century, Colonel. That is the difficulty.”
Colonel Butler nodded. “Yes. So it is possible that you have imagined all this?” He smiled suddenly. “Not altogether unreasonably … on the basis of your instructions, and the presence of David Audley … and also perhaps because of your own experiences elsewhere, eh?”
“I did not imagine the searching of my baggage.”
“No. But that could have been an ordinary thief—ordinary, but skilful—on the look-out for money and a good German camera. There’s a lot of that about in England in the last quarter of the twentieth century, I’m afraid, Captain.”
Well: there was the challenge. And all the rest of what they had said could have been merely leading him on.
“My car was parked very publicly, outside the public house, beside what passes for the main street in Duntisbury Royal. It would have had to have been a very skilful thief.” Benedikt played for time.
“Oh, we’ve got a few of them.” Chief Inspector Andrew cocked his head ruefully. “They just don’t go around in cloth caps and striped jerseys any more, carrying bags labelled ‘Swag’.”
No more time.
He looked the Colonel in the eye. “No. Duntisbury Royal is different. There is something very wrong there. I cannot prove it, but I feel it.” His confidence strengthened as he spoke. “It is … what I feel is … it is a most beautiful and peaceful valley, where the people are kind and helpful— and I was glad to get out of it in o ne piece, Colonel .”
They stared at each other for one more moment, then the Colonel turned to his colleague. “Aye … Well, show him the papers, Andrew. Sheet by sheet, if you please. He’s ready for them now.”
The Special Branch man half-turned, to pick up a grey folder which had been hidden behind him within the jumble of stacked ecclesiastical furniture half-filling the cell. From the folder he passed a single sheet of closely-typed paper to Benedikt.
Herbert George Maxwell was born in 1912, the son of Lieu tenant-Colonel Julian Robert Maxwell MC, Grenadier Guards, who was killed in action in 1917 shortly after succeeding to command the 2nd/21st West Yorks at Ypres, and who as ‘Robert Julian’ was widely recognised as one of the most lyrical of the war poets w hile his military identity remained a close secret shared only with a few close friends.
The Maxwell family has lived at Duntisbury Manor, in Duntisbury Chase, Dorset, since the Reformation. From the time of Marlborough the first-born son of the house with out exception has served the sovereign as a soldier, invariably rising to command a distinguished regiment of cavalry or battalion of infantry, and often retiring from a higher command still.
‘Robert Julian’s’ poems were nothing exceptional in the Maxwells ; most of the soldiers among them were considered by their colleagues to be ’brainy‘, and army gossip and gaps in their recorded service indicate a remarkable range of interests, from the collection of antiquities in Italy and Greece to friendship with Dar win and Huxley. At the same time, the Maxwells traditionally devoted much of their lives to the service of the family estate, of which the Manor was the centre and the surrounding farms of Duntisbury Chase the greater part, which pursuit was not in those d ays incompatible with a military career.
Herbert Maxwell differed from his ancestors only in joining the Royal Artillery. After his father’s death he was brought up by his mother, but with help from her brother, Major William James Lonsdale, who had lost a n arm commanding a troop of field-guns at Mons in 1914, and who looked after the estate at his brother-in-law’s request until 1917 and thereafter until his nephew’s majority, retiring to Bournemouth then, where he died in 1934. Herbert was educated, as his father had been, at Wellington, and, as his uncle had been, at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned in 1932, serving subsequently with
Colonel Butler nodded. “Yes. So it is possible that you have imagined all this?” He smiled suddenly. “Not altogether unreasonably … on the basis of your instructions, and the presence of David Audley … and also perhaps because of your own experiences elsewhere, eh?”
“I did not imagine the searching of my baggage.”
“No. But that could have been an ordinary thief—ordinary, but skilful—on the look-out for money and a good German camera. There’s a lot of that about in England in the last quarter of the twentieth century, I’m afraid, Captain.”
Well: there was the challenge. And all the rest of what they had said could have been merely leading him on.
“My car was parked very publicly, outside the public house, beside what passes for the main street in Duntisbury Royal. It would have had to have been a very skilful thief.” Benedikt played for time.
“Oh, we’ve got a few of them.” Chief Inspector Andrew cocked his head ruefully. “They just don’t go around in cloth caps and striped jerseys any more, carrying bags labelled ‘Swag’.”
No more time.
He looked the Colonel in the eye. “No. Duntisbury Royal is different. There is something very wrong there. I cannot prove it, but I feel it.” His confidence strengthened as he spoke. “It is … what I feel is … it is a most beautiful and peaceful valley, where the people are kind and helpful— and I was glad to get out of it in o ne piece, Colonel .”
They stared at each other for one more moment, then the Colonel turned to his colleague. “Aye … Well, show him the papers, Andrew. Sheet by sheet, if you please. He’s ready for them now.”
The Special Branch man half-turned, to pick up a grey folder which had been hidden behind him within the jumble of stacked ecclesiastical furniture half-filling the cell. From the folder he passed a single sheet of closely-typed paper to Benedikt.
Herbert George Maxwell was born in 1912, the son of Lieu tenant-Colonel Julian Robert Maxwell MC, Grenadier Guards, who was killed in action in 1917 shortly after succeeding to command the 2nd/21st West Yorks at Ypres, and who as ‘Robert Julian’ was widely recognised as one of the most lyrical of the war poets w hile his military identity remained a close secret shared only with a few close friends.
The Maxwell family has lived at Duntisbury Manor, in Duntisbury Chase, Dorset, since the Reformation. From the time of Marlborough the first-born son of the house with out exception has served the sovereign as a soldier, invariably rising to command a distinguished regiment of cavalry or battalion of infantry, and often retiring from a higher command still.
‘Robert Julian’s’ poems were nothing exceptional in the Maxwells ; most of the soldiers among them were considered by their colleagues to be ’brainy‘, and army gossip and gaps in their recorded service indicate a remarkable range of interests, from the collection of antiquities in Italy and Greece to friendship with Dar win and Huxley. At the same time, the Maxwells traditionally devoted much of their lives to the service of the family estate, of which the Manor was the centre and the surrounding farms of Duntisbury Chase the greater part, which pursuit was not in those d ays incompatible with a military career.
Herbert Maxwell differed from his ancestors only in joining the Royal Artillery. After his father’s death he was brought up by his mother, but with help from her brother, Major William James Lonsdale, who had lost a n arm commanding a troop of field-guns at Mons in 1914, and who looked after the estate at his brother-in-law’s request until 1917 and thereafter until his nephew’s majority, retiring to Bournemouth then, where he died in 1934. Herbert was educated, as his father had been, at Wellington, and, as his uncle had been, at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned in 1932, serving subsequently with
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