Adam looked at his neighbour with surprise. There was an almost unhinged intensity to the way he spoke. He had seized Adam’s arm in his agitation.
‘What would this sensational secret be?’ the young man asked after a pause. He looked down rather pointedly at Creech’s hand on his arm. The older man let go his hold. ‘What is it that lies hidden in the hills?’
‘I can say no more here. Even in the Marco Polo, the walls may have ears. Perhaps especially in the Marco Polo.’ Again Creech looked about him as if he suspected persons unknown were loitering with the intent of robbing him of his secret. ‘But I need your assistance, Mr Carver. I need your knowledge of the region. No Briton has travelled there more extensively or more recently than you.’
‘I will certainly offer any advice I can.’
‘I have made several journeys into Turkey in Europe myself,’ Creech said, ‘but I have never been so far north as you and Fields.’
‘Perhaps you should speak to the professor rather than me,’ Adam said casually, still puzzled by the fervour with which his dining companion spoke. ‘His knowledge of the hills of Macedon far outstrips mine.’
Creech waved his hand impatiently, as if the idea of speaking to Fields was one that he had considered and long ago dismissed. ‘I have already consulted with those whose knowledge of the region is of the bookish variety; those who can tell me what it was in classical times. I need someone who knows the lie of the land as it is now.’
‘As I say, sir, I will offer you what advice I can.’
‘I want more than advice, Mr Carver. Not only do you know the area, you have archaeological training. I want you to join me in mounting an expedition to Koutles and Barbes. We must dig to reveal the sensation.’
There was a silence as Adam considered what it was that this strange man wanted from him.
‘I am not sure that I can oblige you, Mr Creech,’ he said eventually. ‘I have work and interests in plenty to keep me here in London. I am not at all certain I wish to roam the wilds of Macedonia again.’
‘You must join me.’ Creech spoke as if these words settled the matter. ‘Come and visit me at my house. Herne Hill Villa. It is on the left on the road that leads up the hill. Next Thursday at two in the afternoon. I will tell you more then. Believe me, Mr Carver, this is the most important opportunity that life has offered you so far. You must not spurn it.’
Having said, it seemed, what he wished to say, Creech turned back to the bearded giant and began to talk to him of carnivorous plants and their habits. Adam was now ignored. Only at the end of the meal did Creech turn to him again. He raised his glass of dessert wine. ‘To the secrets of Macedonia, Mr Carver.’
Adam reached out his hand for his own glass. He hesitated briefly, as if doubtful of the proposed toast. Then he picked it up and touched it briefly against Creech’s.
‘The secrets of Macedonia, Mr Creech.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Several days passed and Adam found his mind turning frequently to Samuel Creech and to the secret the man claimed was hidden in the Macedonian hills. Adam remembered the country through which he and Quint had travelled two years earlier. He remembered it only too well. Could there really be something of value to be found in the ramshackle collections of hutches and hovels that made up Koutles and Barbes? What else had there been there? The surrounding countryside had been unusual, it was true. Covered with tumuli that had reminded him slightly of the long barrows to be found in the West Country. Had Fields spoken of them? He recalled that his friend and mentor had said that the French had dug in them recently but found very little. What could Creech know that those French archaeologists did not? The villages themselves had been habitations from a nightmare.
Adam remembered the scene when he had ridden into Koutles, Quint twenty yards behind him, grumbling relentlessly about the heat and the flies. He could close his eyes and immediately bring to mind the dirt and the degradation. The men and women, in filthy clothing, staring at them with undisguised suspicion. The sullen children, old beyond their years, who refused to return his smiles. It had taken an hour of negotiation with the proestos, the village headman, to win them even a place to stay for the night. They had been obliged to bed down in a poor cottage where eight people and two goats had huddled together in the same room to sleep.
The following morning, no one had been prepared to admit to possession of any food. Requests for eggs, chickens, even bread and milk, had been met with denials that the villagers had any for themselves, never mind any to spare for idle travellers. The goats with which they had shared accommodation were, according to the proestos, dry and could give no milk. Used to the open-armed hospitality that most Greek villages had extended to them, Adam had been disturbed by the hostility at Koutles. He had hated the place, and he and Quint had lost no time in leaving it behind them the following day. Barbes, another wretched village built of mud and faggots, had been little more welcoming when they had passed through it. Why should Samuel Creech care a fig about Koutles and Barbes? Or wish to enlist the assistance of someone who had travelled there?
In the Chelsea studio of his friend, Cosmo Jardine, Adam was able to relax. He and Jardine had known one another both at Shrewsbury, where they had shared a study, and at Cambridge, where, although they had attended different colleges, they had met for dinner at least twice a week. Since Adam’s return to London, the two men had fallen into an easy habit of association. Weeks might pass in which they saw nothing of one another but Adam knew that he was always welcome to call whenever he liked at the house in Old Church Street, which Jardine shared with two other impecunious artists.
‘What is this masterpiece in the making?’ Adam asked, indicating a small canvas propped on an easel in one corner of the room.
Jardine, wearing a loose-fitting white smock over his everyday clothes and carrying palette in one hand and brush in the other, was looking more like a Punch caricature of an artist than any real painter should.
‘An oil sketch for my grand Arthurian work: King Pellinore and the Questing Beast.’
Jardine walked across his studio and joined Adam in front of the easel. The two men stood for a while side by side, staring at the helmeted head of a medieval knight.
‘It is all wrong,’ Jardine said at last. ‘I need a model. I have even been thinking of asking you to sit for Pellinore, Carver.’
‘My dear fellow, I would as soon be the Questing Beast. Although I wish you well in your chosen career and I would help if I could. Anyway, if you recall, I have already sat for my portrait. And it provided you with your only success at last year’s Academy show.’
‘Even though it was skied and one needed the neck of a giraffe to see it. Clearly you bring me luck.’
‘However, I draw the line at impersonating an Arthurian warrior.’
‘Ah, well. It was just a thought.’
The two men stood a little longer in front of the canvas, each wrapped up in his own thoughts. Jardine was the first to break the silence.
‘I am to take tea with Mr Millais on Saturday.’ The young painter was unable to disguise the hint of smug delight in his voice. Adam laughed.
‘You are the most infernal name-dropper, Jardine. You speak as if this were some intimate tête-à-tête with Millais. Yet both you and I know that it is nothing but a regular “at home”, and there will be a dozen aspiring artists at least dancing attendance on the great man.’