for apples or knocking on the door before running away, that would be different.”
“Indeed. My son was no angel, Jonty: like you and your brothers he’d have got himself into plenty of mischief, but he’d have admitted it, taken his smacks and got on with things. In this instance he was adamant that he and Richard—who was visiting at the time—had simply been trying to work out if the stones in the wall were very old and whether they’d been worked into shape by the hand of man rather than the hand of nature.” Beatrice had a distinct flavour of Helena Stewart in her voice and expression. “Richard reckoned they’d been taken from the old ruined chapel, probably without permission.”
“Richard would certainly have been happy to play a prank on Herron,” Henry confirmed, “but if he’d fooled him with pretend treasure, two things would have applied. He’d have made sure we knew what he’d done, so we could appreciate the fun and he’d have made a better job of it. Someone who could produce that trompe l’oeil would never have carried out a prank so crude and one that involved making report to the coroner’s office. Herron was one of the people taken in by that optical illusion at the summer house, incidentally, meaning there was more bad feeling on his part towards our family. Nasty man, always poking about in things.”
Orlando didn’t like the sound of Herron one bit. Would Jonty feel the same and did his bias against historians extend to antiquarians? “If there was bad feeling, why did you call in Herron to come and look for the treasure. Were there no other people with the right expertise?”
“Not locally. And my brother Richard, who is a fundamentally good Christian man, invited Herron along in act attempt at reconciliation. Needless to say, the gesture made the situation worse.”
“If we eliminate the option of a trick,” Jonty said, having laid down his notepad and leaned forward in a thinking pose, hands clasped between his knees, “then the next question is, did the treasure end up under the dislodged earth, or under the dislodged tree itself? The second question being whether it’s still there or if it’s been removed in the interim.”
“Again, that was a possibility we considered, once we felt a decent enough time had passed to allow us to consider such matters.” Henry drained the last of his port. “We went to look, but we drew a blank. We were right at the end of the long vac, so the time came for us both to return to university and that was pretty well the end of the matter. When we were here again for Christmas, Richard had decided there were only two possible conclusions. The first was that he’d somehow mistaken the location of the original digging area, which had always been a possibility. I’ve asked Applecross about how easy it is to find old excavations and he assures me the process is fraught with difficulties, even if one has accurate triangulation points. If one puts in a test pit just a few inches away from the actual area one might find nothing.”
Orlando felt the need to contribute to the conversation. “Yes. I can see that if you were digging exactly parallel to an exterior wall, you might as well be yards away. Which would mean the treasure is still there to be found again.”
Beatrice nodded. “Indeed. I’d be so delighted if it were and we could find it again. My grandchildren would appreciate the chance to rediscover it. They’re visiting in the spring to see the current excavations and no doubt they’ll be trotting down with Henry to do some digging of their own.”
The mention of her grandchildren continued the apparent thawing of their hostess, for which Orlando was grateful, no longer feeling quite so