Stranger at Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  Of course, he reasoned with himself, this letter was sixty-seven years old and who was to say whether this Maggie might not have long since returned to claim her prize? But no, she could clearly never have received this letter, for here it still sat after all these years. Thus, if she had returned, with the only clue tucked away in a Bible out of sight, she would never have found it anyway.

  Hmm! This held promise! The infinite possibilities to a mind like Logan’s were intriguing, to say the least.

  But then, he reflected further, in that many years countless things could have intervened in the disposition of this MacNab’s treasure—excavations, building projects, erosion of the ground. To even think that it might . . .

  Well, it was preposterous!

  But what if it were still there! Could this be the change in his fortunes he had been waiting for?

  A treasure hunt! He had participated in more harebrained schemes in his time. But this would be a first.

  Yet he had hardly a clue to start with.

  Or did he? Hadn’t he seen a motion picture last year where the clues were hidden in just such a note as this? And where was this Stonewycke place, anyway?

  That would be a beginning. Perhaps his mother would know something about all this. He glanced at his watch—it would be hours before she returned from work.

  He stood and paced around the small room, his boredom completely dissolved by now, thoughts tumbling rapidly out of his active brain. Now here was a project worthy of his most diligent efforts! If it led to a dead end, what had he lost but a little time—of which he had an abundance, anyway. But he did not want to waste a minute of that valuable time waiting around for his mother’s return. There must be something he could do in the meantime. In a city like Glasgow, there must be scores of places to begin his research.

  He turned back to the small table where he had lain the Bible, picking it up—more gingerly this time, now that it had suddenly become so valuable in his eyes. Tiny black flakes of the crumbling leather along the edges of the spine came off into his hand. On the ornately decorated nameplate page were inscribed the words in a florid, feminine hand:

  Presented to Digory MacNab

  On his tenth birthday

  July 15, 1791—Port Strathy

  Blimey! thought Logan. This book is one hundred and forty-one years old!

  Running the figures quickly through his head, Logan did some further calculating. MacNab would have been eighty-four at the time of the writing of the letter. It seemed an odds-on bet that the old man went to his grave taking the secret of the treasure with him.

  Logan sat pondering this turn of events another minute or two in silence. Then he jumped up, nearly forgetting his coat and cap, and hurried out.

  ———

  Later that evening he scarcely gave his mother a chance to unload her basket of groceries before he began plying her with a barage of questions.

  “Where did that old Bible come from?” he began.

  The words sent a small spark of hope flickering in her mother’s heart, until she quickly discerned that the gist of his interrogation was not spiritual in nature at all.

  “It’s been in an old trunk,” she answered. “I finally decided t’ get it oot an’ put it up on the shelf with the other books.”

  “What trunk?” he queried.

  “Jist an auld trunk o’ family things.”

  “Who is Digory MacNab?”

  “My goodness! What’s sparked all this curiosity?” Mrs. Macintyre asked as she began preparations for their supper.

  “Have you ever heard of a place called Stonewycke?”

  “Up north, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” replied Logan quickly. “I did a bit of asking around today,” he went on, “and I visited the library, read some old newspapers. You’re right, there’s a Stonewycke on the northern coast. Used to be a rather substantial estate.”

  “An’ what’s anythin’ got t’ do with this Stonewycke?” she asked as she cut up a few vegetables on the counter.

  “Look at this,” said Logan in place of an answer, thrusting the Bible in front of her, along with the letter. She scanned it hastily, gave him a noncommittal nod, and returned to her work.

  “Don’t you see, Mum? It must be the same Stonewycke. It was the biggest estate in those parts; then some twenty years ago most of the land was parcelled off to the tenants—given to them outright!”

  “Generous lords, I’d say,” commented Frances.

  “Maybe. But more likely daft.”

  “There are good folk in this world, son.”

  “I know,” conceded Logan. “But we’re talking about thousands of acres of land. Why would anybody just give it away!”

  “Maybe they cared more aboot their people than their ain wealth.”

  “Like I say—daft!”

  “An’ so who’s the laird noo?”

  “Is no laird, least none whose name I could find. The present heir is a Lady Margaret Duncan.”

  “There’s yer Maggie, then.”

  “Could be . . .” he replied thoughtfully, sitting down at the table. He pulled several scraps of paper from his pockets and pored through them again. “The age would be about right,” he mused, almost to himself.

  “What’s that ye say, son?” asked his mother, her interest in the matter growing.

  “She turned up twenty years ago to claim the estate after having been in America some forty years. That would have put her in the States about the time this MacNab wrote his letter. The pieces all seem to fit.”

  “I dinna ken why ye’re askin’ me all these questions. Seems as if ye know more’n yer auld mum already.”

  Logan chuckled. “I couldn’t help myself from finding out what I could. It caused some stir twenty years ago. The Aberdeen papers were full of it. Not only giving away all the land, but because there was some fraudulent scheme going on at the same time that the whole transfer exposed. Couple of big shots even did some time for it. And the laird before this Duncan lady had been murdered, it seems by the greedy family lawyer who was part of the fraud hoping to get his hands on the estate. The thing’s positively fraught with intrigue!”

  “I don’t understand, son. Hoo could the lawyer hae seized the estate if there was still a living heiress?”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Mum!” Logan beamed triumphantly, as if he had single-handedly solved the mystery of the century. “No one knew this Margaret Duncan was alive. She had dropped completely out of sight forty years before. Don’t you see? She couldn’t possibly have received MacNab’s letter. She probably doesn’t know a thing about the treasure!”

  “What’s all this leading up to, son?” asked Logan’s mother with just that tone in her voice which revealed that she knew all too well the answer to her own question. The gleam in her son’s eye told more than any words he had spoken. “’Course ye’re plannin’ on informin’ these Duncans o’ their good fortune . . . ?”

  “Of course . . . eventually.” With a flourish adroitly designed to change the subject, Logan opened and spread out the letter on the table, perusing it again in detail. “I’d really like to know who this MacNab fellow was.”

  “He’d be some kin o’ yers, nae doobt,” his mother answered simply.

  “Kin!”

  “Why, what’d ye ’pect wi’ a name like MacNab? Great Uncle maybe.”

  “Kin of mine?”

  “’Tis my maiden name. Surely ye haena forgotten so soon?”

  In fact, Logan had not forgotten. It was just that he had so little interest in his own background in his younger years that he had never taken the trouble to learn his mother’s maiden name in the first place. All at once Logan’s blood ran hot with exhilaration.

  “My own relative,” he said, continuing to ponder the implications of this latest surprising piece of information. “I should have guessed—the cagy old fox!”

  “Seems ye’re missin’ the point o’ that letter.” Frances paused long enough to dump the vegetab
les in a kettle of bubbling water that contained six or seven potatoes, then sat down with Logan. “He says that the treasure, whate’er it be, caused nothin’ but trouble an’ he hid it t’ spare the family more heartache. Digory MacNab didna want it t’ be found again.”

  “Unless it was by the girl Maggie,” added Logan.

  “Aye. Noo the Lady Margaret o’ the estate. But ye said yersel’ that ye weren’t plannin’ t’ tell her—least not at first.”

  “Let’s consider for a moment the possibility that MacNab’s motives were pure,” said Logan, once more diverting the track of the conversation away from his own motives. “I still don’t think he would have left his letter if he truly wanted the treasure forgotten forever.”

  “Then he would hae wanted his Maggie t’ have it.”

  “Or one of his own relatives,” suggested Logan cautiously.

  “Ye’re stretchin’ it a bit there, son. Ye know he intended nae sich thing.”

  “But once a man’s dead, whatever he leaves behind comes into the hands of those of his own he leaves alive, whatever he may have intended. That’s the law, Mum.”

  “An’ ye’re a fine one t’ be keepin’ sich a straight line!”

  “The law’s the law, Mum,” said Logan with a tongue-in-cheek grin. “If MacNab passed on, leaving no other heirs—well, me being his nearest relation, that would make this Bible and the letter and whatever else mine, don’t you think?”

  “The judge might place me ahead o’ ye in that line,” replied Frances with just a note of offense in her tone.

  “And whatever’s yours is mine, right, Mum?” rejoiced Logan cheerily, ignoring the flash of her eye. “And the letter’s written quite familiarly,” he went on. “I wonder if he couldn’t have been related to Maggie also. An uncle perhaps, or a grandfather. That would make me—”

  Here Frances laughed outright—a deep, soft laugh, not one overly filled with merriment, but pleasant to hear nonetheless.

  “Believe me, Logan,” she answered, dabbing her eyes on the corner of her apron, “if we had sich family connections, I’d know! Why, that’d make us kin t’ lords an’ ladies! ’Tis outright nonsense! This Digory was more’n likely a family servant—they got mighty attached t’ those noble families back then.”

  “And how’d you come by the Bible?” asked Logan.

  “Was in the family chest. I jist never paid it no heed till I decided t’ put it oot a while back.”

  “I wonder if there isn’t some way to confirm my relationship with the shrewd old boy.”

  Frances sighed, her safest reply when she knew that to say more to her son would only lead to strife. Seven years ago she had made frequent use of the habit, and it was amazing how quickly the old habit returned. For of all things, strife with her son was the last thing she desired at this moment in her life.

  “Ye can look through the bureau that came t’ me when yer gran’daddy passed on,” she replied. The statement came somewhat grudgingly. She wanted no part in his scheme, and certainly didn’t want to encourage him, but she knew he’d get to the bottom of it eventually anyway, so there was no use resisting and prolonging the inevitable. “He took great store in his family line. I never paid it much heed, but ye may find somethin’.”

  He was away from the table before the words had died out on her lips.

  There was something in all this. Logan could feel it! It could be something big, so why shouldn’t he take full advantage of such a splendid opportunity? He had no better options with which to occupy his time. And with Chase Morgan still to worry about, a trip to the north of Scotland, placing the wild Highlands between himself and his hometown, might be the perfect solution to that thorny dilemma. He doubted he could remain long in Glasgow without being traced there. If Morgan’s cronies asked around Shoreditch, they were certain to discover his identity. And didn’t most of his friends know of his Glasgow past? But who would think to search for him in the untamed and barren country above the Grampians?

  Already the decision to go north was planted firmly in his mind. But first he had to possess all the facts possible about this estate of Stonewycke, the Duncan family, and Digory MacNab. The whole prospect was exhilarating! Who could tell what one might run across while unearthing ancient history?

  Who could tell, indeed! For if Logan could have guessed what sleeping giants he was about to stir into wakefulness, a few second thoughts may have crept in with regard to the scheme hatching in his brain.

  But he did not. Thus the next two days he spent—discreetly, he thought—asking more questions and stirring dust into corners that might have been better off left alone.

  13

  A Suspicious Caller

  The gentleman sitting at the desk in the darkened office leaned back in his chair as he picked up the receiver of the phone. The only light in the room, coming from the street lamps outside, revealed a fashionably furnished place, though intimating that days had once been better. The man sat in shadows; his hair occasionally caught a ray of light, revealing substantial streaks of silver gray.

  “I was just on my way out,” he said into the phone in a low, hard tone.

  He paused to listen to the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Is that so . . . ?” he replied to the unseen voice, drawing out his words thoughtfully. “Inquiring about Stonewycke, you say?”

  More listening.

  “A treasure . . . then the rumors we heard are true . . . ?”

  He leaned forward, grabbed a pencil, and drew a pad toward him.

  “What was the name . . . ? Macintyre . . . from London, you say . . . ? No, no, don’t do anything just yet. We don’t want to scare him off. I’ll make some inquiries here. For now we’ll let him do the footwork for us. But don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Another pause followed.

  “He did?”

  The man rubbed his chin reflectively. “Well, you do the same. Just remember, it’s a sleepy little burg. Make sure he gets off at Strathy; then you go on to the next town and double back. I want no one to know of our interest in the matter. Report back to me regularly.”

  Another question interrupted him. After a brief pause he resumed: “Use that code we used in the last project we worked on together. Is that all, Sprague? All right. Just be sure he doesn’t get on to you.”

  Without another word he replaced the receiver.

  Notwithstanding the periodic raising of his eyebrows during the course of the conversation, if he was in any way excited over the prospects raised by the phone call, he did not show it. Instead, he continued to sit at his desk, absently tapping his pencil against the solid walnut top.

  In fact, though his surface appearance seemed perfectly nonchalant, inside he was more than enthusiastic over this turn of events. He had been looking for just such a break. At this point he had no idea where it might lead, but he felt certain that he would somehow be able to use these tidings to his advantage. He had carried out some research of his own through the years and had heard a local legend about some ancient horde from the Pict era over a thousand years ago supposedly connected with the Stonewycke property. Intriguing though it was, he had always considered it nothing but a straw in the dark. Perhaps he had been wrong. A fellow from London asking about a treasure, then heading north by train—certainly bore looking into!

  He picked up the phone receiver once more, hastily looked for a number in the card file on his desk, gave the operator the city and number, then sat back to wait. After about a minute he sat forward attentively.

  “Hello,” he said, in a different voice this time. “Yes, yes—it’s me . . . I know, it’s been a long time . . .”

  He tapped the pencil impatiently while he listened for another minute to the man he had called.

  “I—I certainly will,” he said, finally getting a word in. “But perhaps until then, you might help me out . . . No, no!” he laughed, “I only want a bit of information. Yes . . . Do you know of a young fellow by the name of Macintyre,
early twenties, I’d say, likes to hang around where there’s some action in the back room, if you know what I mean?”

  The voice on the line rambled on again for some time, with an occasional question or comment interspersed on the part of the listener.

  “A sharp . . . can’t say as I’m surprised . . .”

  More listening.

  “ . . . a bookie? . . . oh, an old counterfeiter. Hmmm . . .”

  All at once the gentleman’s impatience with his talkative informant changed to rapt interest. “He did what?” he exclaimed. “To Chase Morgan . . . !”

  After another pause the man chuckled, the first crack in his otherwise steely demeanor. “It’s a good thing Morgan can afford clever lawyers. Three months in jail isn’t much, but for a man like Chase it’s enough. I should think he’d want Macintyre! . . . How much? . . . I’m sure some low-life goon will take him up on his offer and try to collect, if Morgan doesn’t find him first . . . My interest? A different matter altogether. A friend of mine was making inquiries—didn’t think he was on the up-and-up, but the deal he offered sounded too good to pass up . . . Yes, you’re right there,” he laughed. “Morgan should have been as smart. Certainly, I’ll come by next week . . . Thanks for your assistance.”

  The thing was becoming more fascinating by the moment, thought the man as he hung up the phone. A confidence man like this Macintyre was bound to be up to something . . . something shady, no doubt! It was lucky for him his man in Glasgow had stumbled into the middle of it. Well, stumbled was not exactly the right word, he reflected further. After all, Sprague had been hired for the express purpose of gathering information. And he had definitely hit the jackpot in Glasgow!

  14

  Errand Day in Port Strathy

  Allison tapped her foot impatiently as she leaned with folded arms against the parked Austin.

  She and her younger brother had driven their great-grandmother into town for several errands; she did not mind so much waiting for her, but Nat had run off just as Lady Margaret was due to be finished. He had probably gone down to the harbor to pass the time with those fishermen whom he seemed to adore, would lose all track of time, and she would be forced to go all the way down there to fetch him.