“Well, last Memorial Day, while Zach was holding the regimental colors and Ab the wreath, Caleb blew taps the way he’d been doing nigh onto twenty times before. All of a sudden, in the middle of a high note, Caleb keeled over. Dropped in his tracks. Deader than church on Monday.”
“Strained himself,” said Nikki sympathetically. “But what a poetic way for a Civil War veteran to die.”
Doc Strong regarded her oddly. “Maybe,” he said. “If you like that kind of poetry.” He kicked a log, sending red sparks flying.
“But surely, Doc,” said Ellery with a smile, for he was young in those days, “surely you can’t have been suspicious about the death of a man of ninety-seven?”
“Maybe I was,” muttered their host. “Maybe I was because it so happened I’d given old Caleb a thorough physical check-up only the day before he died. I’d have staked my medical license he’d live to break a hundred and then some. Healthiest old copperhead I ever knew. Copperhead! I’m blaspheming the dead. Caleb lost an eye at Second Bull Run... I know — I’m senile. That’s what I’ve been telling myself.”
“Just what was it you suspected, Doc?” Ellery forbore to smile now, but only because of Dr. Strong’s evident distress.
“Didn’t know what to suspect,” said the country doctor shortly. “Fooled around with the notion of an autopsy, but the Atwells wouldn’t hear of it. Said I was a blame jackass to think a man of ninety-seven would die of anything but old age. I found myself agreeing with ’em. The upshot was we buried Caleb whole.”
“But Doc, at that age the human economy can go to pieces without warning like the one-hoss shay. You must have had another reason for uneasiness. A motive you knew about?”
“Well... maybe.”
“He was a rich man,” said Nikki.
“He didn’t have a pot he could call his own,” said Doc Strong. “But somebody stood to gain by his death just the same. That is, if the old yarn’s true... You see, there’s been kind of a legend in Jacksburg about those three old fellows, Mr. Queen. I first heard it when I was running around barefoot with my tail hanging out. Folks said then, and they’re still saying it, that back in ’65 Caleb and Zach and Ab, who were in the same company, found some sort of treasure.”
“Treasure...” Nikki began to cough.
“Treasure,” repeated Doc Strong doggedly. “Fetched it home to Jacksburg with them, the story goes, hid it, and swore they’d never tell a living soul where it was buried. Now there’s lots of tales like that came out of the War—” he fixed Nikki with a stern “—and glittering eye and most folks either cough or go into hysterics, but there’s something about this one I’ve always half-believed. So I’m senile on two counts. Just the same, I’ll breathe a lot easier when tomorrow’s ceremonies are over and Zach Bigelow lays Caleb Atwell’s bugle away till next year. As the oldest survivor Zach does the tootling tomorrow.”
“They hid the treasure and kept it hidden for considerably over half a century?” Ellery was smiling again. “Doesn’t strike me as a very sensible thing to do with a treasure, Doc. It’s only sensible if the treasure is imaginary. Then you don’t have to produce it.”
“The story goes,” mumbled Jacksburg’s mayor, “that they’d sworn an oath—”
“Not to touch any of it until they all died but one,” said Ellery, laughing outright now. “Last-survivor-takes-all Department. Doc, that’s the way most of these fairy tales go.” Ellery rose, yawning. “I think I hear the featherbed in that other guest room calling. Nikki, your eyeballs are hanging out. Take my advice, Doc, and follow suit. You haven’t a thing to worry about but keeping the kids quiet tomorrow while you read the Gettysburg Address!”
As it turned out, the night shared prominently in Doc Martin Strong’s Memorial Day responsibilities. Ellery and Nikki awakened to a splendid world, risen from its night’s ablutions with a shining eye and a scrubbed look; and they went downstairs within seconds of each other to find the mayor of Jacksburg puttering about the kitchen.
“Morning, morning,” said Doc Strong, welcoming but abstracted. “Just fixing things for your breakfast before catching an hour’s nap.”
“You lamb,” said Nikki. “But what a shame, Doctor. Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
“Didn’t sleep at all. Tossed around a bit and just as I was dropping off my phone rings and it’s Cissy Chase. Emergency sick call.”
“Cissy Chase.” Ellery looked at their host. “Wasn’t Chase the name you mentioned last night—?”
“Old Abner Chase’s great-granddaughter. That’s right, Mr. Queen. Cissy’s an orphan and Ab’s only kin. She’s kept house for the old fellow and taken care of him since she was ten.” Doc Strong’s shoulders sloped.
Ellery said peculiarly: “It was old Abner...?”
“I was up with Ab all night. This morning, at six thirty, he passed away.”
“On Memorial Day!” Nikki sounded like a little girl in her first experience with a fact of life.
There was a silence, fretted by the sizzling of Doc Strong’s bacon.
Ellery said at last, “What did Abner Chase die of?”
“Apoplexy.”
“A stroke?”
Doc Strong looked at him. He seemed angry. But then he shook his head. “I’m no Mayo brother, Mr. Queen, and I suppose there’s a lot about the practice of medicine I’ll never get to learn, but I do know a cerebral hemorrhage when I see one, and that’s what Ab Chase died of. In a man of ninety-four, that’s as close to natural death as you can come... No, there wasn’t any funny business in this one.”
“Except,” mumbled Ellery, “that — again — it happened on Memorial Day.”
“Man’s a contrary animal. Tell him lies and he swallows ’em whole. Give him the truth and he gags on it. Maybe the Almighty gets tired of His thankless job every once in an eon and cuts loose with a little joke.” But Doc Strong said it as if he were addressing, not them, but himself. “Any special way you like your eggs?”
“Leave the eggs to me, Doctor,” Nikki said firmly. “You go on up those stairs and get some sleep.”
“Reckon I better if I’m to do my usual dignified job today,” said the mayor of Jacksburg with a sigh. “Though Abner Chase’s death is going to make the proceedings solemner than ordinary. Bill Yoder says he’s not going to be false to an ancient and honorable profession by doing a hurry-up job undertaking Ab, and maybe that’s just as well. If we added the Chase funeral to today’s program, even old Abe’s immortal words would find it hard to compete! By the way, Mr. Queen, I talked to Lew Bagley this morning and he’ll have your car ready in an hour. Special service, seeing you’re guests of the mayor.” Doc Strong chuckled. “When you planning to leave?”
“I was intending...” Ellery stopped with a frown. Nikki regarded him with a sniffish look. She had already learned to detect the significance of certain signs peculiar to the Queen physiognomy. “I wonder,” murmured Ellery, “how Zach Bigelow’s going to take the news.”
“He’s already taken it, Mr. Queen. Stopped in at Andy Bigelow’s place on my way home. Kind of a detour, but I figured I’d better break the news to Zach early as possible.”
“Poor thing,” said Nikki. “I wonder how it feels to learn you’re the only one left.” She broke an egg.
“Can’t say Zach carried on about it,” said Doc Strong dryly. “About all he said, as I recall, was: ‘Doggone it, now who’s goin’ to lay the wreath after I toot the bugle!’ I guess when you reach the age of ninety-five, death don’t mean what it does to young squirts of sixty-three like me. What time’d you say you were leaving, Mr. Queen?”