Mystery of the Pirate's Map

by Charles Tang

  “The front door was open, so I let myself in,” Walker replied.

  “What do you want?” asked Grandfather.

  Walker folded his arms and smiled. “I think you all know why I’m here. You have something that I want.”

  “The last piece of the map,” Henry said.

  “Exactly right. I’m guessing the reason you didn’t take my latest offer was because it was too low. I should’ve known. Two thousand dollars doesn’t buy much these days. So, I’m prepared to make it three thousand.”

  Walker let his offer linger for a moment.

  “No? Then how about four? I’m afraid that’s my final offer.”

  “What do you think, Benny?” Grandfather asked. “You found the bottle, so it’s your decision. Whatever you want to do is fine with us. Right, kids?” They all agreed that it was.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Walker, but I don’t think I’d like to do that,” said Benny. After all that had happened, he wanted to find the treasure for himself.

  Walker began tapping his right foot, and his hands went into his pockets. Suddenly his smile seemed forced. “May I ask why, Benny?”

  “I . . . I just don’t want to,” Benny answered.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Walker,” Tom said, “but since Benny obviously isn’t interested in making a deal with you, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to—”

  “I don’t understand!” Winston Walker said forcefully, his face turning red. “I’m offering you four thousand dollars! In cash! No kid has that kind of money! All you have to do is give me that lousy little piece of paper that you found on the beach!”

  “But he doesn’t want to,” Jessie said angrily

  “Mr. Walker—” Tom started saying, but the millionaire didn’t seem to hear him.

  “I’ve been looking for that treasure longer than anyone! I have a right to it! I’ve spent thousands of dollars and half my life trying to find it! It belongs to me! ME!”

  No one said anything. They just stared. Walker looked as though he were about to explode.

  Then Grandfather stood up, walked to Tom’s desk, opened the top drawer, and took out the piece of the map that Benny had found. Winston Walker’s entire manner changed instantly. His eyes widened and his smile returned.

  “Is that it?” he asked excitedly.

  “Yes, it is,” Grandfather answered. “This is the fourth and final piece to Captain John Finney’s treasure map.”

  “Can . . . can I have it?” Walker asked, reaching toward it from the other side of the room.

  Grandfather shook his head. “No, you can’t. My grandson found it, which means it belongs to him, and he already said you can’t have it.”

  “Now, look here,” Walker began sternly, taking a quick step toward Grandfather Alden.

  Grandfather grabbed the telephone off its cradle and held it up. “Mr. Walker, my good friend Tom, who I might remind you is the owner of this house, has already asked you once to leave. I’m now asking you a second time. If you don’t do so at once, I will have no choice but to call the local police. They are as aware of all this treasure business as you are, and I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate a wealthy and important gentleman like yourself giving a group of innocent youngsters a hard time.” Grandfather’s face was serious.

  A heavy silence hung in the room. All eyes shifted to Winston Walker, but no one moved. Walker seemed to be thinking over Grandfather’s statement.

  Walker’s expression was transformed from one of helplessness back to thinly contained rage. “All right, Mr. Alden. You win. I can see I’m not going to get anywhere with you people.”

  “Maybe if you had been a little kinder, things would be different,” Grandfather Alden told him.

  For just a brief moment, Walker seemed confused again, as if the idea of being kind were the most bizarre thing in the world. Then he smiled and said, “It doesn’t really matter what might have been, Mr. Alden, because I’ll find another way. I didn’t become such a wealthy and successful man by giving up a fight this easily.” He stormed across the room toward the door. “This isn’t over yet, not by a long shot!” he growled. He seemed to be talking to himself. “You’ll hear from me again!” he called out just before he slammed the front door shut. And then he was gone.

  “We’re going to have to keep our eyes and ears open,” Tom said. “One thing he said was absolutely true—he’s not the kind of man who gives up easily. I have a feeling we’ll hear from him again.”

  “Probably” Grandfather said.

  “So what do we do now?” Henry asked.

  Grandfather replied, “We stick to our plan for tomorrow.”

  “Really?” Benny said with great enthusiasm.

  “Really Winston Walker’s not the only one who doesn’t give up, right?”

  “Right!” Benny cheered.

  “Okay, then, let’s go over the plan one more time,” Grandfather told them.

  CHAPTER 9

  What You See Is What You Get

  “We’re almost there,” Tom said, huffing and puffing. It was a very hot day.

  “I hope I have enough strength left to dig!” Benny said.

  “You will,” Henry told him. “If no one digs, we won’t find the treasure.”

  The Aldens’ plan to escape early in the morning so none of the newspaper people would see them had worked perfectly. There hadn’t been a single reporter or photographer in sight.

  “I wish I’d brought my camera,” Violet said as she walked down the sunlit trail. The tall reeds on either side of the path created a sort of natural corridor, hiding the group from plain view. “This is such a pretty place.”

  The path brought them to a small footbridge that spanned a shallow stream, then curved sharply to the left before leading them into an open field.

  “And there are the birds,” Tom said.

  There were hundreds of them scattered all over the place, sitting on their little nests made of twigs and straw. They looked up curiously at the visitors, but none of them seemed too alarmed.

  “Wow,” Violet said in a whisper.

  “I’ll bet John Finney saw the very same thing,” Henry said.

  “Maybe he stood just where we’re standing just now!” Benny guessed.

  “That’s possible,” Tom replied. “And look over there.”

  He pointed a little farther down the path. There in the distance, standing out from the other trees, was a small crowd of crooked pines.

  “The pine trees!” Benny said.

  “Yep,” Tom told him. “If the treasure’s not buried in there somewhere, then I have no idea where it is.”

  “Are we ready to find out?” Grandfather asked.

  “Ready,” Henry said, patting his shovel.

  Checking the map one more time, Tom made his best guess as to exactly where the treasure was buried. Then he and Grandfather sat back and let the children do the digging. The loose, sandy soil was easy to cut into, but the growing heat of the day made the work exhausting.

  After about an hour the children had made a hole nearly four feet deep and just as wide. Then they stopped to take a rest and have a drink.

  “Boy, I’m beat!” Henry said as he poured out a cup of the ice-cold lemonade for Jessie. “And that hole’s pretty deep. How far down could the treasure be?”

  “Maybe we’re not digging in the right place,” Violet pointed out.

  Tom studied the map again. “Well, if it’s not here, then I know one or two other places it might be, but that’s about it. I still think it’s here, though.”

  “What if we don’t find it?” Benny wondered.

  “Then we don’t find it,” Jessie answered. “We’ll be no worse off than we are now.”

  Benny considered this for a moment, then nodded. “That’s true.”

  Grandfather smiled. He was proud of his grandchildren for not being so concerned with finding the treasure. They were happy on the inside, and finding or not finding the treasure wouldn’t change that.

 
Henry took another long sip from his cup, then set it aside and said, “Well, I’m going to get back to work. If the treasure’s down there, we’ve got to find it.”

  Then a voice—an unpleasantly familiar one—said, “Yes, you do. You’ve got to find it so you can give it to me.”

  Once again Winston Walker appeared out of nowhere. “So nice to see you all again,” he said with his usual charm. “And it’s even nicer to see that you’ve started digging already.”

  “How did you find us?” Jessie asked. She couldn’t help it. “You never had the last piece.”

  “I know, but shortly after I left you all, I was paid a visit by a charming little photographer lady.” He pulled a picture out of his pocket and held it up for everyone to see. “And look what she had for me—a very nice shot of the last piece of the map. Seems she was in the right place at the right time a few nights ago.”

  “Meredith Baker,” Jessie said.

  “Yes, I believe that was her name,” said Winston Walker. “She’s quite a businesswoman. This picture cost me a pretty penny, but at least it led me here. I congratulate you youngsters on your detective skills. It seems as though you have solved the mystery of the pirate’s map. And I was hoping to do that myself,” Walker told them.

  “They haven’t found the treasure yet, Mr. Walker,” Grandfather said sharply.

  “I can see that. But if they do, I know they’ll be sensible and hand it over to me. After all, I’m the one who’s spent half of his life searching for it.”

  The children looked at one another as they stood in the hole they’d dug. Then Benny sighed and said, “You can have whatever we find, Mr. Walker. It seems like you want it a lot more than we do. We don’t need it.”

  A smile spread across Winston Walker’s face. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.”

  Grandfather and Tom both smiled, too, but not for the same reason. They were proud of the children, proud of the way they decided not to fight with Winston Walker over the treasure. They weren’t controlled by greed like he was.

  So they went back to digging, and Walker watched them with great eagerness. No one spoke, no one laughed, no one even smiled. The fun seemed to have gone out of this treasure hunt for the Aldens. Now all they wanted to do was find the treasure so they could be done with this business. There were still a few days of their vacation left that they could enjoy.

  Another half hour passed, and the hole became another foot deeper. But still there was no sign of any treasure.

  Henry was just about to suggest that they try a different spot when his shovel hit something hard—

  Clink!

  Everyone froze. Walker’s eyes widened. He took a step forward.

  “What was that?”

  “I think I hit something,” Henry said. “Something made of metal.”

  “Keep digging, keep digging!” Walker commanded, making wild gestures with his hands.

  Jessie, Violet, and Benny climbed out of the hole to give Henry more room. A little more dirt had to be removed before the object’s identity became clear—it was an old iron box.

  “Faster! Faster!” Walked urged.

  Henry didn’t like being bossed around by this man, but he quietly kept digging anyway.

  Hardly another moment had passed when Winston Walker finally ran out of patience. Much to everyone’s shock and surprise, he jumped into the hole next to Henry, dropped to his knees, and began digging around the box with his bare hands. Soon his expensive clothes were covered with dirt, but he didn’t seem to care. “So many years of searching . . .” he mumbled to himself, “and now it’s mine . . . all mine. . . .”

  It took another fifteen minutes before the box was loose enough to move. Walker put his hands on either side of it and pulled mightily. It came free on the third try.

  Tom and the Aldens came forward, and Walker got to his knees. The box was fairly large. There was a small padlock at the front, and it was caked with rust.

  The millionaire grabbed a large rock and smacked the lock with all his might. Being so old, it broke off on the first shot.

  “And now,” he said aloud, “at last . . .”

  He pushed the lid back and took a good long look at what was waiting for him inside. Then the smile slowly melted from his face.

  Nothing was there except a small, rotted leather pouch.

  Winston Walker looked as pale as a ghost. He didn’t move for a long time. He just stared at the pouch with wide, unbelieving eyes.

  Then he picked it up slowly, looked at it some more, and shook its contents into his other hand. There were only two items inside—a single gold coin and a piece of paper about the same size as each of the map pieces.

  “What does it say, Mr. Walker?” Violet asked quietly.

  Walker read it once in silence, as if he hadn’t heard Violet’s question. Then he cleared his throat and began out loud:

  Whoever you are, I congratulate you on your cleverness. It is my hope that the adventures you have undertaken to find this have caused the blood in your veins to run both hot and cold. I have devoted most of my life to seeking out excitement, and it was one of my last wishes to help someone else do the same.

  As for my riches, you have already found them—this single gold coin. It is all that is left of the great fortune I gathered during my many journeys on the high seas. The rest of it has been given away to my relatives and my friends. In my old age, I find I no longer have any use for it.

  My best wishes and congratulations again to you, wise adventurer.

  Captain John Alexander Finney

  Another moment passed in silence. Winston Walker remained still, staring at the note with his mouth open.

  Finally, Benny surprised everyone by crouching down and patting Walker on the back. “Sorry, Mr. Walker,” he said quietly. Then he stepped back.

  Everyone thought Walker was going to explode in anger. But instead, much to their utter amazement, he just let out one small sigh.

  “What have I done?” he asked the Aldens. “I’ve spent my whole life looking for . . . for nothing. There was never any treasure at all, never. All the time and money I’ve spent, flying all over the world, day and night, thinking about it. And all the people . . .” He looked at the children. “All the people I’ve hurt. What have I done?”

  Violet stepped forward. “You could start making up for it,” she suggested. “It’s never too late.”

  Walker said, “How? How can I undo all of this?”

  Grandfather said quickly, “You could start by giving Jack Ford the five thousand dollars you owe him.”

  “Jack Ford?”

  “Yes, the man who found the third piece of the map for you. You promised a five-thousand-dollar bonus to whoever found it, and you never paid up,” Grandfather said.

  Walker appeared to think about this for a moment, then he nodded slowly. “Yes, yes, I do remember that. I thought he got that money.”

  “No, Mr. Walker, he never did. And he was going to use it to help his mother finish paying for her house. Because you never gave him the money, he had to keep working to give her a little extra every few weeks. The house still isn’t paid for,” said Grandfather.

  Walker straightened up. “Then it will be,” he said firmly, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he meant it. Only part of him was sad now. The other part was angry, not at John Finney for not leaving any treasure, but at himself for all the wicked things he’d done while chasing it. “I’ll not only pay for his mother’s house, I’ll buy her a new one, and him, too.”

  At that moment someone came running around the bend. Everyone turned and was amazed to find Meredith Baker standing there, huffing and puffing, out of breath.

  “Did he hurt any of you?” she asked abruptly.

  “Huh?” Benny said.

  “That Winston Walker character. Did he hurt any of you?”

  Grandfather answered for everyone. “Well, no. Who are you?”

  “This is the person who broke into Tom’s
house,” Jessie said coldly. “Meredith Baker.”

  Tom turned and gave the woman an angry look, but she put a hand up in defense.

  “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Harrison, I really am. That’s why I’m here. I knew Walker would want that last piece of the map, and I knew you guys would never give it to him, so I figured I could make a quick buck by getting a picture of it and selling it to him.”

  “You should be ashamed!” Benny scolded her, but Henry quickly hushed his little brother.

  “You’re right, I should. That’s why I’ve been following all of you. After I sold the picture to Walker last night, I couldn’t sleep, and it took me half the night to figure out why—I felt bad and was worried about what might happen to you kids. By the next morning I knew I had to do something about it.”

  Meredith reached into her pocket and pulled out a huge wad of cash with a rubber band around it. She threw it at Winston Walker, who caught it against his chest.

  “You can have your money back, Mr. Walker,” she said. “I don’t want it. I know what people around this town think of me. I know they think I’m a little strange. But I’ve never committed a crime before, not until the other night.” She turned to Tom and continued, “Mr. Harrison, I’m truly, truly sorry for what I did. Not only was it a crime, but it was just plain wrong. If you want to press charges against me, I’ll understand.”

  All eyes turned to Tom, who appeared to be thinking over Meredith’s offer. He began stroking his chin. “You know, I was thinking of putting together a nice color pamphlet advertising my inn, but the one thing I can’t do is take a really good picture. You wouldn’t happen to know any top-notch photographers, would you?”

  Meredith stared blankly at Tom for a long moment. Then a broad smile spread across her face. “Actually I think I do know someone. She’s very good and I’m sure she’d do it for free.”

  Tom nodded slowly. “Is that right? Gee, she sounds perfect. Why don’t you ask her to come to the house—through the front door this time—next Wednesday.”

  Meredith’s smile grew even wider. “I sure will, Mr. Harrison. I sure will.”

  “Great,” he replied. And with that, Meredith Baker turned and walked away, looking very happy.