by Maddy Hunter
“Excuse me?” snapped Helen.
“You’ll be persona non grata in this tour group,” warned Lucille.
Margi nodded agreement. “Not only that, but you won’t be welcome.”
“We could decide to ban you from all future trips,” boomed Dick Stolee.
Bernice raised an eyebrow. “Says who?”
“Osmond could bring it to referendum,” suggested George. “Secret ballot. Everyone votes.”
Margi’s face contorted in confusion. “But Emily said our votes don’t count anymore.”
“I did not. I was merely pointing out that your collective approval to make Nana your cook wouldn’t hold water if she wasn’t on board with the idea.”
Margi squinted behind her glasses. “Right. So our votes don’t count anymore. Dick’s right. The system’s rigged.”
“Morons,” spat Bernice. She slid her chair away from the table and stood up. “Maybe I won’t want to sign up for any more of your stupid trips. Maybe I’d rather be around people who think the same way I do.”
“Are you sure the isolation won’t be too depressing?” asked Alice.
“You people would wander off a cliff if it wasn’t for me feeding you a constant dose of reality. You need someone like me to help you break out of your dopey liberal bubbles, but you’re just too stupid to realize it. So someone else can have my ice cream. I’m not hanging around for dessert.”
“Wait, Bernice,” I urged as she crab-walked toward the lounge. “They were just pulling your leg. They didn’t mean any of the things they said.”
“Yes we did,” said Dick Teig.
I glared at him. “They love traveling with you!”
“No we don’t,” said Dick Stolee.
She disappeared down the corridor without a backward glance. I fisted my hands on the table, ranging an irritated look left and right. “I trust you’ll do the right thing and apologize to Bernice in person tomorrow morning.”
Groans. Grumbles. Razzberries.
“As contrary as she can sometimes be, she’s a longstanding member of this group and deserves to be treated with your respect. And furthermore, I’ll hear no more talk about banning anyone from anything, Dick Stolee. That’s not your call to make.”
He shrugged. “It works for presidential candidates.”
“You’re not running for president.”
“What if we don’t see her in the morning?” asked Dick Teig.
I regarded him oddly. “Why wouldn’t you see her?”
“What if we’re already on the bus before she drags herself out to join us? Can we send her a text message instead?”
“No.”
“How about a Tweet with the hashtag #sorrybernice?” suggested Dick Stolee.
“Or a ‘We’re Sorry, Bernice’ Facebook page,” enthused Dick Teig.
“Or a Snapchat photo of all of us saying we’re sorry at the same time,” persisted Dick Stolee.
Oh, God.
“I’ve got vanilla and vanilla,” announced Wally as he swept into the room carrying two sherbet glasses. “Who wants them?”
After scarfing down our ice cream with only Heather Holloway and George complaining of brain freezes, we retired to the lounge for our show-and-tell, joining Kathryn, who had stuck by her boycott and remained in the room for the entire meal, working on her laptop.
“You might want to think about ending your boycott,” August Lugar commented as he found a chair near Kathryn. “Mrs. Sippel’s cooking is sensational. Mouth-watering, even. A tempting treat for the taste buds.”
Kathryn stuck her nose in the air like a pampered pooch. “Huh.”
“Does everyone have their treasure?” I asked as the group spread throughout the room, staking out the most comfortable seats.
“If this gets really boring, we can leave, right?” asked Spencer Blunt.
I gave him an indulgent look. “Show-and-tell isn’t mandatory, Spencer. You can leave at any time.”
“Good. Because the whole exercise sounds pretty lame to me.”
“Well I’ll be,” said Nana, smiling. “Who does that sound like?”
Spencer reached inside his shirt pocket and handed me a round metal object. “This is the best thing I found on the beach today. Looks like a button. Woohoo. That’s my contribution, so I’m outta here. I need to work on my blog.” With a half salute to the room, he was loping toward the hallway before everyone had even found a seat.
“I didn’t find any buttons,” said August Lugar, rising to his feet. “In fact, I didn’t find anything, so I’m going to borrow a page from Spencer’s book and retire for the evening.”
“Me, too,” Mason Chatsworth spoke up. “I struck out at the beach and I’ve got a lot more work to do on my blog before I can post it tomorrow, so duty calls. But I hope the rest of you had better luck than I did.”
That three of our bloggers were returning to their rooms shouldn’t have bothered me, but considering the recent incidents of criminality at the inn, it did.
“What did Spencer find?” asked Tilly when the men had left.
I held it up between my thumb and forefinger for the room to see. “A metal button. It’s pretty beaten up, but there’s an anchor on it, so maybe it’s some kind of Royal Navy button.”
“Looks to me as if it belongs in the dustbin,” said Kathryn.
“I’ll take it,” said Nana. “My great-grandson has a button collection, so he’ll think it’s nifty. Won’t matter that it’s beat up. I’ve seen his collection. He’s not into pretty.”
I flipped it through the air to her. “Okay, who wants to go next?”
At the end of ten minutes we’d accumulated an unimpressive stash of junk to show for our metal-detecting stint at the Bedruthan Steps. Chief among the non-metal throwaways was a piece of yellow sea glass that Alice swore resembled an ear of Iowa sweet corn and a rock that Osmond swore was shaped like Elvis’s guitar…or anyone’s guitar, for that matter. Dick Stolee had found enough beer bottle caps to rival my nephew David’s button collection, and Jackie had dug up a political campaign pin from 1984, but the majority of finds was an assortment of bolts, nails, corroded hinges, metal badges, and other miscellaneous scraps of hardware.
“Well,” I lamented as I regarded the pathetic display on the coffee table, “I wonder if we would have had better luck on dry land?”
“And then there’s me,” said Dick Teig, bouncing out of his chair to join me center stage. “The morning wasn’t a total failure.” He opened his fist to reveal an object that was neither rusted, rotted, nor junky.
It was a coin about the size of a half dollar.
He’d scraped away all the gunk so that the impressions were visible: the bust of a man wearing a periwig and cravat on one side with a heraldic shield stamped on the other. The date beneath the bust read 1798. The lettering over his head was more cryptic. “H-I-S-P,” I said aloud, trying to dredge up grade-school history lessons. “Would that be shorthand for Hispaniola?” I flipped the coin over to study the reverse side. “I don’t know what any of the lettering on this side means.” But I was fairly certain about one thing.
The coin was neither silver nor copper nor bronze. It sat heavily in the palm of my hand and glinted like the teeth in Captain Jack Sparrow’s mouth.
“Oh my God, Dick.” I stared at the coin, transfixed. “Is this gold?”
“You betcha!” he whooped. “Told you I hit the jackpot.” He raised his arms above his head in celebration and rotated his hips in a gyrating motion that sparked images of the hula hoop craze…minus the hoop. “Pack your bags for easy street, Helen. We’ve got it made now, baby!”
She offered him a bland smile, her eyes filled with skepticism. “You’ll understand if I wait for a professional appraisal before I pop the champagne cork.”
“May I see that coin, Emily?” Til
ly extended her hand in my direction. “While I have no expertise in numismatics, I do have a slight familiarity with the history of coins throughout the ages.”
I didn’t want to question Tilly’s humble assessment of her own knowledge, but her definition of “slight familiarity” usually entailed enough information to fill up every available gigabyte on a thumb drive.
Dick Teig snatched it out of my hand and hurried it over to Tilly himself. “It’s the real McCoy, right? It’s not something a college kid would have ordered online for a Pirates of the Caribbean frat party, is it?”
While Dick hovered bedside Tilly in breathless anticipation, I addressed the rest of the room. “Anyone else have something to share?”
“I do.” Heather threaded her way through the maze of furniture with a lot more enthusiasm than Spencer had shown.
“This should be priceless,” Kathryn scoffed in a voice that carried throughout the lounge. “Let me guess what you found: scrap metal in the shape of a zombie?”
Heather ignored the slur as she held her treasure up for the room’s scrutiny.
Oohs. Ahhs. Scattered head scratching.
“That’s a real nice find,” commented Nana. “What is it?”
“I think it’s some kind of stamp like you buy at scrapbooking stores for making impressions in sealing wax.”
Only a stamp like this wasn’t purchased in any scrapbooking store. It was shaped like an Easter lily, about two inches long, and was made of lavender glass with a metal ring attached to the top.
“At first I thought the thing was made of some type of synthetic material, but I’m pretty sure now that it’s made of amethyst because it looks exactly like my birthstone. And I’m willing to bet that the base it’s mounted on and the ring at the top are made of solid gold because my detector went nuts when I got close.”
“What’s the ring at the top for?” asked Margi.
“I wondered about that, too,” admitted Heather. “That’s so the owner could wear it on a chain around her neck like a piece of jewelry and have it handy in case she needed to personalize letters and stuff.”
Kathryn snorted. “In addition to zombies, you’re an expert on fob-seals, are you?”
“No.” Heather’s voice was cool and controlled. “I merely consulted the experts online. Their websites were quite informative and explained everything there was to know about fob-seals. Based on their documentation, I have reason to believe that my seal may date back to the 1700s.”
“Which part of the beach were you exploring when you found it?” asked Grace.
“I was in that gnarly looking cave by the stairs. At least, I thought it was a cave—it turned out to be a tunnel that led to a really rocky beach on the other side of the headland. My detector started pinging like crazy near the entrance to the other beach. That’s where I dug it up.”
“Based on aesthetic appeal, Heather wins the prize,” declared George.
“There’s a prize?” asked Heather.
“No prize,” I spoke up. “That’s just wishful thinking on George’s part.”
“As far as I can tell,” Tilly interrupted, adopting her professor’s voice, “Dick’s coin is authentic.”
“Wha’d I tell you!” cried Dick.
“It’s most probably of Spanish origin,” she continued. “In fact, I’d guess that the bust on the obverse side is none other than King Ferdinand himself—of Ferdinand and Isabella fame—and the coat of arms is the Hapsburg Shield, which denotes the royal lineage of the couple.” She held the coin high in the air. “Can you see that the edges have a manufactured finish? This lends authenticity to its 1798 mint date because prior to 1733 coins were produced by simply slicing them off the end of a gold bar, giving them an irregular shape that was easy to counterfeit.” She elicited a girlish laugh. “I believe what Dick has found is a gold doubloon.”
“Pirate’s gold?” whooped Dick. “A real gold dubloon?”
“Can we back up a minute?” Jackie asked, waving her arm above her head. “I still have questions about Heather’s fob-seal. Are there initials at the bottom?”
“Sure are.” She studied the base. “They’re engraved in the amethyst.”
“Can you tell what they are?”
Heather shook her head. “There’s so many curlicues, I’m really not sure.”
“Shall I give it a try?” asked Tilly as she handed Dick’s doubloon back to him. “I’m quite convinced that if I can decipher my doctor’s handwriting, I can decipher anything.”
“Knock yourself out,” said Heather.
“Does anyone know what the going rate for a gold doubloon is?” asked Dick. “It’s gotta be gazillions, right?”
The gang fired up their smartphones.
“You’re spot-on about the curlicues,” said Tilly. “But if I eliminate all the swirls and fussiness, I believe I can make out two distinct letters.”
“Geez Louise,” hooted Dick Stolee. “It says here that depending on the physical condition and date of issue, that coin in your hand could be worth as much as ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thousand?” marveled Helen in disbelief. She launched herself out of her chair and ran open-armed to Dick, smothering him in kisses. “You wonderful man! Ten grand would be enough to replace the appliances in the kitchen or the furniture in the den or—”
“My website says two thousand,” countered Lucille. “That might be enough to replace your toilet.”
“The first letter is an extremely stylized B followed by an equally stylized P,” announced Tilly.
“BP?” questioned Jackie with excitement. “You’re sure?”
“Well, I’ll be,” said Nana. “You s’pose some fella from British Petroleum lost it when he was cleanin’ up an oil spill?”
“I think it belonged to an aristocrat who was robbed of an
amethyst fob-seal on Bodmin Moor,” regaled Jackie. “Emily and I browsed through the highwayman museum in the hardware store in Port Jacob today and read an official ledger that listed the personal items reported stolen on the moor. The fob-seal listed on the museum ledger was supposedly trumpet-shaped, like Heather’s, made of amethyst, and inscribed with the initials BP. This might be the wildest coincidence in history, but I wonder if Heather found the seal that was stolen from some squire or lord three hundred years ago? His name is probably in the ledger. You think we should phone the proprietor to see if he’ll tell us the exact name?”
“No need to bother the proprietor.” Kathryn executed a few keystrokes on her laptop. “I know exactly who BP is.” She turned her laptop around so that the screen was visible to the rest of the room. She’d accessed a site with a coat of arms prominently displayed in a banner that flowed across the top of the page. “Baron Penwithick. The tenth baron, to be precise. It’s all documented here in the family history. You all know how meticulous the British are about writing down all the minutiae in their lives.” She scrolled through the document until she found what she was looking for. “And I quote, ‘The tenth baron was relieved of an amethyst fob-seal when beset by highwaymen on the moor—13 August 1742. He commissioned another to replace it in a similar trumpet shape, but made of cornelian, with the same gold fittings. Report was made to the constabulary of Port Jacob for entry in their ledger.’
“So as you can see, that fob-seal rightfully belongs to me.” Kathryn skewered Heather with a fierce look. “And I want it back.”
ten
Heather burst into peals of laughter. “Like that’s going to happen.”
“If it doesn’t happen, I’ll give you fair warning.” Kathryn’s voice dripped with self-righteousness. “You can expect consequences.”
Heather scrutinized the seal, rotating it in her hand like a rotisserie chicken. “I don’t see your name engraved anywhere on it. Gee, I guess that means finders keepers.”
Kathryn narrowed her eyes, h
er face morphing to stone. “I would encourage you to realize the seriousness of this matter. My family is very influential. We have lawyers who will delight in crushing you in court.”
Heather bobbed her head with casual indifference. “If you were a nicer person, I might be tempted to hand it over. But you’re not. So I’m keeping it.”
Kathryn paused for a long, tension-filled moment. “That’s the worst decision you’ll ever make.”
Heather smiled. “Whatever. You want some free advice from a fellow blogger? Work on a kinder, gentler you. This pretentious, self-important act you’re peddling gets really old, and it’s not winning you any friends.” With an exaggerated flourish, she bowed to the audience. “That’s all I have to say, so I guess I’m done.”
“You most certainly are,” Kathryn muttered in an undertone loud enough for me to hear.
“Okay, this concludes the evening’s entertainment,” I announced as people started shifting in their seats. “Thanks for participating. I hope you had fun, and I hope all your treasures turn out to be valuable.”
Dick Stolee heaved himself to his feet. “If Bernice was here, this is the point where she’d say, ‘Another evening wasted on one of Emily’s screwball ideas.’”
“Or ‘I’da had a better time watching the test pattern on TV,’” said George.
“Or ‘This show-and-tell baloney is for losers,’” added Margi.
Osmond nodded. “Aren’t we lucky she’s not here so we don’t have to listen to any of her negative comments?”
“One more thing before you go.” I made a megaphone of my hands so I could be heard above the chatter. “We should try to get a fairly early start tomorrow for St. Michael’s Mount, so I’m going to suggest breakfast at eight o’clock.” I glanced at Nana. “Can you manage eight o’clock?”
“There’s nuthin’ I can’t manage once, but I don’t wanna make no steady habit of it.”
She was such a trooper. Her stint in the kitchen had seemed to energize her tonight, but I feared what would happen if she overdid it. “Okay, then. Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock it is.”