The Pig and Whistle was owned by a certain Mrs. Margaret Donleavey, whose ancestors had no doubt come from Ireland. The inn stood on the south bank of the River Thames at a point where you could actually see Whitehall in the distance. Its neighborhood was far from elegant: as a matter of fact, it was probably one of the most disreputable of the south bank. Lately, because of the unrest which affected the whole of England, the area had become even less safe for the unwary.
But the Pig and Whistle was a pleasant, well-established inn, kept reasonably clean by its mistress; thus far at least it had been free from any official criticism. This was of course due in part to the fact that Mrs. Donleavey acted rather generously with the law, whenever its minions came around. Even so, she didn’t hold much with fights or violence on the premises, and her reputation was formidable enough to keep the peace.
The year was 1717, the month January, and a downright raw day it was. At this time of day, four o’clock in the afternoon, it was already getting dark, but the flickering candles and a warm fire in the huge fireplace at the far end of the room gave the inn much needed warmth and an almost home-like atmosphere. The inn was reasonably full at this hour; of people from the neighborhood, a stranger here and there, all taking refuge from the freezing winds outside.
At one of the corner tables, near windows giving onto the river, sat two men. One of them was redheaded and on the short side. The other was tall and stately; he had long, dark brown hair, and an aristocratic bearing. Between them there was a jug of wine and two glasses. The conversation seemed to have ground to a halt at this moment.
The taller of the two men was in his late twenties. His clothes marked him out as a gentleman—and a wealthy one at that. His eyes were blue, and his brown hair almost black, though the reflection of the flames made it appear lighter than it was. This was John, Lord Howell, a scion of one of the oldest and most illustrious families of England.
Lately, some of the family had not done too well financially, partly due to the recent political strife during which some Howells had taken the wrong road. They had thus been deprived of the fruits of victory when the new Protestant government had come into power. Then, too, some Howells harbored Roman Catholic sympathies, and that did not help family prestige in England at this juncture of events.
Lord Howell’s own father, Richard, had openly backed the candidacy of James III, the Catholic pretender and son of the late King James II. After the arrival of William III, of Orange, such sentiments were not looked upon with favor, and the political consequences had proved long-lived. Lord Howell was well off, for his estates in Wessex yielded sufficiently high revenues for him to live comfortably wherever he chose. On the other hand, there was no position of importance open to him, try as he might. The present government distrusted a man with so many Jacobite and Catholic relatives.
Lord Howell’s companion was clearly of a much lower social order. The earring he wore suggested that he had been to sea, and his tanned face reinforced that observation. In fact, Tom Masterson was a professional sailor and had been all over the world, despite his young age, which was then a mere twenty-four years. What had drawn Masterson together with the aristocratic Howell was nothing more than a chance meeting the night before at another tavern. Both had been at loose ends that evening, and a conversation had sprung up between them at the bar. They had decided to dine together the following night, and so here they were at the Pig and Whistle.
Masterson set down his glass on the wine-stained surface of the table. “Tell me, m’Lord,” he said softly, “have you ever heard of the Queen Anne Opal?”
“No,” Lord Howell said, shaking his head, emphatically, “What exactly is it?”
The red-headed sailor threw his head back, holding his tongue for a moment, to make a greater, more dramatic impression. Then he smiled, his mouth opening wide from ear to ear, as if he were about to disclose one of the most profound truths of the age. “The Queen Anne Opal, m’Lord,” he finally said, “is a very special jewel. Three years ago, when my ship cast anchor off Bombay harbor, I asked permission from my captain to go inland for a while, to explore this strange country. He wouldn’t let me go, but I had a hankering to go anyway, and one dark night, I jumped overboard and swam ashore, unmindful of the dangers that lurk in the harbor.”
“So you deserted your ship, eh?” Lord Howell said, evidently none too pleased with what he had heard so far.
But the sailor ignored Lord Howell’s command. “After weeks and weeks of travelling, I managed to reach the north of India. I had heard of the fabulous treasures of Tibet, and I intended to see for myself.”
“Tibet?” Lord Howell exclaimed. “A sailor in Tibet?”
Tom nodded. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said. “In the end I made it all the way up to what they call the roof of the world.”
“Amazing,” Lord Howell admitted. “Was it worth your efforts?”
“Indeed it was, sir,” the sailor replied. “I entered the forbidden land of Tibet, dressed like a native, and after great difficulties I reached the monastery of Saskya. It is located way up north of the holy city of Lhasa, m’Lord, and I wager that not too many Englishmen have ever set foot there.”
“Not to mention sailors,” Lord Howell added.
“I made friends with one of the Lamas, and somehow we understood each other even though I did not understand their language. But after a few weeks of staying with him, I began to grasp it, and he, I suppose, learned a few words of English. That is when I heard for the first time about the opal.”
“You referred to it earlier as the Queen Anne Opal, I believe,” Lord Howell said. “Why is that?”
“What I was told about this enormously beautiful blue opal, probably the largest of its kind on earth, has to do with the coronation of her late majesty, our good Queen Anne. It appears that many years ago the Grand Lama of Saskya had received a gift and an expression of friendship from the Queen’s father, the late King James II. Somehow word got back to Tibet that one of his daughters was to be crowned Queen of England.”
“That was fifteen years ago.”
“Yes, exactly, sir. But when I spoke to my friend, he told me that this fabulous stone had appeared at the monastery shortly before the Queen’s coming to the throne, and the Grand Lama wished to name it in honor of our late Queen. You see, sir, his intention was to send it to London for the coronation, to be presented to the Queen as a token of his respect. Unfortunately, the Grand Lama died before this could be effected, and thus the Queen Anne Opal is still at the monastery, or at least it was when I was there three years ago.”
Lord Howell had listened to this silently, and didn’t answer immediately. When he spoke, he seemed rather preoccupied. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“I felt perhaps you might be interested to hear about this strange piece of jewelry, seeing that you told me last night how fascinated you are with strange and mysterious objects.”
“Oh, but this is merely a large and valuable opal, is it not? There doesn’t seem to be anything so mysterious about it.”
“Oh, but there is,” the sailor replied, saving his juiciest bit for the last. “You see, sir, the opal isn’t just an ordinary piece of jewelry. The original owners had put a terrible curse on it.”
Lord Howell became more interested. “Did you find out what this curse was? And who pronounced it?”
“Yes, indeed I did, sir,” the sailor replied. “I took great pains to ask questions as much as I was able to with my limited knowledge of the language. It appears that this same blue opal had originally been embedded in the head of a statue of a protective demon, what the Tibetans like to call the Third Eye.”
“The Third Eye?” Lord Howell frowned. “I have never heard of that.”
“Nevertheless, sir,” the sailor replied, “there is this belief that some extraordinary people, those who have been chosen for tasks —such as prophecy and spiritual guidance —have a third eye in the middle of their foreheads with which to see better and know things that other mortals cannot. This demon—and you know, sir, there are lots of strange demons all over Tibet—this demon, sir, appeared to have a particularly powerful Third Eye. Naturally, it wasn’t the human eye, it was this blue opal, you see, and it gave the statue a certain degree of fame.”
“Then why the curse?” Lord Howell demanded to know. He was getting slightly impatient.
“I’m coming to that, m’Lord,” the sailor replied, sensing Lord Howell’s feelings. “This figure of a demon stood in a monastery called
Rva Sgreng, in another part of the country. I soon enough learned that in Tibet individual monasteries are often competitive with one another, and sometimes even go to war against each other. The monastery of Rva Sgreng was famous for its demon and the blue opal, and the faithful came to it all the time to derive certain benefits from touching it.”
“Oh, like the Catholics and the statues of their saints,” Lord Howell commented.
Tom nodded. “Precisely. Now the way I heard it, in the year twelve thirty-nine, a certain officer by the name of Hunai, in the services of Godan, the son of the Mongol overlord of Tibet, came to the monastery of Rva Sgreng to loot it. At that time, my friend the Lama told me, Tibet was part of the Mongol Empire, but had been granted a certain degree of autonomy by the Mongol overlords. In fact, the leading Lama had been given the title of King, or Ti Shih in their language. This happened under the reign of the terrible Genghis Khan. Now Godan, the grandson of the Khan, was anxious to maintain good relations with these strange people and learn from them about their mysterious ways, including the ways of magic.”
“Magic?” Lord Howell asked.
The sailor nodded. “Magic plays a big role in Tibetan life. But to get back to the story about this opal, sir, if you do not mind, it appears that this officer, Hunai, took the opal from the forehead of the statue, and ran away with it. When the Abbot of the monastery discovered his great loss, he pronounced a terrible curse not only on Hunai, but on anyone who possessed the opal, until it was returned to its rightful place as the Third Eye in the statue of Rva Sgreng. That is, I believe, how the curse started.”
Lord Howell thought this over for a moment. Clearly, the story intrigued him. Anything out of the ordinary had always held great fascination for him, bored as he was with life in London society. “And where is the opal now?”
“That’s just it, m’Lord,” Tom replied. “Nobody really knows. As you recall, sir, it had been named in honor of our good Queen Anne upon her coronation, but of course it remained in the possession of the Grand Lama of Saskya. Now how it got to Saskya I never found out, but there was no love lost between Saskya and the rival monastery of Rva Sgreng. They knew very well that the opal was in the possession of the Grand Lama, but the Grand Lama of Saskya, far from being willing to give it up, or back, simply proclaimed that it had been found one day in front of the main altar in his private Stupa, and that he had accepted it as coming to him by divine guidance. Thus, the Grand Lama of Saskya retained the opal, and after it had been dedicated in honor of Queen Anne, it nevertheless remained at the monastery.”
“Then that’s where it is, isn’t it?” Lord Howell commented. “Why do you say no one knows?”
“Because, sir, some time ago I received a letter from my friend, the Lama at Saskya. He and I write to each other from time to time, his English getting better and better as a result. In this letter to me he told me that two men had appeared at the monastery, claiming to have come with secret messages for the Abbot. They were left alone with the aged Abbot, but when the Abbot failed to emerge the next morning, other Lamas went into his study to discover him quite dead, and the opal missing. All my friend knows is that the two seemed to be Englishmen. Presumably they had returned to England with the precious jewel.”
“Then it may be here in England,” Lord Howell exclaimed, not disguising his mounting interest. Tom nodded gravely.
“Very likely. You see, sir, the theft occurred three years ago, according to my friend.”
Lord Howell suddenly jerked upright in his seat, almost upsetting the glasses before him.
“What is it? What is it, sir? Have I offended you?” the sailor said quickly. His fear was instinctive: a poor sailor could not afford to antagonize an influential peer of the realm.
Lord Howell sank back in his chair. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. Just that, well. I’ve realized a connection.”
“A connection?” Tom asked, puzzled in his turn.
Lord Howell nodded. “Last Christmas, I recall, when I was at Court, I heard a strange tale about two Englishmen who had been to the Far East and had come back with a strange jewel. It was said that this jewel had supernatural powers, and that it had been at one time part of a statue of an idol.”
“Did you hear whether it was an opal?”
“The bluest of blue opals, I was told.”
“Well, then,” Tom exclaimed, “it must be the same.”
“Very likely.”
“But what happened to it?”
“That’s just it,” Lord Howell replied. His face grew thoughtful. “As I understand it, and mind you this is just a story I was told by two men at Court, all this happened about three years ago in the last year of our good Queen Anne.”
“That would be correct,” Tom exclaimed. “That is exactly when the theft is said to have occurred, according to my friend the Lama.”
“Well, then,” Lord Howell continued, “the mysterious gentlemen presented the jewel to Queen Anne. Shortly afterwards, the Queen died. All attempts to make James III, her brother, the heir to the throne failed, and the crown went to the House of Hanover. There was a lot of confusion, of course. I wonder, where is the opal now?”
Tom smiled. “I believe sir, you are in a better position to make enquiries about that than I.”
“Quite so,” Lord Howell said. His face became thoughtful. He drummed his fingers on the table, staring in silence at the bleak grey river beyond the window.
When the two men drained their glasses for the last time, the gathering dusk had made the river invisible. Lord Howell left a coin on the table to settle their score. He and Tom shook hands. Neither believed he would be likely to meet the other again—their stations in life were too different.
They set off in opposite directions. Tom’s mind was occupied with the possibility of returning to India on the very next ship, to look for other treasures, for he knew that the opal had not been the only valuable jewel at the monastery. Lord Howell, on the other hand, was toying with the idea of trying to lift the veil from the mystery of the accursed opal, if only out of curiosity.
The next day Lord Howell hurried to Court. His wealth, wit and connections always made him welcome there, though the doubts concerning his political and religious loyalties prevented him from attaining a position of real influence.
His first call was on Lord Buckminster, an old friend who was the Deputy of the Royal Chancellor of the Exchequer. Surely, something as valuable as this opal would have to be known to the treasury! But Lord Buckminster shook his head. He knew nothing about it. Of course, it was just possible, he opined, that among the many, many gifts which kept streaming in from the colonies, there might be such an opal as Lord Howell was enquiring about. But to search for it was entirely futile, and even to know where to begin was impossible.
Lord Howell shrugged and made his departure. He was not disconsolate—there were plenty of other people he could ask. But by the end of the third day he had been forced to accept that the opal was a remarkably well-kept secret, if indeed it existed at all.
He began to have second thoughts about Tom’s veracity; knowing that sailors would sometimes spin tall tales, he started to wonder whether perhaps Tom had invented the story as a result of a pleasant evening over a bottle of wine.
He was about to dismiss the entire incident when he ran into an old friend in a coffee house near Covent Garden. Robert Dingleberry, despite his funny name, was a very serious fellow. A don at Oxford, Dingleberry had an enormous knowledge of history and politics, and was just the kind of man who might have some sort of information about the mysterious opal. At any rate, Lord Howell decided to take a chance and brought up the matter in conversation soon after they had left the coffee house.
“Yes, yes,” Dingleberry replied, as they were walking arm in arm down the Strand. “I’ve heard that story somewhere before. Of course, you realize it’s just a legend, but I’ve heard it talked about. Some beautiful blue opal from India that is supposed to cause all the troubles. Well, if you ask me, there aren’t any troubles. After all, we should be very pleased with the great change that has taken place in England, now that we are finally rid of Popish intrigues. James III indeed! It is a good thing that the Elector of Hanover is at the reins of the country.” Dingleberry was a committed Protestant, and the idea of a return to a Roman Catholic monarchy was totally abhorrent to him.
“But what about the opal? Where would it be now?” Lord Howell pressed. As far as he was concerned at present, he couldn’t care less who sat on the throne of England; just now his interest was focused on the mysterious opal and on nothing else.
“Oh, well,” Dingleberry said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “I suppose they have it somewhere at the Tower.”
“The Tower of London?”
“Of course. It is the obvious place, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Lord Howell replied, not sure what to say. But at least he had his first real lead.