I asked, “What happened to the treasure on Gardiners Island?”
“Well, somehow—and the stories here differ—it came to the attention of Bellomont, who sent John Gardiner a nice letter by special messenger….” She pulled a reproduction toward her and read, “ ‘Mr. Gardiner, I have secured Captain Kidd in the gaol of this town and some of his men. He has been examined by myself and the Council and has confessed among other things that he left with you a parcel of gold made up in a box and some other parcels besides, all of which I require you in his Majesty’s name immediately to fetch hither to me that I may secure them for his Majesty’s use, and I shall recompense your pains in coming hither. Signed, Bellomont.’ ”
Emma handed me the letter, and I glanced at it. I could actually make out some of it. Incredible, I thought, that stuff like this survived three centuries. It occurred to me that maybe some other three-hundred-year-old document regarding the location of more of Kidd’s treasure had led to the murder of two twentieth-century scientists.
I said to Emma, “I hope John Gardiner sent a letter back to Bellomont saying, ‘What Kidd? What gold?”’
She smiled. “No, John, Gardiner wasn’t about to cross the governor and the king. He duly carried the treasure to Boston himself.”
“I’ll bet you he kept some of it.”
Emma pushed a piece of paper toward me and said, “That is a photostat of the original inventory of the treasure delivered by John Gardiner to Lord Bellomont. The original is in the Public Records Office in London.”
I looked at the photostat of the original, which was ripped in places and totally indecipherable to me. I pushed it back to Emma. “Can you actually read that?”
“I can.” She held the photostat up to the lamp and read, “ ‘Received the 17th July of Mr. John Gardiner—one bag dust gold, one bag coined gold and silver, one parcel dust gold, one bag three silver rings and sundry precious stones, one bag of unpolished stones, one parcel of crystal and bazer stone, two carnelian rings, two small agates, two amethysts all in the same bag, one bag silver buttons, one bag broken silver, two bags gold bars, and two bags silver bars. The whole of the gold abovementioned is eleven hundred and eleven ounces, Troy weight. The silver is two thousand, three hundred fifty-three ounces, the jewels and precious stones’ weight are seventeen ounces….’ ”
Emma looked up from the inventory and said, “This is a good-sized treasure, but if you believe the Mogul’s claim to the British government, then there was twenty times more gold and jewels still missing than had so far been recovered on Gardiners Island or seized on the San Antonio and in Kidd’s Boston lodgings.” She smiled at me and asked, “Okay, Detective, where is the rest of the loot, booty, and plunder?”
I smiled in return. “Okay … a third is still in the Caribbean.”
“Yes. That treasure, which is well documented, disappeared and has spawned a hundred Caribbean legends to match the hundred legends here.”
“Okay … also, the crew got their share before they all jumped ship.”
“Yes, but the whole of the crew’s share would not have been more than ten percent of the total treasure. That’s the deal.”
“Plus medical and dental benefits.”
“Where’s the rest of the treasure?”
“Well, we can assume John Gardiner skimmed a little.”
“We might assume that.”
“The lawyer, Emmot, got his, for sure.”
She nodded.
“How much is left?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? Estimates range anywhere between five and ten million of today’s dollars unaccounted for. But, as I said, the treasure, if found in situ, rotted chest and all, would be worth double or triple its intrinsic value if it were auctioned at Sotheby’s.” She added, “The treasure map alone, if it existed and if it was in Kidd’s handwriting, would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction.”
“How much do you get for the maps in the gift shop?”
“Four dollars.”
“They’re not authentic?”
She smiled and finished her tea.
I said, “We’re assuming that Kidd buried treasure in one or more other locations as insurance, as a bargaining point to buy his freedom and keep himself from the gallows.”
“That’s always been the assumption. If he buried some treasure at Gardiners Island, then he probably buried some elsewhere for the same reason.” She added, “Captain Kidd’s Trees and Captain Kidd’s Ledges.”
I said to her, “I went to see Captain Kidd’s Trees.”
“Did you?”
“I think I found the place, but they’re all cut down.”
“Yes, there were still a few big oaks standing around the turn of the century. They’re all gone now.” She added, “People used to dig around the stumps.”
I said, “You can still see some of the stumps.”
Emma informed me, “In colonial times, digging for pirate treasure became such a national obsession that Ben Franklin wrote newspaper pieces against it. As late as the 1930s, people were still digging around here.” She added, “The craze has almost entirely disappeared, but it’s part of the local culture here, which is why I didn’t want anyone in the Cutchogue Diner to hear us talking about buried treasure. Half the damned town would have been dug up by now.” She grinned.
“Amazing.” I asked Emma, “So Kidd’s buried treasure was supposed to be his life insurance. Why didn’t it save him from the gallows?”
“Because of a variety of misunderstandings, bad luck, vindictiveness. For one thing, no one in Boston or London believed Kidd could recover the loot in the Caribbean, and they were probably right. That was long gone. Also, you had the mogul’s complaint and the political problem. Then Kidd himself was playing it cute. He was holding out for a full pardon from the king in exchange for turning over the plunder. But the king and the others may have felt that to protect the British East India Company they had to return the plunder to the Mogul so they had no interest in pardoning Kidd in exchange for the location of the loot. They would rather hang Kidd, which they did.”
“Did Kidd say anything about the hidden treasure at his trial?”
“Nothing. There are transcripts of the trial, and you can see that Kidd realized he was going to be hanged no matter what he did or said. I think he accepted this and decided as a last act of spite to take any secrets he had to the grave with him.”
“Or, he told his wife.”
“That’s a strong possibility. She had some money of her own, but she seemed to live quite well after her husband’s death.”
“They all do.”
“No sexist remarks, please. Tell me what happened to the treasure.”
I replied, “I don’t have enough information. The clues are old. Yet, I would make the assumption that there was still some treasure buried somewhere.”
“Do you think Kidd told his wife where all of it was?”
I reflected on this a moment, then replied, “Kidd knew that his wife could also be arrested, and she might be made to talk. So … I think at first he didn’t tell her, but by the time he was in the slammer in Boston and was about to be shipped out to London, he probably gave her a few clues. Like that eight-digit number.”
Emma nodded. “It’s always been assumed that Sarah Kidd managed to recover some of the treasure. But I don’t think Kidd would have told her where all of it was because if she were arrested and made to talk, then any slim chance that Kidd had of trading buried treasure for his life would have been lost.” She added, “I really think he took the location of some buried treasure to the grave with him.”
I said, “Did they torture Kidd?”
“No,” she replied, “and people have always wondered why they didn’t. In those days, they tortured people for much less reason.” She added, “A lot of the Kidd story never made sense.”
“If I’d been around, I’d have made sense of it all.”
“If you had been around then, they’d
have hanged you as a troublemaker.”
“Be nice, Emma.”
I processed all this information and played with it awhile. I again thought about Charles Wilson’s detailed letter to his brother, and I asked Emma, “Do you think Kidd could recall from memory all the locations of where he’d buried his treasure? Is that possible?”
“Probably not.” She added, “Bellomont did look for evidence of hidden treasure and recovered some papers from Kidd’s Boston lodgings and from the San Antonio, but there were no maps or locations of buried treasure among the papers—or if there were, Bellomont kept it to himself. I should mention that Bellomont died before Kidd was hanged in London, so if Bellomont had any of Kidd’s treasure maps, they may have disappeared on Bellomont’s death.” She said to me, “So, you see, John, there are lots of little clues and hints and inconsistencies. People who have an interest in this have been playing historical detective for centuries.” She smiled at me and asked, “So, do you have it figured out?”
“Not yet. I need a few more minutes.”
“Take as long as you need. Meanwhile, I need a drink. Let’s go.”
“Hold on. I get to ask a few more questions.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“Okay … I’m Captain Kidd, and I’ve been sailing around Long Island Sound for … how long?”
“A few weeks.”
“Right. I’ve been to Oyster Bay where I got into contact with a lawyer, and my wife and children have come aboard from Manhattan. I’ve been to Gardiners Island…. I asked Mr. Gardiner to bury some treasure for me. Do I know where he buried it?”
“No, which is why a map wasn’t needed. Kidd simply told Gardiner to make sure the treasure was available when he returned, or he’d cut off a Gardiner head.”
I nodded. “That’s better than a map. Kidd didn’t even have to dig the hole.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you think Kidd did the same thing at other locations?”
“Who knows? The more common method was to go ashore with a few men and bury the treasure secretly, then make a map of the location.”
“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.”
I 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 un-read, 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 surpri
sed 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.”
Plum Island Page 36