"Then you have witnesses to where the treasure is buried."
She replied, "The traditional pirate method of insuring secrecy is to kill the person who dug the hole and throw him in. Then the captain and his trusted mate fill the hole. It was believed that the ghost of the murdered seaman haunted the treasure. In fact, skeletons have been found buried with treasure chests."
"Presumptive evidence of homicide," I said.
She continued, "As I mentioned, Kidd's crew at this point may have been reduced to six or seven. If he trusted at least one to watch the ship and the crew and his family, he could easily row to any bay or inlet and bury a chest of treasure himself. It's not a major engineering project to dig a hole in the sand. The old movies usually show a big party going ashore, but depending on the size of the chest, you only need one or two people." nodded, "A lot of our perception of history is influenced by inaccurate movies."
"That's probably right," Emma said. "But one thing in the movies is pretty accurate — all treasure hunting starts with the discovery of a long-lost map. We sell them for four bucks downstairs, but they've sold for tens of thousands of dollars to gullible people over the centuries."
I mulled this over, thinking that it may have been one of these maps — a real one — that had somehow come into the possession of Tom and Judy, and/or Fredric Tobin. I said to Emma, "You mentioned that Gardiners Island was once called the Isle of Wight."
"Yes."
"Are there other islands around here that once had other names?"
"Sure. All the islands initially had Indian names, obviously. Then some acquired Dutch or English names." She added, "And even those changed over the years. There was a real problem with geographic place names in the New World. Some English sea captains had only Dutch maps, some had maps showing the wrong name for an island or river, for instance, and the spelling was atrocious, and some maps simply had blanks and some had purposely misleading information."
I nodded and said, "Let's take, for instance, Robins Island or, say, Plum Island. What were they called in Kidd's day?"
"I'm not sure about Robins Island, but Plum Island was the same, except spelled P-L-U-M-B-E. This came from the earlier Dutch name for Plum Island, which was spelled P-R-U-Y-M E-Y-L-A-N-D." She added, "There could have been an even earlier name, and someone like William Kidd, who hadn't been to sea for years before he accepted this commission from Bellomont, may have had or purchased navigation charts that were decades old. That was not uncommon." She went on, "A pirate's treasure map, which would be drawn from a chart, could start with some inaccuracies. And you have to remember there are not many authentic treasure maps in existence today, so it's hard to draw any conclusions about the general accuracy of buried-treasure maps. It depended on the pirate himself. Some were really stupid."
I smiled.
She continued, "If the pirate chose not to draw a map, then the chances are much smaller of finding a treasure based on his written instructions. For instance, suppose you found a parchment that said, 'On Pruym Eyland, I buried my treasure — from Eagle Rock go thirty paces to the twin oaks, thence, forty paces due south' and so on. If you couldn't figure out where Pruym Eyland was, you had a major problem. If research said Pruym Eyland was once the name for Plum Island, then you have to find the rock that everyone at that time knew was Eagle Rock. And forget the oaks. You see?"
"I do."
After a bit, Emma said to me, "Archivists are sort of like detectives, too. Can I make a guess?"
"Sure."
She thought a moment, then said, "Okay… the Gordons got on to some information about Captain Kidd's treasure, or maybe some other pirate's treasure, and then someone else found out about it, and that's why the Gordons were murdered." She looked at me. "Am I right?"
I said, "Something like that. I'm working on the details."
"Did the Gordons actually retrieve the treasure?"
"I'm not sure."
She didn't press me.
I asked, "How would the Gordons have tumbled on to that information? I mean, I don't see any files here marked 'Pirate Treasure Maps.' Right?"
"Right. The only pirate treasure maps here are in the gift shop. There are, however, a lot of documents here and in the other museums and historical societies that are still unread, or if read, their significance is not understood. You understand?"
"I do."
She continued, "You know, John, people who haunt archives like the Public Records Office in London, or the British Museum, find new things that other people either missed or didn't understand. So, yes, there may be information here or in other collections or in private homes."
"Private homes?"
"Yes, at least once a year we get something donated that was turned up in an old house. Like a will or an old deed. My guess — and this is only a guess — is that someone like the Gordons, who were not professional archivists or historians, simply stumbled on to something that was so obvious that even they could understand what it was."
"Like a map?"
"Yes, like a map that clearly shows a recognizable piece of geography, and gives landmarks, directions, paces, compass headings, and the whole works. If they had something like that, they could pretty much go right to the spot and dig." She reflected a moment, then said, "The Gordons did a lot of archaeological digging on Plum Island…maybe they were really looking for treasure."
"No maybes about it."
She looked at me a long time, then said, "From what I hear, they had holes dug all over the island. That doesn't sound like they knew what or where — "
"The archaeological digs were cover. It gave them the ability to walk around remote parts of the island with shovels. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the archival work wasn't also a cover."
"Why?"
"They wouldn't be allowed to keep anything they found on Plum Island. It's government land. So they had to create a legend of their own. The legend of how Tom and Judy Gordon saw something in the archives — here or in London — that mentioned Captain Kidd's Trees, or Captain Kidd's Ledges, and, they would later claim, this got them to thinking about hunting for the treasure." I added, "In reality, they already knew the treasure was on Plum Island."
"Incredible."
"Yes, but you have to work the problem backwards. Start with an authentic map or written directions that pinpoint a treasure on Plum Island. Let's say you had this information in your possession. What would you, Emma Whitestone, do?"
She didn't think about it long before she said, "I'd simply turn the information over to the government. This is an important historical document, and the treasure, if any, is historically important. If it's located on Plum Island, then it should be found on Plum Island. To do otherwise is not only dishonest, it's also a historical hoax."
"History is full of lies, deceit, and hoaxes. That's how the treasure got there to begin with. Why not just pull off another hoax? Finders keepers. Right?"
"No. If the treasure is on anyone else's land — even the government's — then they own it. If I discovered its whereabouts, I would accept a reward."
I smiled.
She looked at me. "What would you do?"
"Well… in the spirit of Captain Kidd, I'd try to cut a deal. I wouldn't just turn the location over to the person whose land is represented on the map. It would be fair to trade the secret for a share. Even Uncle Sam will make a deal."
She thought about that and said, "I suppose." She added, "Only that's not what the Gordons did."
"No. The Gordons had a partner or partners who I believe was more larcenous than they were. And probably murderous, too. Really, we don't know what the Gordons were up to, or what they intended, because they wound up dead. We can assume they began with hard information about the location of a treasure on Plum Island, and everything we see them do after that is simply a deliberate and clever ruse — the Peconic Historical Society, the archaeological digs, the archive work, even the week in the Public Records Office in London — it's all in preparation for the transportation and reburial of the treasure from Uncle Sam land to Gordon land."