Six of Diamonds

By Alan Jacobs

When six jewellers die carrying six huge diamonds, two detectives are selected to solve the mystery. They have to travel all over the world against strange opposition but assisted by an even stranger benefactor.
Eventually, turning to Israel and Jerusalem for the final solution of the puzzling case.
One detective must travel beneath the old city from which he knows he will not return.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Apr 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984594112

Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs is professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. He is the author of several books, including most recently The Narnian, a biography of C. S. Lewis. His literary and cultural criticism has appeared in a wide range of periodicals, including the Boston Globe, The American Scholar, First Things, Books & Culture, and The Oxford American.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

S OON AFTER VENICE became an independent kingdom in the year 991 of the Christian era, two young Jews from England travelled to the Holy Land. It took them almost three years to reach Jerusalem – three years of privation and danger, for Jews were an easy target even then, easily recognisable and unprotected by any laws. Anti-Semitism was a way of life for many non-Jews, and two wandering young men of Hebrew extraction brought swift attacks. And wander they did, moving from place to place, never in a straight line but moving ever nearer to Jerusalem.

They quickly learned to blend in with their surroundings, becoming Christians in name and appearance as much as they could. Even in England, being a Jew had its dangers as very few laws of protection applied to Jews. Had you asked them why they were going on such a long and hazardous journey, their answers would have been vague and unhelpful. If you enquired what they took with them, you’d have met stony silence and mistrust. They moved quietly and circumspectly, walking mostly, for they had little money to spare for coach travel, sometimes travelling only at night through areas of greatest danger, which they felt they were unable to bypass by day.

They had been friends since childhood and had chosen this hard path for reasons that would become clear. Their names were David and Jonathan. They had a task to fulfil. What they did not know was that one of them would not return. His bones would lie forever in that distant land.

David, the older of the two, was married with a small son, and it was especially hard for him to leave them. They travelled across Europe, through France and Germany, working where possible to help their meagre funds. They arrived in Jerusalem exhausted and penniless early in the year 994.

*     *     *

In 1099, the crusaders arrived and captured Jerusalem. Entering the city with them was a young French count, le Comte de Beaurive. Henri de Beaurive was there on a mission of his own. He was there as a crusader also, but his main mission was one he had vowed to complete for his grandmother, the dowager Comtesse de Beaurive. When she had learned of his resolve to join the crusade to the Holy Land, she had summoned him to her suite.

‘Henri,’ she started, ‘I have a rather unusual tale to tell you. I wish you not to interrupt until I have finished.’ The old lady had always demanded obedience from her children and grandchildren, so Henri, even as the count, would never bring himself to disobey her. She was a formidable old woman. She was withered and shrinking now, but in her prime, she commanded kings. Her white hair was thin but beautifully coiffured. She would never wear a wig. She classed them as unhealthy.

‘Henri,’ she continued, peering at him myopically, ‘we were not always rich and influential as you know. Your grandfather was made a count soon after we were married, but before that, our family was quite poor. Your grandfather came to France from England many years before we met and fell in love. I can tell you that my family were against our marriage from the start. Firstly, he was English. Secondly, he had little money. Thirdly, no one knew of his family. And fourthly, he was a Jew.’

‘What? A Jew?’

‘I told you not to interrupt, and I will thank you to be silent until I have finished. I will answer any questions then, if I can.’

‘Sorry, Grandmother.’

‘Hrrmph! As I was explaining, your grandfather was not very welcome in our house at that time. Nevertheless, I had determined to marry him, and you may not believe it, but I could be quite stubborn in my younger days.’

Henri smiled to himself. He could quite believe it.

‘So we were married. We were married in our parish church. I know, I know, how could a Jew marry in church? Well, we kept that bit secret. He was quite agreeable to it, not being a very devout Jew, and he knew a great deal about the Catholic Church – more than I did, in fact. So it was easy. Also, he did not look like the archetypical Jew. He had fine features, even at that time. You can see some of it in his portrait in the big hall, though that was done much later, of course.

‘I did not know it at the time, but he learned much of his Christianity from a great friend of his father whose ancestor had journeyed to the Holy Land many years before. He had never returned. It seems that he died before he could come back. We’re not sure how, but it appears he was buried as a Christian in a Christian cemetery in Jerusalem.

‘However, soon after our marriage, the king’s privy councillor was passing through our village when he was set upon by bandits. We’ve always had many of them around here. The mountains can swallow them up after a raid, and they’ll never be found. Anyway, the king’s man was set upon, and his escort were being slaughtered, though they fought well. Your grandfather was a brilliant swordsman, and without a thought for his family, he waded in to help, calling out, Here, lads, here. There’s only a few. The bandits, thinking a band of soldiers was arriving, fled, and your grandfather brought the injured men to our house for food and rest. When the king heard of the incident, he commanded your grandfather to attend court, where he was invested as Comte de Beaurive for his services to the Crown. For the king valued his privy councillor greatly.

‘With the title came some land and this house. Well, we prospered, and the prosperity was all due to your grandfather. My family would never have a word said against your grandfather from that day.

‘So we now come to the point of this conversation. Before your grandfather died, I promised him that, one day, I would take the body of his ancestor back to be buried here on our estate. And that is what I wish you to do.’ She sat back in her chair.

Henri looked at his grandmother in amazement. What an incredible story. He knew most of the story about the king’s councillor, which had been embellished over the years. To hear it told nowadays by the villagers, you’d be forgiven for thinking the king’s life itself had been saved. The rest, however, was totally new.

His forebears had been Jews. He could hardly believe it, but it had to be true. His grandmother never lied.

‘I will do as you wish, Grandmother,’ Henri told her. ‘But can you tell me how we got our name? Beaurive?’

The dowager laughed. Even at her advanced years, Henri could still hear the throaty sound that had so captivated his grandfather. ‘Beaurive’, she agreed. ‘It is an anachronism, is it not? Beau, which is masculine, and rive, which is feminine. And there isn’t a river for twenty kilometres, if you can call that muddy stream a river at all. Well, it should never have been rive at all. It started off as revoir, to see again – to see the handsome one again. When I refused to give up your grandfather, who was very handsome indeed, my family tried to forbid me to leave the house. But I was adamant that I would see my handsome one again and again. And so it happened.’

‘That is a wonderful story, Grandmother!’ exclaimed Henri, wondering how much of it was fantasy and how much fact.

Henri’s journey to the Holy Land took many months. It was when they reached the Turkish Empire that he started to sicken at his decision to join the crusade. The killing started almost as they crossed the border. The rape and murder of women and children was positively encouraged, and anything not nailed down was looted. Whole villages were laid bare or burned to the ground. Henri was appalled.

‘Mon cher ami,’ said his commander when Henri appealed to him to stop the carnage, ‘my dear chap, they’re only Muslims, just animals really. They don’t matter. Take what you want. You don’t want to go back home poorer, do you? Ça va sans dire, eh?’

Henri was glad when they eventually crossed into Judaea and approached the Holy City of Jerusalem. They camped outside the city walls and laid siege, trying to starve the inhabitants into submission. Inevitably, the city fell, and they rode through the Jaffa Gate in triumph.

As soon as he could, the young count started his search. He took a young interpreter and went through the city asking about cemeteries. He bought a hand-drawn map, for no real maps were printed in those days, and as he found a cemetery, he would mark it on the map and searched for Christian graves. Many weeks of fruitless searching followed as numbers of the original crusaders left for France, taking their spoils with them. By this time, he had removed all his Western clothing and was dressing as a native. He was quickly fluent in Arabic but still kept his guide and now friend with him.

He was beginning to despair of ever finding the grave when he heard of a small cemetery situated just within the entrance to the Dung Gate, so named because all the effluent and rubbish was transported out of the city at night through that gate. The reason they had not heard of this small cemetery was that it was rarely used as it was so close to the Temple Mount. The First and Second Temples had been built on Mount Moriah, a small hill bought by King David from a member of the Jebusite tribe, who used it as a threshing place for his crops. It was originally two small mounds or hills, which David had joined into one by filling in the gap. His son Solomon used the resulting mound on which to build his temple.

The cemetery contained only twenty-two graves as far as Henri could determine, and only three were Christian. And of that three, one ended his search. The headstone had fallen flat on its back, so the engraved lettering had weathered badly, but Henri eventually deciphered the worn letters.

UNDER THIS POOR SOIL

LIE THE REMAINS OF THE JOURNEY

OF

DAVID KRAMER

WHO LIVED AND DIED

FOR GOD’S PURPOSE

968–994

Henri stared at the strange wording on the stone. He had never seen a grave like it before. It was worded like no memorial he had ever seen. He could speak sEnglish, of course, so he had no problem with the language, but he was puzzled by the strangeness of the epitaph. There were no religious markings on the stone at all.

‘Is there any way we can find out anything about this grave?’ he asked his Arab friend.

‘It is too long ago,’ Karim answered, shaking his head. ‘The stone could have been made by anyone. It doesn’t even look very professionally done.’ It was true. The stone looked roughly hewn and the lettering badly cut.

‘How do we go about digging it up?’ Henri asked.

‘I will ask the imam at the mosque. Wait for me at the coffee shop.’ They used to meet every morning at a coffee shop near the lodgings. Karim left, and Henri walked back to the shop, deep in thought, wondering about the strange words on the stone.

He was on his third small cup of bittersweet coffee when Karim came to meet him. He looked unhappy. ‘What’s the matter? What did he say?’ At first, Karim was reluctant to tell him, but Henri insisted.

‘He said we could dig up every infidel’s grave and cart their bones to hell for all he cared. He said you must do it at night and must come and go through the Dung Gate as that is appropriate. I am not allowed to help you.’

Henri smiled ruefully. He was used to being sworn at, and verbally abused in general, in this land. He couldn’t blame the Arabs for hating him. He was a symbol of their captivity. He had become quite tanned during his stay, and his dark good looks soon enabled him to blend in with the locals. He wore their clothes and spoke their language. Only his blue eyes gave him away.

Henri had always had an aptitude for languages. His grandfather had taught him English, so he was already bilingual by the time he was 4 years old. His mother taught him Spanish and his tutor Italian and German. He was fluent in all of them. Since he had arrived in the Holy Land, he had learned to be understood in Arabic and could get by in Hebrew. He even learned a little Aramaic. He could easily be mistaken for an Arab, especially at night.

So it was that, soon after sunset, he shuffled into the walled city by way of the Dung Gate with a shovel and sack over his shoulder and an oil lantern in his hand. He made sure that the day was not holy in any religion here – Christian, Muslim, or Jew – for to flout any of their sensibilities was to court disaster. The little cemetery was deserted, and in the darkening gloom, he moved to the grave of his ancestor.

He put the sack and the lantern onto the gravestone and started immediately to dig into the stony soil. The ground was sandy and light, and he made good progress, but he did not get far below the surface before his shovel hit something. Karim had told him that it was not possible to dig two metres into the ground here, so graves were quite near the surface. Nevertheless, he was surprised when his shovel hit the wood of the coffin within half a metre.

He carefully cleared the soil and stones, but the coffin had collapsed into itself, not really surprising after all this time. He removed the last of the sandy soil with his hands until he had uncovered the whole of the coffin. He started to lift the broken lid of the coffin, laying the pieces carefully to one side. Once all the pieces had been removed, he then started on the soil that had fallen into the coffin. He started at the head end, expecting to uncover a skull.

No skull appeared. He moved farther down the coffin – no bones. What he did find were large stones. These were not some of the surrounding stones that had fallen into the coffin but rounded stones of roughly equal size.

There was no sign of a body. Had no one been buried here at all? Were these stones the only weight the pall-bearers had carried to this tiny graveyard?

Just when he was giving up hope of finding any trace of a body, his searching hands hit something solid and not stony. He feverishly uncovered the object. It was a metal cylinder closed at both ends, but of a corpse, there was no trace at all.

Henri tentatively lifted the cylinder out and put it onto the gravestone beside the lantern and sack. Eager as he was to find out what was in the cylinder, he decided to refill the grave first. Putting the broken pieces of lid over the stone-filled coffin, he then shovelled the soil back into the grave. When he had finished, he put the cylinder into his sack, put his shovel over his shoulder, lifted the lantern, and shuffled his way back out of the Dung Gate.

‘Have you got him?’

Henri jumped, nearly dropping the sack. In the semi-darkness, he could just make out Karim, who – disobeying his imam – had come to meet him. He was literally hopping from one foot to the other in excitement. He wanted to see the gruesome remains.

‘Wait till we get back to my rooms,’ he answered, willing his heart to slow down.

Back at his lodgings, with Karim almost trying to get into the sack, Henri lifted out the cylinder. ‘What’s that?’ Karim’s face was a picture of disappointment.

‘This was the only thing in the coffin,’ Henri replied, laying it gingerly onto his table.

Karim lifted it. ‘It’s quite heavy.’ He shook it. Something rattled inside. ‘Is it treasure?’ His dark eyes flashed with excitement.

‘There’s only one way to find out.’ Henri examined the cylinder. It was about a half metre long and ten centimetres in diameter. It looked like some sort of metal, but the surface was too corroded to see what it was. He looked at the ends. One end had been secured with rivets so as to make it part of the cylinder, but the other showed that it was only sealed on. With his knife, he started to scrape away the seal. It was black like pitch or tar and broke away quite easily, revealing the lid. Henri cleaned it all off and started to ease the lid off. It did not come easily, but eventually, with much cursing in Arabic, English, and French, it gave up its secret.

Inside was no treasure, much to Karim’s chagrin. Henri slid out a scroll of parchment-like material tied with what had once been a silk ribbon. The silk had all but rotted away so that, as Henri took the scroll out of the cylinder, it broke, allowing the scroll to partially unroll. Both Henri and Karim could see that the scroll was covered in Hebrew script.

They carefully unrolled it and, weighting the ends with candlesticks, laid the document flat on the table. That it was old there was no doubt. How old was unknown, but it had to have been in the ground for many hundreds of years. They started to read the text.

They came to us with the stones, David and Jonathan, both. We three, who are the keepers of the sacred scroll, greeted ‘the Chosen of the Chosen’ and told them our tale. We gave them the help they needed to fulfil their mission, though we knew not what it was.

We translated the scroll for them and replaced it, for they will not be the last to come as they are not the first. Pray the Almighty that they succeed.

This document will be placed into the grave of the one who does not return so that those that follow will know we exist.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Karim. ‘Is it an evil spell?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ answered Henri, sitting down pensively. He steepled his fingers and stared at the innocent-looking parchment on the table. ‘I think it’s a signpost.’

‘What do you mean? How can it be so?’

‘It’s telling us that my ancestor was here with his friend Jonathan. They came here with some types of stones.’

‘I knew it was treasure,’ butted in Karim. ‘I knew it.’

‘It may well have been, but we’ll never find it now. They must have used it for something or other, maybe to buy someone’s release from prison.’ Henri was telling Karim what he wanted him to know. The count was not certain what the stones were for, but he was sure they were not for buying anybody’s escape. Any ransom paid would have been much talked about as was usual in these days. No, these stones were for a much different purpose. It did not even say what types of stones they were or how many, just ‘they came to us with the stones.’

And why were they called ‘the Chosen of the Chosen’? Wait, the Jews were called God’s chosen people. Were those two young Jews chosen for something special? Henri had a feeling that he’d never really get to the bottom of this particular mystery.

But what to do with this document? Should it go back in the grave? He thought not. He trusted Karim, but they might have been seen or might be seen reopening the grave – too risky. He would have to take it back to France with him to show Grandmother what had been in the grave. She would know what to do with it. His duty here was done. He had no more reason to stay.

‘Karim, I have to return to my home.’ He watched as the young man’s eager face crumple and the light leave his eyes. They had grown close, these two, and he made his decision. ‘I want you to come back with me. You can work on my estate.’ He watched as his friend’s face lit up in pleasure.

‘Oh, yes, I will work hard for you. You will see. I will do anything you want me to do. I will look after your horses, your gardens, your—’

‘Karim … Karim, enough.’ Henri laughed. ‘You will be my personal assistant. You will attend to me and be my companion.’ He embraced his young friend. ‘Are you sure that you wish to accompany me? You may never see your home again, and there are no mosques where we live.’

‘I can pray wherever I am so long as I know which way is east.’ Karim was adamant.

They rerolled the parchment scroll and returned it to the cylinder. Rolling that in one of the count’s capes, it was put into his lockable wooden chest. It was now after midnight, and they decided to sleep, although Karim was not sure he would be able to. Later on that day, they would make preparations to return to France.

It took them eight uneventful weeks to get back to Beaurive – uneventful to Henri, but to Karim, it was a great adventure as he had never even seen the sea or been out of his district. The mighty sights he saw in his westward travels overwhelmed him. They arrived at Beaurive to great rejoicing as very little news had reached the estate about the crusades and almost none about the count. The whole estate turned out to welcome him. When they were getting close, he sent a courier to inform his grandmother of his imminent arrival. She too was on the steps of the manor house to greet him with his mother.

They greeted him with horror at his appearance. Bearded and tanned, he was thin almost to emaciation. His clothes were so worn and repaired that they resembled rags. They hung on his thin frame.

Food and wine were brought, and they all feasted except Karim, who prepared his own food and could not drink wine or any alcohol. Nevertheless, he was welcomed as an honoured guest, for Henri had told them of all his assistance in his quest. After they had bathed and rested, the dowager sent for him, for she was eager to hear his news.

He knocked on the door of her suite. ‘Enter’, she called. She was sitting at her writing desk but moved to her comfortable chairs when she saw it was he. ‘Tell me everything.’

Putting the cylinder on the floor and sitting beside her, he took her hands in his and related his adventures. It took over an hour before he reached the part of his narrative where he found the grave. His grandmother sat forward on the chair, her eyes glued to his face as he continued. When he reached the moment when he found that the grave was empty, her long nails dug into his hands. When he had finished, she sighed and sat back, closing her eyes and releasing his hands. After a minute, she said softly, ‘Show me the scroll.’

Henri removed the lid of the cylinder and carefully took out the scroll. She took one edge and, with his assistance, unrolled it. She looked at the Hebrew script but could not decipher it. ‘Tell me what it says,’ she commanded, and when he had translated the text, she let him replace the scroll back in its cylinder. ‘Tell me what you think.’ Her eyes were back on his.

Henri hesitated for a moment. ‘I have had weeks to wonder about this,’ he started. ‘I believe that when he went to the Holy Land to do what he had to do, it was already foretold that he would not return. He might not have known that at the start, but I think it became known to him later by the keepers of the scroll.’

‘This cannot be the scroll they write about.’

‘No. There must be another one, which they hide, which gives instructions about what the strangers who come are to do. I think this one’ – he indicated the cylinder – ‘is to tell others that those that follow will have help.’

‘Hmm, I think that you are right. So why did you bring it home?’

‘I considered that it needed a better hiding place than the grave, which might be plundered or just dug up by vandals. I also wanted you to see it, to know that his body wasn’t there in the grave assigned to him. I believe we’ll never now know where his bones lie.’

‘It is a wonder that it survived this long without being disturbed. Who do you think put the cylinder in the coffin?’

‘I think it had to have been his friend Jonathan, although he never spoke about his travels by all accounts. You told me that Jonathan only said that he had died in Jerusalem and was buried there.’

The old lady nodded in agreement. ‘You did well. We must now decide what to do with this scroll.’

‘Let us think on it for a while. In the meantime, I will hide it in my travelling chest. It will be safe enough there. When we decide what to do with it, it will be easy to get hold of it. I don’t think we need to bury it.’

So it was decided, but they never did find a better place, for within a few days, the dowager fell ill with pneumonia and died within weeks. The family mourned her passing, Henri more than most as he was always her favourite. She had been a comfort and counsellor to everyone in the family. She was buried on the estate with all honours, and the scroll was all but forgotten.

When tragedy falls, it often falls in threes. Weeks later, with the travelling chest put into storage by a zealous servant, Henri and his faithful companion, Karim, were killed in a freak accident. Soon after the death of his grandmother, the weather had worsened, and rain fell continuously. Ditches became streams, streams rivers, and rivers torrents. The Beaurive estate had never been troubled with floods much, so it had few bridges over its tiny streams. They could easily be waded across or ridden through. Now, however, most were impassable, and the few bridges had been undermined by the floodwaters.

One such was the one Henri and Karim chose to use on a day when it did not rain. Being cooped up in the house had left everyone miserable, so the first chance to get out, they took. Choosing two lively mounts, the two friends charged into the soggy countryside. Arriving at the bridge over the raging stream, they did not hesitate but rode together towards the opposite bank. What they could not have seen was that, below the water, the banks had been washed away and that the timber supports were resting on nothing but mud.

The two riders and their horses were too much for the flimsy structure, and it simply collapsed into the waters, throwing both horses and riders in the way of broken and splintered timber. Henri was impaled onto a large piece and died instantly. Karim, trying to rescue his friend and companion, was drowned. The horses, scratched and bleeding, struggled ashore and returned to the stables. A search found the bodies caught amongst weeds a kilometre farther down from the broken bridge. Karim’s arms were wrapped around Henri’s body as if still trying to protect him.

When the last Comtesse de Beaurive, Henri’s mother, died, the estate reverted to the king as no other heirs remained. The king bestowed it on another favourite, in this case his mistress. Her first action was to clear out all the Beaurive family possessions, selling most at auction. The travelling chest was bought by a cabinetmaker for the wood, which was of fine quality. He got the contents thrown in.

Most of the contents were of little or no value after all this time. Only the cylinder intrigued him. Opening it, he found the scroll but could not translate the Hebrew, so he took it to his parish priest.

‘It is quite old,’ Father Ambrose admitted. ‘But I don’t think it’s very valuable. What are you thinking of doing with it?’

‘Well, if I can’t sell it, I might put it into the desk I’m making out of the wood from the chest it was in. Lots of desks have secret hiding places, so I’d use it as a selling feature. Show the scroll off and the secret compartment at the same time.’

‘Aren’t those secret drawers a bit small for this?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t put it in a drawer. I’ll make a small compartment, fold the scroll, and slide it in.’

The priest laughed. ‘Sell it to an Englishman. They’ll buy anything like that. You’ll get a good price too.’

The cabinetmaker nodded. ‘A good idea. There’s an English couple that come here every year for a holiday. I’ll try them.’

The priest was right. When the desk was completed, the English couple loved it and its secret compartment, and they bought it there and then. They had it shipped back to London, where they lived, and it was installed in the husband’s study. He used the desk for many years, and it was admired for its quality, and he completely forgot about the desk’s secret. The desk, eventually being sold again, travelled well over the succeeding years, moving to Germany, Holland, and finally back to England, where it came up as a lot in an auction room in London in 1977.

CHAPTER ONE

Early March 1996

D O YOU REMEMBER the days when telephones had real bells in them? Not this new idea of warblers, tweeters, or buzzers but real good old-fashioned bells? If you do, you’d remember that quite often the