I have endeavored to put down on paper the details of the extraordinary events as they occurred. The years have not been kind to my memory and sometimes I am confused, and the recollections of those days are as I now remember them.
The letter arrived on the 10th. November 1953. The rain had been beating against the cottage windows since breakfast and it was so cold that I lit the turf fire at 11.00 a.m.
In the sanctuary of my warm front room I looked quizzically at the envelope wondering how my whereabouts had been discovered. At the top of the envelope below the stamp that depicted the recently crowned Elizabeth II my name and address were emblazoned in bold flowing writing:
Jonathan Wilson,
The Cottage,
Near Mannane
County Galway Ireland.
It was from Sedgewick Harris wishing me the compliments of the season and success with my book writing. I was surprised at the early wishes for Christmas, astonished he had traced me to my hideaway, and astounded he was aware of my writing endeavours.
I should have known better. Sedgewick Harris that exceptional student of mine from the Cambridge days, who was endowed with a brilliant analytical mind that astonished people. Such was his uncanny skill for problem solving that he became affectionately known as ‘Sherlock’.
He had attracted the attention of the British Secret Service while at Cambridge and on the outbreak of World War Two was assigned to work on the Enigma Project at Bletchley Park. When the war ended, he set-up as a private investigator in rooms at Balfour Street, Mayfair, London. His reputation soon became the talk of that city and his exciting exploits even reached my ears while on an archeological dig at Luxor. It was said he had a photographic memory. I know that to be true.
***
My name is Jonathan Wilson, I am 6-foot-tall, sixty-two years old and slightly on the plumb side, unmarried and not in the least embarrassed by the extraordinary wealth left to me by my parents who tragically departed this life during the London blitz in 1942. Having no necessity to earn a living, no extended family and none of the constraints that inhibit others I am free to do as I wish. By nature, I am a solitary person and walking the quiet roads of this rural idyll is an absolute pleasure.
I had just returned from excavating in the Valley of the Kings and settled into my cottage near the village of Mannane a remote place hidden in the remarkable countryside of the west of Ireland. Here I would write and relive those past years in Egypt and maybe present my magnus opus to my old university where I had lectured for thirty years.
Every so often I venture to the village and visit Mannion’s grocery store and sub-post office the nerve centre of the townland. Within this small emporium of faded colours the dispensing of groceries, whiskey, postage stamps and other necessities too numerous to detail takes place with kindness and efficiency. On the timber floor is stacked twine for binding hay, animal feed, bags of sheep dip and damp mysterious nameless faded yellow cartons………….