Out of Time

by Deborah Truscott

  “To what?”

  “I think his suspicious friend is going to keep an eye on us. Look for a chance to stop us again so he can legitimately ask for identification. Et cetera.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yes.”

  “They would deport me.”

  “They would, assuming they knew where to deport you to.”

  Robert edged himself into a more upright position, and looked at me. “We leave on Sunday?”

  “Yes. If we can wait that long.”

  “I don’t think we can.”

  “I don’t either,” I said, realizing that Officer Whalen had achieved what mysterious break-ins, tailing, hang ups, beach rowdies, surveillance, detectives, and mother-assigned monitoring could not: He had got us to pack up our bags and make a run for the hills.

  And then, as so often happens in my life, the phone rang. But even before it did, I had already planned our next move.

  Tomorrow morning we would go home. To Fredericksburg. To River House. Of course, I was expected there anyway on Sunday evening, so this would only put us slightly ahead of schedule. Still, I knew it would please Lila, who was, I figured, on the other end of the ringing phone.

  Only it wasn’t Lila. It was my erstwhile real estate agent, Mary Stein.

  “I think I’ve found a potential buyer for the house,” she said as soon as we got through the pleasantries. “I’ve shown him several houses this week so I’ve got pretty good handle on what he wants, and I would really like to show him your place. I’m absolutely convinced it’s the house he’s really looking for.”

  “I see,” I said, stalling while I thought.

  “I need your signature on several papers,” Mary prompted, “and I would be very happy to FedEx those documents down to you. If you’re still interested, that is.”

  Was I? Did I still want to sell the house now that Robert was staying? Would we want to live there ourselves, perhaps, to put distance between us and…

  Us and whom? Cameron? Lila? The twenty-first century? Wasn’t the whole point of his staying a decision to embrace not just me, but my place in time? Living in the Tipton house would be an evasion, an avoidance of my life and my past — my real past, the one in Fredericksburg with the Mansfields. After all, one of us had to have a past.

  I didn’t need to ask Robert. I knew what he would say. “Yes,” I told Mary Stein. “I want to sell the house. And I’ll meet you in person, at your office tomorrow afternoon.”

  This was apparently better than FedEx, and Mary was obviously pleased. But my real reason for driving up and signing papers in person was not to make Mary happy. It was to dispose of things like boots and swords and breeches, which were presently scattered all over Uncle Bennett’s bedroom.

  Chapter 39

  I hung up the phone and returned to the deck where I was halfway through telling Robert about Mary’s call and our subsequent change of plans, when suddenly I remembered something.

  “Shit!” I said.

  Robert raised a disapproving eyebrow.

  “We’re supposed to have dinner with Phillip tonight,” I reminded him.

  “I don’t suppose we can gracefully excuse ourselves?”

  “Not at this late date.” I paused, annoyed with myself. Why didn’t I remember in time to cancel? Why had I agreed to dinner in the first place?

  “Do you remember what we told Phillip at the restaurant? About you, I mean.”

  “That I was a teacher of, um, history. In…Charleston. That we met several years ago.”

  “Yes. At a conference.”

  “Right. And I’ve accepted a job at a school in Fredericksburg.”

  I nodded. “Meanwhile you’re vacationing in Rodanthe, we ran into each other at the grocery last week, you’ve admitted to being English, and — was there anything else?

  “Not that I recall. What time is it?

  “Six o’clock. We’re to be at Phillip’s at seven-thirty. And he’s somewhere in Nags Head and we have to find the house, so—”

  “We’ve half an hour to bathe and dress.”

  *****

  Rodanthe is the next village up the beach, so on our way to Phillip’s we drove around and found an actual cottage on an actual street where, if necessary, Robert could say he was staying. As we continued on our way we worked on his cover story, agreeing that it was best to stick as closely as possible to the facts, which meant Robert could say he was born in Kent and educated at Christ Church College. Everything else we would have to wing, and to tell the truth, I wasn’t having very good feelings about this at all.

  We fell quiet for a while, cruising north over the same road we covered earlier in the day. After we crossed Oregon Inlet onto Bodie Island, Robert looked at me.

  “Tell me why you agreed to this evening’s engagement.”

  “Because I was stupid.”

  “That’s the last thing you are, Kitty.”

  “Because I wanted to hear more about my father,” I admitted.

  “Yes. I had wondered.” Silence. Then: “Phillip seems a pleasant man, if a trifle tedious. He cares for you and it’s safe to say he has an interest in your mother. He would wish the evening to be enjoyable and frankly, I don’t think he’s going to pry into my background. Why on earth would he?”

  “Good point,” I conceded. “Maybe we should look at this as a sort of dress rehearsal for the real world.”

  “Excellent notion, Kitty. Parade drill. Nothing more than that.”

  By this time we were in Nags Head, and I cut over to Albemarle Sound. Unlike the dune-studded ocean front, the soundside is rich in flora and the narrow roads are often overhung with vegetation. Finally, at seven-thirty on the dot, I found Phillip’s sandy, shaded lane. A minute later we drew up at his house.

  It was a pleasant old place, a large, early-twentieth century summer canopied in ancient live oaks and surrounded by dense shrubbery. A large, deep, screened porch stretched across the front, punctuated by a screened French door. And at the door, waving a welcome and wreathed in smiles, stood Phillip, dressed crisply (as usual) in a seersucker shirt and freshly pressed chinos.

  I killed the engine and dropped the keys into my purse. Meanwhile, Robert stared at the house like he had never seen walls and windows before.

  “What?” I asked suspiciously. But he was already exiting the car and striding up the walk to our host, leaving me to trot along in his wake.

  “Phillip!” I heard him say. The men shook hands warmly but Robert’s eyes were fixed on something just beyond Phillip’s right shoulder.

  I squinted, following his gaze. Robert, it appeared, was staring at the porch. I looked from porch to Robert and back to porch. There was nothing in the least unusual about this porch. Porches, verandas, covered terraces, balconies — they’ve all been around in one form or another since man left the caves. So what was so fascinating about this particular porch?

  And then it hit me: the screen.

  Compared to Robert’s native century, screen is a relatively new phenomena. I ran down a mental checklist of every place we’d been and realized that few commercial buildings — grocery stores, shops, libraries, banks, even restaurants — have a whole lot of screen associated with them. And Robert’s been in exactly two private homes on this side of the trap door, both of them mine, and although both possess screen windows and doors, neither have screened porches. I sensed we were in trouble.

  Feigning enthusiasm, I greeted Phillip breathlessly and exclaimed idiotically over his lovely screened porch and what a perfect place it was sit and relax and sip iced tea and so on. If Phillip noticed anything odd about either one of us, he didn’t let on. Instead, he kissed my cheek and ushered us happily up the front steps.

  And the porch was lovely. The beamed ceiling, which sloped up to a high point just beneath the second story windows, was painted an improbable but cheerful Bermuda pink and studded by three large, old-fashioned ceiling fans. Sisal rugs were scattered across slate tiled floors. Wrought iron chairs an
d love seats, fitted with upholstered cushions, were arranged in pleasant groups. Near them, matching glass-topped tables, graced with silk-shaded lamps, displayed a collection of shells.

  “I could live out here all summer,” I enthused, as Robert inspected the screen a little too closely. “Don’t you agree, Robert?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yes. Quite! Never leave it!” He beamed at Phillip, who ushered us into the foyer and down a wide cool hall painted in creams and whites. At the rear of the house was a large airy room that opened onto a wide deck with a spectacular view of the sound. “My study,” Phillip announced. “It’s my favorite room, actually. I show off my collection here.”

  In fact, the walls were lined with glass cabinets and display tables, all of them filled with an array of antique pounce pots, seals, blotters, lap desks, and a hundred other items I could not identify. I turned slowly, gazing first at a collection of ink wells and then at an arrangement of old-fashioned pens fanned out against a green felt backboard. “You told me you had some odd hobbies,” I remarked slowly, “but this is simply dazzling.”

  Phillip practically beamed with pleasure. “Do you like the pens?” he asked eagerly, following my gaze. “They’re dip pens, like the quill, but made of steel — far easier to write with than quills, which were messy and time consuming to prepare. Have you ever used one?”

  This question was directed at Robert, whose head snapped up from an inlaid deskset he had been studying. “A quill?” He sounded amused, but underneath it I caught his guarded tone.

  “Well, one comes across them from time to time,” Phillip remarked. “Souvenirs, mostly, from tourist spots.” He lifted the glass lid of one of the tables and retrieved what for all the world looked like a mechanical pencil. “A porte-crayon,” he told us. “One of my more recent acquisitions. Very popular in the eighteenth century for sketching or writing on the fly. As a matter of fact, army officers often used them in the field.” He raised the tool between his fingertips. “Lead — or graphite — inserts into the end, and the ring slides down to tighten the metal casing around it.”

  Robert and I made noises of interest, and for several longish moments Phillip held forth on the preparation of graphite for use as pencil leads. “Now, here’s another interesting little toy,” he said at length, lifting an object from a case. “Something Thomas Jefferson designed. I believe Kathy Lee has already seen it.”

  It was, in fact, the cylinder Phillip had shown me the other day. Robert whistled quietly. “A cipher wheel. I haven’t seen one of these since—”

  My breath caught. For a split second silence rang in my ears. And then Robert cleared his throat.

  “Since university,” he went on. “One of my professors had a similar collection, though not nearly as impressive as yours.” He smiled at Phillip. “Clever things, these.

  “And simple,” Phillip said. He explained how the disks that composed the cylinder were numbered, how they could be assembled in any order, how they were turned to encrypt messages.

  “But there’s a caveat,” Robert told him, lifting the wheel from Phillip’s hands. “To successfully decode a message, the disks on the recipient’s wheel must be assembled in the same order as those on the sender’s.”

  Phillip offered Robert an appraising look.

  “My professor made mention of that. And you say Jefferson designed this? But the concept dates from the Renaissance, if I recall.”

  Phillip nodded. “This particular model is based on his design, but yes, cipher wheels have been around in similar form for centuries, often made of wood.”

  “Yet yours looks rather new,” Robert remarked, handing back the wheel.

  “Less than a century old,” Phillip said, returning the cylinder to its case. “You look surprised. Actually, cipher wheels were used until the Second World War, part of a history of subterfuge by our government since … well, its inception, really. We owe our independence as much to spies as to soldiers.” He raised his brows inquiringly. “You both know — history teachers that you are — about the foreign intelligence committee formed during the Revolution?”

  “The Committee of Secret Correspondence.” I said, wishing we could change the subject. “Mandated by the Second Continental Congress.”

  Phillip smiled as if I had earned a gold star. “As Washington once said, ‘For upon secrecy, success depends in most enterprises.’ ”

  “Interesting,” Robert remarked, strolling out to the deck, “how little things change.”

  *****

  We dined on Phillip’s tree-shaded deck as the sun set over the sound, feasting our way through baked brie, vichyssoise, and grilled tuna garnished with pine nuts and dates. Robert became quieter as the evening progressed but Phillip, who clearly enjoyed talking, took little notice. He told us about his friendship with the Tiptons, his interest in real estate and stocks, his fondness for antiques, and his love of painting.

  “You are a man of many talents,” I said, when he finally paused for breath. “What other interests do you have?”

  Phillip considered for a moment. “Treasure hunting,” he said finally.

  “Treasure hunting?” I had not expected this answer.

  “Have you ever heard of the Dalvey Boys?” Phillip asked us.

  Robert’s face was entirely blank. I shook my head.

  “It’s an obscure reference, even for a history teacher,” Phillip commented apologetically. “But during the Revolution, the Dalveys were a rather sophisticated gang of Philadelphia thieves. There were six of them, brothers and cousins, well-connected and rather dashing, high on the A-list among local Tory ton.”

  “The city was a Tory stronghold,” I offered, trying to speed things along.

  “Exactly,” Phillip concurred, “and the Dalveys knew the layout of every fashionable house in the city. They were accomplished cat burglars who made their way through opened windows and unlocked doors to lift jewels and cash and anything else of value.”

  I glanced at Robert, whose gaze followed the lights of a fishing boat returning late to harbor. Hadn’t he recollected something similar a day or so ago? A group of gentlemen thieves in whom Peter Finch had some interest?

  “For a long time,” Phillip went on, “no one connected them with the thefts. Then the British came, and the Dalveys insinuated their way into the officers’ circle, especially those on the headquarters staff. Within weeks they managed to divert considerable sums of the Crown’s money and materiel right off the docks as shipments arrived from England. They even siphoned off a huge cache of valuables seized by Howe’s army in New York and Boston — an enormous sum in gold and silver coin, and even jewels. The British intended to use it to pay the cost of war.”

  Great, I thought. Just what we needed: friends with a fondness for obscure eighteenth century gossip, not to mention antique pens and inkwells. “How did you learn all this?” I asked.

  “Oh, the Dalveys are a legend in Pennsylvania,” Phillip replied. “Type their name into any search engine and you’ll come up with a wealth of information. People are still fascinated by their treasure.”

  “You said they were Tories,” I pointed out. “Why steal from other Tories?”

  Phillip smiled as if he had been waiting all evening for that question. “Because they were really rebels all along, Kathy Lee. They simply posed as Tories, meanwhile stealing anything of value to fund the Continental Army. But the British got suspicious, plans went awry, and none of it got to General Washington. Afterward, the legend grew that the treasure remained where it had been hidden, in a cave along the Schulykill River, and that it’s still there waiting to be found.” He chuckled. “As a young man, I spent years exploring that river.”

  Suddenly I thought of the painting that hung in my mother’s dining room. “The riverscape for my father,” I remarked. “You painted it on one of your searches.”

  “I always carried my paints with me, should inspiration strike. But eventually I gave up the hunt. There’s miles and miles of river bank, far
too much to explore without the help of something handy like directions. Or a map.”

  For the first time in several minutes, Robert spoke. “Never anything so convenient to hand.”

  “But perhaps there is,” Phillip said thoughtfully, “In my research, I came across mention of a letter intended for General Washington that described the location of the cache. But, when the British tried to intercepted it, the message simply … disappeared.”

  In spite of myself, I was intrigued. “Had the they recovered the money,” I mused, “it would have changed the course of the war.”

  “No question.” Phillip looked at me. “The loss of it greatly compromised Howe’s ability to end the rebellion early. But remember, the fortune lay within reach of both armies. If either side had recovered it—”

  “There would have been a swift end to the fighting,” I finished.

  “A shame, really,” Phillip remarked cheerfully. “Think of the lives lost on both sides.”

  Robert stilled. I lifted my wine glass and gazed pensively at the contents. “The armies met at White Plain in November,” I said slowly. “They barely fired a shot. Washington didn’t have the resources and Howe didn’t have the stomach. But if the intelligence — the message or whatever — had made it to Washington, his army would have been equipped for battle. They would never have retreated to Valley Forge. Instead, they would have provoked a fight and the war could have been won that autumn — four years before Yorktown.”

  “Always assuming,” Robert put in mildly, “that such a cache existed.”

  “The thefts from the British are quite well-documented,” Phillip insisted. “Find the communiqué, and I believe you’ll find the treasure.”

  Robert chuckled in a good-luck-you-fool sort of way.

  “What would you do if you found it?” I asked Phillip.

  “I’m not sure. There’d be a lot of complications to deal with. The press, the media, the IRS. Not to mention all those pesky scholars.”