She emptied her glass and started back to the sideboard.
“There was a lot of junk in it I couldn’t understand,” she said over her shoulder, “along with the proofs of those opening-day ads, and things like the bill of sale for that pipe organ-which still works, incidentally. And then there was a sheet of ruled paper torn from a notebook without any heading, and I got a real fluttery pulse when I saw what it was.”
She selected a paper from the open dispatch case and brought it back.
“It’s a list of purchases of old Spanish money. The first time this trick was pulled it didn’t have to amount to much or look particularly authentic. Then as the summer went on, people began to get suspicious, and by the time Jethroe was ready, his map had to be very good, the treasure had to be genuine and of the right period, and there had to be lots and lots of it. There weren’t many real doubloons on the market, though of course the same coins were used over and over. As soon as one promoter milked all the publicity out of them, he sold them to another, at a nice advance in price. Now look.”
She sat on the arm of Shayne’s chair, her breast against his shoulder, and with a pointed fingernail ticked off the abbreviations on the top line. “July 6, twenty-seven eight-escudo gold pieces, seven thousand dollars. Then that word ‘Ort.’ That’s not an exotic kind of coin, it’s a man’s name, Charles Ort, the man who ran the Key Largo promotion!”
The fingers of her free hand were in Shayne’s rough red hair. “Now August 17. More doubloons from another promoter. September 6, a chest, New Orleans, fifteen hundred. A gold chain, New York, seven thousand. Some chain! Next line. More doubloons, some bar silver, Havana, C. T.-who can that be but Cal Tuttle, Daddy was going back and forth all the time-eighteen thousand. Mike, eighteen thousand! ‘Objects, seven thousand.’ Admit it, you’re impressed, aren’t you?”
“I’m impressed,” Shayne said. “How much does it total, around seventy-five?”
“Over. That’s a lot of money for a gimmick, but he only expected to tie it up for a few weeks, with the value going up all the time. Naturally I’ve tried to find out how much it would be worth today. A Philip V doubloon in good condition, costing say two hundred in 1925, will set you back a thousand now. A silver piece-of-eight brings about a hundred, and Jethroe paid twenty-five. And how about that gold chain? Those ‘objects’? There’s no way of knowing. Quarrels of Florida-American had an expert go over the list. He thinks four hundred thousand would be a pretty close guess.”
“It’s a long way from a million,” Shayne said.
“No, it isn’t really. Companies like Florida-American never put much of their own money into one of these things. Four hundred thousand would more than cover their cash outlay. And here’s the part they couldn’t resist. They’ll come out ahead whether or not they dig up the treasure. We aren’t giving them any guarantees, after all. We’ve had some bad storms since 1925, and maybe the chest has been swept out to sea. They’ll still get their money’s worth in publicity. Don’t tell me this story won’t sell real estate. Back in 1925 you could show people a map like this and they’d believe a pirate named Gasparilla rowed ashore with a band of cutthroats one dark night in the early 1800’s and buried a chest of gold. We’re more sophisticated today. But tell us that a crooked real-estate promoter rowed ashore one dark night in 1925 and buried a chest of gold to swindle the suckers of his day-”
“It’s an up-to-date version of the original swindle.”
“Isn’t it! Mike Shayne, you deserve another drink. And we have so much more than just the map. We have this cost sheet. The newspaper ads that never ran. A photostat of the story about Jethroe’s death. And one other thing I haven’t shown you yet.”
She left him for another quick visit to the dispatch case, and brought back a faded yellow sheet of copy paper. “This is the first draft of the press release on the finding of the treasure.” She gave it to Shayne. “Now be careful with it. Not that I don’t have a Xerox copy in the safe-deposit box, but it’s the color, the feel of the paper-”
She waited till he had read the story. The name of the finder had been left blank, probably because he hadn’t been hired at the time the story was written.
“The interesting thing is the release date,” Barbara said. “That’s a Thursday. The formal opening was scheduled for Tuesday. Jethroe was killed late Monday night. There just aren’t any holes in it!”
Shayne scraped his jaw. “You don’t think it’s almost too good?”
Her mouth tightened. “You bastard, what do you mean by that?”
“It has a certain smell,” Shayne said slowly. “I’m just wondering who’s being swindled. You couldn’t get anything definite out of the map?”
“That’s the whole point-it couldn’t be too precise. The treasure was going to be found first. Then the map would turn up. There’s no north-south orientation, and the coast line is just a squiggle. And those folds. Jethroe had to convince the customers that the map and the treasure weren’t necessarily connected. If this was a pirate hideout, doesn’t it stand to reason that they buried more than one chest of doubloons? Not only that. Things have changed shape since 1925. One whole neck was washed away in the ’35 hurricane. And look at this.” Her finger touched a spot partially concealed by the brown stain. “You’re supposed to take a sighting here from a point thirty paces southeast of a big buttonwood tree. There aren’t any buttonwood trees left on the Key. Eda Lou found some old photographs that showed a big tree about there, and she figured out what she thought was the best place to dig. I told you I dug a hole myself. And that crazy Brad paid no attention to the map at all and bought an army-surplus mine detector. He detected a lot of miscellaneous junk before he quit.”
“Kitty wasn’t in on the digging?”
“I should say not. I wanted to keep it between me and Eda Lou, but the dear old soul didn’t think she could trust me, for some reason. We called a meeting of the real heirs, everybody but Kitty. We decided to cut Eda Lou in for a twentieth because she found the map. Which was generous of us,” she added, raising her voice. “After Brad got nowhere with the mine detector we made a priority list of likely spots and brought a man in with a backhoe. He must have thought we were insane. Then I happened to meet Mr. Quarrels at an art auction, and he saw possibilities right away. If you were Jethroe, how deep would you put the chest? No deeper than three feet, or a man digging a privy wouldn’t hit it. Florida-American will come in with their bulldozers. They’ll rip out the mangroves, and those roots go down further than three feet. By the time they’re finished grading and filling, the chances are they’ll find it. If not, they’ll bring in an article writer and let him write the story and sell it to a national magazine. People will figure that maybe Jethroe buried the chest three and a half feet deep, and if they buy a piece of attractive ocean frontage, it could be on their land. This is going to be a fast-growing community, Mike.”
She clenched her fists, her face suddenly ugly. “And the whole thing depends on Kitty!”
chapter 10
The phone clanged.
The strained look stayed on Barbara’s face for only an instant longer. A smile took its place.