“Hey?” The old man turned his trembling head, glaring. “Speak up, bub. Ye’re mumblin’.”
“General Bigelow,” shouted Ellery, “now that all the money is yours, what will you do with it?”
“Hey? Money?”
“The treasure, Gramp,” roared Andy Bigelow. “They’ve even heard about it in New York. What you goin’ to do with it, he wants to know?”
“Does, does he?” Old Zach sounded grimly amused. “Can’t talk, Andy. Hurts m’ neck.”
“How much does it amount to, General?” cried Ellery.
Old Zach eyed him. “Mighty nosy, ain’t ye?” Then he cackled. “Last time we counted it — Caleb, Ab, and me — came to nigh on a million dollars. Yes, sir, one million dollars.” The old man’s left eye, startlingly, drooped. “Goin’ to be a big surprise to the smart-alecks and the doubtin’ Thomases. You wait an’ see.”
“According to Cissy,” Nikki murmured to Doc Strong, “Abner Chase said it was only two hundred thousand.”
“Zach makes it more every time he talks about it,” said the mayor.
“I heard ye, Martin Strong!” yelled Zach Bigelow, swiveling his twig of a neck so suddenly that Nikki winced, expecting it to snap. “You wait! I’ll show ye, ye durn whippersnapper, who’s a lot o’ wind!”
“Now, Zach,” said Doc Strong pacifyinglу. “Save your wind for that bugle.”
Zach Bigelow cackled and clutched the musette bag in his lap, glaring ahead in triumph, as if he had scored a great victory.
Ellery said no more. Oddly, he kept staring not at old Zach but at Andy Bigelow, who sat beside his grandfather grinning at invisible audiences along the empty countryside as if he, too, had won — or was on his way to winning — a triumph.
The sun was hot. Men shucked their coats and women fanned themselves with handkerchiefs.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated...”
Children dodged among the graves, pursued by shushing mothers. On most of the graves were fresh flowers.
“...that from these honored dead...”
Little American flags protruded from the graves, too.
“...gave the last full measure of devotion...”
Doc Martin Strong’s voice was deep and sure, not at all like the voice of that tall ugly man, who had spoken the same words apologetically.
“...that these dead shall not have died in vain...”
Doc was standing on the pedestal of the Civil War Monument, which was decorated with flags and bunting and faced the weathered stone ranks like a commander in full-dress.
“...that this nation, under God...”
A color guard of the American Legion, Jacksburg Post, stood at attention between the mayor and the people. A file of Legionnaires carrying old Sharps rifles faced the graves.
“...and that government of the people...”
Beside the mayor, disdaining the wrestler’s shoulder of his simian grandson, stood General Zach Bigelow. Straight as the barrel of a Sharps, musette bag held tightly.
“...shall not perish from the earth”
The old man nodded impatiently. He began to fumble with the bag.
“Comp’ny! Present — arms!”
“Go ahead, Gramp!” Andy Bigelow bellowed.
The old man muttered. He was having difficulty extricating the bugle from the bag.
“Here, lemme give ye a hand!”
“Let the old man alone, Andy,” said the mayor of Jacksburg quietly. “We’re in no hurry.”
Finally the bugle was free. It was an old army bugle, as old as Zach Bigelow, dented and scarred.
The old man raised it to his lips.
Now his hands were not shaking.
Now even the children were quiet.
And the old man began to play taps.
It could hardly have been called playing. He blew, and out of the bugle’s bell came cracked sounds. And sometimes he blew and no sounds came out at all. Then the veins of his neck swelled and his face turned to burning bark. Or he sucked at the mouthpiece, in and out, to clear it of his spittle. But still he blew, and the trees in the burying ground nodded in the warm breeze, and the people stood at attention, listening, as if the butchery of sound were sweet music.
And then, suddenly, the butchery faltered. Old Zach Bigelow stood with bulging eyes. The bugle fell to the pedestal with a tinny clatter.
For an instant everything seemed to stop — the slight movements of the children, the breathing of the people.
Then into the vacuum rushed a murmur of horror, and Nikki unbelievingly opened the eyes which she had shut to glimpse the last of Jacksburg’s G.A.R. veterans crumpling to the feet of Doc Strong and Andy Bigelow...
“You were right the first time, Doc,” Ellery said.
They were in Andy Bigelow’s house, where old Zach’s body had been taken from the cemetery. The house was full of chittering women and scampering children, but in this room there were only a few, and they talked in low tones. The old man was laid out on a settee with a patchwork quilt over him. Doc Strong sat in a rocker beside the body.
“It’s my fault,” he mumbled. “I didn’t examine Caleb’s mouth last year. I didn’t examine the mouthpiece of the bugle. It’s my fault.”
Ellery soothed him. “It’s not an easy poison to spot, Doc, as you know. And after all, the whole thing was so ludicrous. You’d have caught it in autopsy, but the Atwells laughed you out of it.”
“They’re all gone. All three.” Doc Strong looked up fiercely. “Who poisoned that bugle?”
“God Almighty, don’t look at me,” said Andy Bigelow. “Anybody could of, Doc.”
“Anybody, Andy?” the mayor cried. “When Caleb Atwell died, Zach took the bugle and it’s been in this house for a year!”
“Anybody could of,” said Bigelow stubbornly. “The bugle was hangin’ over the fireplace and anybody could of snuck in durin’ the night... Anyway, it wasn’t here before old Caleb died; he had it up to last Memorial Day. Who poisoned it in his house?”
“We won’t get anywhere on this tack, Doc,” Ellery murmured. “Bigelow. Did your grandfather ever let on where that Civil War treasure is?”
“Suppose he did,” The man licked his lips, blinking, as if he had been surprised into the half-admission. “What’s it to you?”
“That money is behind the murders, Bigelow.”
“Don’t know nothin’ about that. Anyway, nobody’s got no right to that money but me.” Andy Bigelow spread his thick chest. “When Ab Chase died, Gramp was the last survivor. That money was Zach Bigelow’s. I’m his next o’ kin, so now it’s mine!”
“You know where it’s hid, Andy.” Doc was on his feet, eyes glittering.
“I ain’t talkin’. Git outen my house!”
“I’m the law in Jacksburg, too, Andy,” Doc said softly. “This is a murder case. Where’s that money?”
Bigelow laughed.
“You didn’t know, Bigelow, did you?” said Ellery.
“Course not.” He laughed again. “See, Doc? He’s on your side, and he says I don’t know, too.”
“That is,” said Ellery, “until a few minutes ago.”
Bigelow’s grin faded. “What are ye talkin’ about?”
“Zach Bigelow wrote a message this morning, immediately after Doc Strong told him about Abner Chase’s death.”
Bigelow’s face went ashen.
“And your grandfather sealed the message in an envelope—”
“Who told ye that?” yelled Bigelow.
“One of your children. And the first thing you did when we got home from the burying ground with your grandfather’s corpse was to sneak up to the old man’s bedroom. Hand it over.”
Bigelow made two fists. Then he laughed again. “All right, I’ll let ye see it. Hell, I’ll let ye dig the money up for me! Why not? It’s mine by law. Here, read it. See? He wrote my name on the envelope!”