He smiled. “Had you observed my inspection of the orchard more carefully this morning, instead of prowling about among the trees, you yourself might have set your sights on the solution!”
I sprawled in a chair with a sigh of resignation. “Enlighten me, please! I watched you crawling around but I saw nothing except rotting apples and tufts of bunch grass.”
Giving his bag a final tug, Leffing sat down. “You know my methods, Brennan. You have the basic facts. Come, come, you must have some inkling, at least, of the solution!”
I shook my head. “I don’t have even the inkling of an inkling! Stop tormenting me, Leffing! What did you discover in the orchard?”
“I discovered what I should have noticed the first time we visited the orchard. That frisky squirrel, whose acorn burying we interrupted, put me off the scent!”
“What in blazes has the squirrel to do with anything?”
“The first time we looked about the orchard, I observed that in a few spots the turf appeared to have been torn up and then patted back into place. When I saw the squirrel secreting his acorn, or whatever it was, I concluded that all the little areas of disturbed turf could be blamed on the squirrel or his cohorts. This was foolish. I did not finally understand the significance of these broken patches until I had inspected the old man’s shack, talked with Mrs. Conliff — and made a second careful tour of the orchard.”
I groaned. “I still don’t see a glimmer of light.”
“You will recall, Brennan, that I mentioned the treasure-hunting books and leaflets which I found in the shack books about buried pirate jewels, gold mines and so on, and pamphlets describing equipment and devices which might be used in a search for such things?”
“Yes, I remember that.” I told him.
“Among the various pamphlets I noticed a recent sales catalogue issued by a company which specializes in mineral and metal detecting devices. Some of these devices are relatively light and portable, easily carried by one person.
“The discovery of this sales catalogue meant little to me until our talk with Mrs. Conliff. Her remarks convinced me that the murdered man was carrying something in his sack when he walked past her house toward the orchard.
“I was still uncertain that these circumstances held any meaning until our second trip to the apple orchard. I then observed what I should have seen the first time; that a good number of the broken turf patches were definitely not caused by a busy squirrel’s paws! In places the turf had been cut through in a straight line, and then carefully replaced. I submit that no squirrel could accomplish that!”
“You are saying, then, that old Selk had gone over the orchard with a mineral-detecting device?”
Leffing shook his head. “Not mineral, Brennan, metal! There are no worthwhile mineral deposits in this area.”
I frowned. “But what could he find? You said yourself that the only building which ever existed in the apple orchard was a schoolhouse which burned down half a century ago.”
“The long handle, on the newer models at least, disassembles into two or three sections. The disassembled handle, transmitter-receiver disc and battery box, could easily fit into an average-sized sack.”
“Do you think Amery trailed Selk to the orchard deliberately with the intention of seizing whatever the old man found?”
“Possibly — but I doubt it. No one in Cresswood, including Chief Warwick, seemed aware that Selk possessed a detector. Apparently the old man always carried it in a sack and used it only in out-of-the-way places which were not easily visible from the road.”
Leffing paused and resumed. “I think your Amery was just rambling around the orchard, probably filling his pockets with a few of the better apples, when Selk appeared with his detector. Unquestionably the detector fascinated Amery. He was probably quite friendly with the old gentleman — until Selk refused to hand over the nickel!”
Shortly after our return to New Haven, we learned that Leffing’s conjectures were entirely correct. After sulking for a few hours, young Amery finally confessed that he had strangled Selk when the old man stubbornly declined to sell him the nickel for five dollars. After taking the rare coin, he had disassembled the detector, stuffed it in the sack and pitched it down a deep gully about a mile away. Subsequently he had returned to Cresswood unobserved via various back roads and fields.
Following his confession, he led a searching party to the gully where he had tossed the sack. After some difficulty, the green canvas bag was located. Inside police found the disassembled detector along with an old chisel which Selk had apparently used for turf cutting and digging.
A few evenings after the confession, I lounged in an antique chair in Leffing’s gas-lit Victorian living-room at Seven Autumn Street while my friend stood at the sideboard, pouring two glasses of choice Folle Blanche cognac, cask-mellowed for thirty years.
“It’s certainly ironical,” I commented, “that after a lifetime of foolishness and failure, poor old Selk should have been strangled to death when he at last — literally — held a fortune in his hands!”
Leffing turned. “I have found, Brennan, that irony is one of the few consistent elements in many sad lives!”
I accepted a brandy with a shake of my head. “I don’t deserve this, you know — your best brandy. I advised you not to take the case and I’m afraid I discouraged you all the way!”
“On the contrary, Brennan! Your presence proved invaluable! And don’t concern yourself about my cognac supply. I have no doubt Mrs. Kelvin’s check will replenish my stock many times over!”
“Exactly right. I had hoped for a farmhouse, but I had to settle for a schoolhouse! However, I persisted. I reasoned that children running about near a schoolhouse over fifty years ago could have dropped coins which, though of little worth then, might have become quite valuable over the years. Apparently the same idea struck old Selk. At various times he must have talked to elderly residents of the town who mentioned the old schoolhouse.”
“How did you proceed from that point?”
“I telephoned the company which issued the sales catalogue and learned that Selk had indeed ordered a metal-detector from them only a few months ago. He was paying for it by the installment plan, incidentally, and was already in arrears on his payments.
“I then began telephoning coin dealers in nearby towns. After several unsuccessful tries, I spoke to a dealer in Manchester who told me that a young man from Cresswood, Charles Amery — a strapping six-footer — had walked into his shop with a coin which, as he expressed it, ‘made his head spin’!”
“What on earth was it?”
“A 1913 Liberty-head nickel!”
Leffing smiled at the blank look which spread over my face on hearing this.
“Until this latest find, Brennan, only five 1913 Liberty-head nickels were known to exist. There were all minted by mistake. They are, obviously, incredibly rare.”
“What are they worth?”
“One of them sold in 1972 for $100,000!”
“Surely you are pulling my leg, Leffing!”
“Absolutely not. The dealer in Manchester was stunned. Of course he didn’t have funds on hand to purchase the coin. Also, in view of the coin’s scarcity, he was immediately suspicious that it might have been stolen. Young Amery, an avid coin collector by the way, told him that he had found the nickel underneath a rotting board which he was replacing in his father’s barn.
“The dealer gave him a signed receipt for the coin, a down payment of one thousand dollars, and locked the coin in his safe. Amery, who was well aware of the value of the coin, insisted on eighty percent of the sum which the coin will bring in at a future auction or private sale, whichever takes place.”