The Oak Island Affair

by Jane Bow

  He appeared to be relaxed, still amused.

  “The truth is I don’t know what I think,” she told him. “The Oak Island stories are great but when you keep hearing them, growing up, and nobody ever comes up with anything more than an occasional doubloon, you develop a certain skepticism. Still, there were pirates all over these parts.” She watched him eat the bisque, his every sense savouring it. “And what about you? Surely you know how many investors have lost their shirts on Oak Island. Why would you want to join them?”

  “Same reason I invest anywhere there’s money to be made.”

  “Here?” She laughed again. “How did you even hear about it down in Philadelphia?”

  He told her about Will Allen, an oilman and brother Mason. His grandfather had found an old map, bought a boat and spent two summers looking for the island on his map.

  “He didn’t find it and old Will doesn’t have the map anymore, but when he heard about Oak Island he figured that was what his granddaddy had been looking for, and if Franklin D. Roosevelt had once taken an interest …” Sanger returned to his bisque. “Will lost his money like all the rest, and pulled out.”

  “And you?”

  “I reckon he and the others didn’t know how to use what they knew.”

  “Which was?”

  “The facts, the finds, the meanings of the symbols. There was a mind at work on that little island.” Sanger patted his mouth with his napkin. “And if there’s one thing I truly enjoy it’s sparring with a great mind.”

  Pan-roasted breast of duckling with a blueberry Pinot Noir sauce, fresh green beans and carrots, baby potatoes, a bottle of red wine.

  Sanger filled her glass. The wine glowed red, translucent in the candlelight.

  “It’s a Gervey-Chambertin. You’ll enjoy it.” Stated as fact, his confidence complete, unassailable.

  The painting on the wall behind Sanger, above the fireplace, had been arresting her attention. A man in a Victorian black suit was leaning across a small circular garden table toward a woman. Her back was all the viewer could see, and her long, white gown flowing out over the grass. The man had a black goatee and black hair swept up in wings.

  “Are you sure that’s the sort of thing you want a woman to see on a first date?” Vanessa kept her face straight. “Isn’t it the Devil, Mephistopheles?”

  Sanger turned in his chair.

  “Oh, for Chrissake. I swear to God, someone ought to give the owner of this place a course in art appreciation. You should see the hideous piece they had me sleeping under. I had to take it down.”

  “Or is it Machiavelli?” Vanessa began to enjoy herself a little. “Both of them were great minds.”

  “And you know that because you are a writer.”

  Vanessa sawed into her duckling, cursed the flush creeping up her neck.

  “When there’s treasure to be had, a smart man does his research.” Sanger looked kind. “And my bet is that you know a lot more about Oak Island and the Masons’ connection to it than you’re letting on.”

  Vanessa took time to chew.

  “Well, it seems my great-great-I-don’t-know-how-many-times-great grandfather was a Freemason, as were a lot of the Oak Island treasure hunters, not that that’s ever done any of them any good. And as you must know, there are a lot of theories about what’s buried on the island. Was it Spanish treasure liberated from Cuba by the English—?”

  “The sack of Havana in 1762?” Sanger shook his head. “There would have been records.”

  “Not if the British nobles in charge were early Enronites, and King George was mad, remember. Or what about a British payroll ship liberated by an American privateer?”

  “Some drunken seaman would have talked.”

  “Okay then, what about the Bacon-was-Shakespeare theory based on the Oak Island drill that went through wood and came up with a fragment of parchment? Apparently there is a code in The Tempest.”

  “I am negotiating to buy that piece of parchment.”

  “Really? You’re a Baconian?”

  “I don’t know about that. I do maintain that there’s every reason to believe that a) Sir Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare plays, and b) he buried them. And as a writer who knows the Oak Island mystery, I’d be very interested in your thoughts on that subject.”

  Vanessa drank some wine. Was this why he had invited her here?

  Across the table he was savouring his duckling, eyes lifted as he explored the tastes before washing them down with a mouthful of wine.

  “To be honest, I haven’t given the Bacon theory a lot of thought. The books on Oak Island tend to dismiss it.”

  “Sure they do. Who wouldn’t rather sell books about truckloads of gold, or the Holy Grail, or the biggest prize of them all these days, the Virgin Mary herself?”

  Sitting back now, tummy full, her mind loosened by the wine, Vanessa sensed Sanger’s passion for the subject.

  “What about all the recent books about William Shakespeare himself as author?”

  “Money-making edifices built on supposition, every one of them. I’m with Mark Twain who said, how could you have two geniuses fascinated by the human psyche alive and writing in the same place at the same moment in history? If you’ve studied this subject you’ll know there’s evidence Sigmund Freud got his ideas from ‘Shakespeare.’” Sanger leaned across his plateful of duckling bones. “The real William Shakespeare had no library. Every one of the plays’ plots was taken from existing sources, but the supposed playwright owned no books at all.”

  “Maybe he borrowed them.”

  Sanger was not listening.

  “Other indisputable points—” Sanger ticked them off on his long, surprisingly elegant fingers. “One: Francis Bacon and his father — because he may have been the Queen and Robert Dudley’s illegitimate son — were members of Dr. John Dee’s secret circle, which explored Hermetic and Cabalistic teachings that go all the way back to the mystery schools in Egypt and used symbols that now belong to Freemasonry.

  “Two: Bacon was a philosopher, also the acknowledged founder of modern science, also a homosexual, so he had all kinds of thoughts that Elizabethan society — which was still uptight about Copernicus for God’s sake — would not have allowed.

  “Three: Bacon believed that knowledge would be the salvation of humankind and that plays, by mirroring human nature, could bring knowledge to the common man.

  “Four: Bacon jotted down phrases, thoughts, ideas, lines of poetry in a private notebook called The Promus. In it there are word-for-word matches with lines in the Shakespeare plays.” Sanger stopped, smiling. “I could go on and on, about how the Globe Theater was built round just like the old Templar churches, but you’re a writer. You already know all this.”

  “Actually I don’t, but I do have to wonder, if it’s so obvious that Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays, why does the controversy go on and on?”

  Sanger raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s a question of irrefutable evidence. Maybe Shakespeare knew the secret teachings too. Maybe Bacon cribbed The Promus. The argument will go on until someone comes up with the original manuscripts.”

  Marlena cleared away the remains of the entree then slid plates of chocolate raspberry mousse torte onto the table in front of them.

  “Oh!” Vanessa’s plate, decorated with swirls of red and brown sauce, was a work of art. “I don’t know if I have room.”

  Sanger smiled at Marlena.

  “We’ll have the Veuve Clicquot with this.”

  His pleasure in Vanessa, in the food, in the chance to indulge in a puzzle that was obviously running his life, was palpable. And to watch the power of his energy focused, to be its recipient, was fun. All she had to do was rise to it.

  “Okay, say Bacon did write Shakespeare. Why would he bury the manuscripts over here? In the early 1600’s the French were still in control.”

  “The tenets of Freemasonry supersede nationality, and who was here to suspect? Also Walter Raleigh, who was Bacon’
s friend, was a fellow member of Dee’s secret society. He knew this coast and he also would have known about the Templar Knight carved into the rock.”

  Vanessa toyed with the torte, trying not to betray any interest as she racked her brain. Had she and Brigit mentioned the carved knight while they were on Oak Island? Was he tempting her to show what she knew? Was that why the edges of Sanger’s smile were turning sardonic? Once, during Adrian’s short career as a wobbly high school hockey player, their father had told him that the best defence was offence. She looked up, frowning.

  “Still, two things strike me. First, if Bacon was such a genius why did he have the manuscripts buried in a way that made them sink into the sea?”

  Sanger cut into his torte.

  “Good question.” He took a moment to savour the taste of the torte. “Did he, I wonder?”

  Vanessa smiled. “Second, why you are telling me all this?”

  “I haven’t told you anything you couldn’t find out for yourself on the Internet.”

  “So now you’re up here to capture the big prize?”

  Sanger smiled. “Could be there’s more than one prize up here.”

  Vanessa looked out at him from under her eyelashes.

  “And if one of the prizes is not available to be won?”

  He laughed, put down his fork to drink.

  “People say money can’t buy happiness, and you know what? They’re right. Money buys comfort, luxury, whatever you want, but it’s not money that buys happiness.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. Setting the stakes high and then pitting wits, guts, muscle, whatever it takes to come out on top, that’s what buys me the choice to sit here eating delicious food with a lovely lady.” Sanger held a forkful of torte out to her.

  Vanessa hesitated.

  “Take it.”

  She leaned forward, allowed him to put it into her mouth.

  “Feel it on your tongue — creamy, rich — you like that?”

  Vanessa nodded.

  “Well, that makes me happy.” Sanger took a bite, rolled it on his tongue, watching her.

  “And what if you don’t come out on top?” she asked. “What if you lose?”

  Sanger’s smile was impenetrable.

  “I’m not in the habit of doing that. But hey, sometimes circumstances shift. So you take stock while the dust settles, find a better strategy.”

  Marlena served coffee with a tray of liqueurs and two miniature stemmed glasses.

  “We’ll have the Kahlúa.” Sanger reached into the pocket of his sports jacket, took out a small, embossed leather jewellery case and passed it across to her, smiling.

  “For you. Call it a souvenir.”

  The doubloon they had found on Oak Island shone gold on a bed of burgundy velour. It was mounted on a gold chain.

  “Oh.” Shock, confusion. “No, Edward, I couldn’t possibly—”

  He reached across the table, took the box, lifted out the doubloon and held it in his palm.

  “Why not? You’re the one who found it.” He got up, came around the table before she could object and fastened it around her neck, taking care not to touch her unnecessarily. “I just had it polished.”

  Seated again, he admired the way it hung just above her cleavage.

  She tilted the coin toward the candlelight.

  “Thank you.” What else to do?

  When the Kahlúa was gone he came around the table again to offer his hand.

  “Would you like to walk?”

  The gold Freemason’s ring on his baby finger caught the light. She took his hand, turned the face of the ring toward her.

  “So, you and Ben Franklin and Francis Bacon—”

  “And Thomas Jefferson.” He took back his hand, got out his wallet.

  “The U.S. dollar is the strongest currency in the world. And see?” He showed her the picture on the back of a dollar bill: a pyramid. Looking out of the summit was the same all-seeing eye Vanessa had seen embroidered on her ancestor Seamus Holdt’s Freemason’s apron. The stars above the eagle opposite it were shaped into the Star of David.

  “The Great Seal of the United States is made of Freemasons’ symbols.” He dropped some bills onto the table as a tip. “We go all the way back to the building of the Temple of Solomon, but I think you know that.”

  He draped her shawl over her shoulders and took her arm.

  Marlena was holding the dining room door open.

  “Good night, Marlena.” He turned to Vanessa. “The question is, what else do you know?”

  Light spilling out through the doorway lit their faces. Vanessa smiled.

  “Have you read my article, ‘Treasure Island North?’”

  “I have.” Reaching up, he pulled the pins out of her hair. It fell, a golden wave in the light. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

  She tried to laugh.

  “Come on, I’ll show you something.” His arm around her shoulders felt strong, hard, warm.

  On the far side of the lawn, past the swimming pool, the chokecherry bushes were in bloom. Beside them a chessboard had been set into the grass. Wooden kings, queens, bishops, knights were three feet tall, painted black and white. Their rough-cut faces looked depraved, malevolent in the twilight. Sanger’s arm came around Vanessa’s waist.

  She could not help tensing. But why had she come, if not to know him, to relax with him?

  “Maybe one of these days, we’ll play,” he said.

  Inside the Hall someone flicked a switch — Tchaikovsky, a waltz.

  Sanger walked her back up onto the open lawn, flooded now with light from the dining room. Vanessa dropped her shawl as he took her into his arms under the three-quarter moon. Successful running backs do not lose their grace. She kicked off her sandals and, as the music soared out into the moonlight, allowed herself to flow with him. He moved his hand into the small of her back.

  “I am a great lover,” he murmured.

  “Oh?” She pulled back a little to look at him. “You’re not married?”

  There was no ring on his wedding finger.

  “As a matter of fact I am.” Sanger pulled her closer. She smelled the clean, crisp spice of his aftershave. “But my wife and I have an arrangement. We go our separate ways most of the time.”

  When the music ended, she looked up at him.

  “I have been living with someone for six years.”

  “If that mattered, dear heart, you would not be here.” He led her back to her sandals, picked up her shawl, then walked her to her car, and leaned on the sill of the driver’s window.

  “I’m thinking of chartering a yacht, taking a sunset cruise in the bay.” She saw him glance at the doubloon on her chest. “I’d be honoured if you would join me.”

  The tide at the little beach across from the Chester cenotaph was low. High above it the moon laid its trail across the sea. The stones beside the dock smelled of seaweed. If you sat very still, a ticking sound soon started. Nothing moved. There was just the clicking all around you. Sun-bleached barnacles, hard as rock, their edges so sharp you could easily cut your foot on them, were closing their stone-shelled beaks against the air world. Waiting for the tide to turn.

  Just beyond Vanessa’s feet wavelets fingered the beach pebbles. In a few hours, inside the safety of the new tide, these white, dead-looking barnacles would open their visors again, shooting out sheaths of curly-ended pink fronds that spread like hair, so delicate, combing the water for the invisible food they needed to survive.

  Vanessa fingered the doubloon, thought of Sanger’s smile, power harnessed, and the thrill of matching, playing with him, of his hand in the small of her back, of dancing free.

  Edward’s yacht would be one of those forty-footers with a fully equipped living room. A king-sized bed waiting.

  So? Every invitation did not have to lead to bed. If she wanted, she could just have a glass of wine, dance with him again. This was a man used to getting what he wanted, but “I don’t need to rape �
� to get my prizes.” He would expect that eventually, if he played the right cards, she would come to him.

  The polished doubloon, absorbing the moonlight, directed her gaze out into the darkness where Oak Island lay — where she had gone because of Brother Bart, and had found Edward Sanger.

  X

  BRIGIT WAS SITTING AT GRAN’S DESK, staring at the screen of Vanessa’s laptop.

  “You better come and look.”

  “Alpha Corporation.” The holding company’s home page had a royal blue background. Its chief executive officer was Edward Sanger. Brigit scrolled down through the alphabetical listing of its assets, and stopped at G. “Gold International,” gold letters against the blue.

  “Yeah, so?” Vanessa sat down to unbuckle her sandal straps. Digging around inside someone else’s life, especially when that person had just treated you to such an elegant evening, felt rude.

  “Well, didn’t you tell me once that Gold International was the company that financed, and then cut off your father’s work at Altamira’s Institute for Studies in Roman Ruins?”

  Vanessa looked up.

  “That’s right.” She had forgotten. Whenever her family had gone into the mountains exploring her father would pick up stones, examine them, then put one or two not particularly pretty ones into his haversack. “For my boss,” he would say. Why, she had wondered, would a gold company care about studying Roman ruins? “They don’t, dummy,” Adrian had explained. “The Institute’s a front so no one’ll know they think there might be gold in this area. Dad sends them rock samples.”

  Brigit clicked on Sanger’s name. Up came a list of his private holdings: entertainment and theme park companies.

  “Oh great, ‘Wild West World,’ ‘Wagon Train,’ ‘Amazon Jungle.’” Brigit turned to look at her. “He’s going to turn Oak Island into an open-pit mine, Van, scoop out its innards, then set it up as Pirate World! Ferris wheels and neon lights, canned music — you’ll hear it all over the bay — fast food wrappers floating!”