A Veiled Antiquity (Torie O'Shea Mysteries) (17 page)

Everybody in the room stood, some moved in closer, and a brave few actually went to him. I walked quickly to Mr. Lockheart’s table and set the case down. Being short has its advantages. Nobody detected me.

At that moment Rudy flung himself backward. I think he intended to land on the floor but misjudged and hit a table, knocking it and the contents onto the floor and all over him.

“Oh, my God!” I yelled. I ran to him like the distraught wife that I would be if it were real. “Oh, God!”

Brett Stuckmeyer, the owner of the place, and our waiter were pounding the living daylights out of Rudy. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

I rushed to his side. “Rudy, are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said, glaring at me. “When the soufflé hit my head and the table hit my back, it must have jarred loose whatever was in there.” He was not happy. But a man with soufflé on his face had every right not to be happy.

I looked around the room. Everybody stared at us. I hadn’t really expected anything else.

“Let me buy you dinner,” I heard Brett say to Rudy.

“No, no. I think we’re finished with dinner,” he said to him.

I looked to Eleanore who gave me the thumbs-up sign. Mr. Lockheart and Mr. Wheaton glared at me when I got around to making eye contact with them. Then I realized why they didn’t look very pleasant. I had returned the case to the wrong chair. It was suppose to be next to Andrew’s chair and I set it next to Lanny’s. Oops.

“I think they know,” I said to Rudy.

“Probably,” he said. He couldn’t look more angry if he tried.

“Romantic evening,” he quipped. “Huh.”

“Well, adventure is better than romance,” I said. I tried desperately to justify the soufflé on his face. “Look at it this way. Now Captain Kirk has some soufflé and some wine to go along with your drool.”

He growled.

Twenty-one

“I didn’t tell you to have a seizure, for crying out loud!” I yelled.

“Oh, no, you just wanted me to sing ‘Yankee Doodle Dandee’!”

“I never said that.”

My mother was at the kitchen table with a glass of milk and a stomach pill. “So I take it you guys didn’t go to a movie?”

I glared at her.

“Oh, no,” Rudy said. “We
were
the movie! It was like … like … I don’t know! There are no words for it, but it was the worst night of my life!”

“It was not,” I said. “You told me yourself that the worst night of your life was when you went to your cousin’s wedding reception and got caught making out with his brother’s girlfriend.”

My mom choked a little on that one but tried to remain stoic.

“This surpassed that,” he said.

“Aw, Rudy, you know this was fun. You’ll tell our grandchildren about it.”

“I won’t have to, because the whole town will tell them first. It will be etched in gold. They will probably teach it in local history class.”

“You’re overreacting. Again, I might add.” I began filling my mother in on the night’s activities as Rudy paced the kitchen floor with the remnants of soufflé still on his face. He was about to tell his side of the story when my mother jumped in.

“All right,” Mom said and held her hand up. “That’s enough. No, the evening did not go as planned, but Torie was hardly to blame there, Rudy. She couldn’t help that all those people were there and she couldn’t help that Eleanore decided to steal the briefcase.”

“Great. You’re ganging up on me,” he accused. “She could have gotten herself killed. Let’s be serious.”

“It’s hard to be serious when you have soufflé on your face,” Mom said and then tried not to laugh.

“I know I could have gotten hurt,” I said. “But Eleanore was just way off tonight. I couldn’t let her get killed.”

“By the way,” Mom said, “I think I figured out the code.”

“What?” I asked.

“You know, the code.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Evidently, Mary got into the papers on your desk. She drew me this really neat picture of a horse and a princess. It just happened to be on the back of the photocopy of that document with all of the numbers on it.”

“And?”

“And, I think I’ve cracked it.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

Mom pulled the piece of paper out from under a newspaper and showed me. “I assumed that the dashes were intended to differentiate between words. Then I took the two-letter words and figured that they were words like
it, my, to, is.
Then I tried the old Boy Scout trick of skipping every other letter. Which didn’t work, but I assumed that this was the type of code that we were dealing with.”

Even Rudy had come over and watched over her shoulder.

“All right,” I said, “cut to the chase.”

“Well the vowels are numbered first, but from the end of the alphabet. Y is a one, U is a two. And so on. Then if you skip the first letter from the end and number the consonants only you skip every other one, then go back and number the remaining consonants.”

I sat down on that one.

“And this worked?” Rudy asked.

“Like a dream,” Mom said. “Of course it has taken me two days and I’ve tried at least seven different combinations. This is what it says: ‘Between thirty-five and forty lat, and ninety-five and ninety long, there is a castle erected anew, wherein lies the fortune of the Merovees obtained from the Pyrenees. Once in this castle anew with the river on your right, it sleeps beneath Queens own home waiting your arrival. Beware! Ill fortune awaits.’”

“‘Castle erected anew,’” Rudy said. “It must mean New Kassel.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mom said.

“‘The fortune of the Merovees.’ Tonight, in the briefcase,” I said, “Eleanore and I saw some papers that talked about a group of people called the Merovee Knights. I wonder if they are referring to Merovingian when they say Merovee. Obtained from the Pyrenees would mean either Spain or France, most likely France.”

“Yes,” Mom said. “But what is ‘Queens own home’?”

“I have no idea.”

The phone rang and we all jumped.

“Hello? Sheriff Brooke,” I said.

“Torie, I wanted to let you know that we picked up Yvonne Mezalaine tonight,” he said.

“And?”

“She claims not to know Ransford Dooley. She said that she had been invited here by Marie to attend a meeting in St. Louis with some associates of Marie’s. She said that they were Lanny Lockheart and Andrew Wheaton.”

“What about being her sister? Is she still claiming to be Marie’s half sister?”

“She said that she was not related to Marie, but that she knew her on a professional level for many years. But guess what?”

“What?”

“We found the stolen papers in her car.”

NEW KASSEL GAZETTE

T
HE
N
EWS
Y
OU
M
IGHT
M
ISS

by Eleanore Murdoch

Tobias says thank you for his new accordion. The speed with which New Kassel residents gave donations for the accordion was amazing.

Right now we only have four apple dumpling recipes entered in our contest. One of those entries belongs to Jalena Keith. Come on, New Kassel residents. Jalena wins all of the recipe contests. At least give her some competition this year! You may drop off your entry at the Birk/Zeis home, Pierre’s, or Torie’s office at the Gaheimer House.

And a note to whoever was jogging in the nude on the bridge last Tuesday night: at least buy yourself some sneakers.

Until next time.

Eleanore

Twenty-two

I knocked on the door of room seven of the Murdoch Inn. I wanted some answers and I thought Andrew was the man to give them to me. I did not hear any noise from inside, but I stuck around and knocked again. I looked down at my feet, noticed the mud on my L.A. Gears, and knocked yet another time.

Up the steps came Andrew Wheaton, just the man I was trying to get to answer the door. He stiffened when he saw me, making his muscular neck seem out of proportion to the rest of his body. He’d gone for the
American Gigolo
look this morning. His pants, shirt, and tie were all different shades of olive and khaki green. His shoes, a shiny black, were spiffy and barely looked worn.

“Mrs. O’Shea,” he said. “What a surprise.”

“I doubt that,” I said. “May I speak with you a moment? It’s important.”

He honestly looked like he was afraid of me. I am about as unimposing a person as one can find. I’m short. I dress casually. There isn’t an anxious bone in my body. I’m also a woman. Not that I think women are unimposing, but a lot of men do.

“All right,” he said. He unlocked the door and I followed him inside. The inside of his room was done in country blue with a hardwood floor and oak bed. He placed his keys next to the pitcher and bowl, resting on a dressing table.

“Well? What is it?”

He seemed unsure and nervous. He glanced around the room several times before finally looking at me.

“I want to know just what the heck is going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you saw Marie before she died. You were in her house. You could have killed her. Not that I think that you did. I’m not even sure that she was killed on purpose. I think it could have been an accident. But you had ample opportunity.”

“Motive?” he asked.

“That’s what I want to discuss. The motive here seems to be something so far-fetched that I can’t conceive it. It seems that Marie was killed for some documents and letters that pertain to the French crown, the man in the iron mask, a treasure, hell, just throw in the kitchen sink. I know that you are some sort of Merovee Knight, whatever the heck that is. What is going on?”

He looked around the room, even more nervous than before. “I didn’t kill her.”

“Okay, who did?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’m going to fill you in on a few things only because I believe it will only be a matter of time until you figure it out.” He walked over to the window and looked out. “A long time ago there were the Crusades. You know, the war against the Muslims, the Christians trying to take over the Holy Land. There were the Knights Templar. You familiar with them?”

“Yes, vaguely.”

“The Knights Templar were in charge of keeping the road to Jerusalem safe. They were also the keepers of a great treasure. They believed that the true heir to the French throne was descended from the Merovingian kings that occupied the throne before Hugh Capet took over.”

“All right. I follow you there.”

“They hid the treasure in France. A priest by the name of Berenger Sauniere found this treasure and had it removed. Nobody knew where.”

“Are the documents themselves the treasure?” I asked. “Are they that priceless?”

He sat down on the edge of his bed and ran his fingers through his hair. “No. Those documents were in a building in Nice, Italy. They tell unbelievable secrets that I’m not even going to discuss with you. They were the Templars’ ammunition against Louis.”

“And Henri de Lorraine?”

“He was the descendant that the Templars were trying to bring to power. The king wouldn’t kill him, because the Templars would only replace him with another heir.”

“Why wasn’t something done in 1703 when the prisoner died?”

“There was no need to replace him,” Andrew said. “The Order was in complete chaos and civil war. There was no longer a threat. The Order could not regroup.”

“So, where do these Merovee Knights come in?”

“We are a division, a branch of the Templars. The Templars no longer exist,” he stated.

Talk about paranoia. I began looking over my shoulder at every little noise. “I don’t get it. How does Marie fit in? What was the treasure that this Sauniere guy had?”

“The treasure is more wealth than you can imagine. Gold. Jewels. Enough to start your own country with. Marie’s father was a high officer in the Order. He was given the documents. He had an operative here in the United States by the name of Gaston—”

“Levaldieu.”

“Yes. Gaston was to find an inconspicuous out-of-the-way place for the treasure. Which he did. He wired back to Mr. Jaillard the locations in a coded message.”

“So, Jaillard sent the treasure?”

“Yes. It’s here, somewhere in New Kassel. It was originally to be given to the correct heir. When that happened they were to take over France or create their own country, by force if they had to. But they had no idea Hitler would come along and awaken powerful countries like the United States. The thought of an heir of the Merovingian line taking over the world is now ludicrous.”

“How did Marie fit in?” I asked again.

“Marie was a member of the Merovee Knights, but she never let on like she knew the whereabouts of the treasure and she never, ever let on like she had the documents. They were supposedly hidden and her father never revealed the hiding place.”

“So, she figured out the coded message and knew to come here.”

“Yes. Lanny began thinking that she had the documents about five years ago, because of something she said. He was absolutely convinced.”

“So did everybody and their uncle follow her here or were you all invited?” I asked.

“We were coming to St. Louis for the meeting. She wrote and told everybody that this is where she was living, but never let on like this was the place of the treasure. Lanny just knew that the treasure must be close by.”

“Did he kill her?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. O’Shea,” he said. “Now please go. I’ve told you more than enough. And more than I had to.”

“So this was all just a big treasure hunt?”

“For millions, Mrs. O’Shea.”

“How do you know all of this is true? How do you know that you and the Merovee Knights and the Templars have not been taken for a wild ride? A practical joke. I’ve read some on the Templars and I know that it is said that King Philip in the 1300s stripped them of their land and their money. They were tried as heretics. I think you’ve been taken.”

“I don’t expect you to believe me,” he said. “But the treasure was sent here for safekeeping for the true heir. It was not meant to go to private individuals. It was not meant for greedy treasure hunters. Somewhere along the line, the Merovee Knights have forgotten that we are to protect the bloodline.”