Page 39 of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street
Jack blinked for a moment, thinking, while Yvonne gave me a courtesy glance to see if I might be able to come up with an answer.
“Look at the list again, Jack. Not the typical list of necessities, is it? But if you had to guess a country of origin for at least two of the items,what would be your best guess?”
We both looked at the list. “France,” I ventured.
“The Marquis de Lafayette,” Jack said at the same time.
“You both get As.” Yvonne beamed.
“Okay,” Jack said slowly. “So what does this have to do with Eliza and anything valuable that might still be hidden on the property?”
Yvonne folded her hands primly in front of her. “As you know, the marquis was French and had the full support of the French king, as France had officially recognized American independence in 1778, most likely to thumb their noses at their enemies, the British. It is not documented, but there were rumors that the king of France, in addition to promising troops and ships to support the American cause, had also given the marquis something very valuable to support the Americans financially—namely, to fund spies. It wasn’t easy to garner help from well-placed individuals who had so much to lose if caught. Priceless jewels or gold or even art would make a fine incentive.
“There is no official record of this happening, but there are certainly enough rumors and vague letters in various historical archives attesting to the probability that it did happen. However, if the treasure—and we still don’t know what it might have been—did make it stateside, there is no record of what happened to it or where it might be today.”
Jack slid the list closer. Almost under his breath, he read it out loud twice. “Cognac, feathers of goldfinch, kitchen maid, Burgundy wine. Those four items don’t go together. I can almost buy that Lafayette would be delivering cognac and Burgundy wine to supporters in South Carolina, but a bird and a kitchen maid? I don’t get it.” His eyes widened. “There must be a code in there somewhere.”
“Most likely,” Yvonne said. “Although I must admit I haven’t figured out exactly what yet.”
I wanted to say that was exactly where my thoughts had been headed, but that would have been a lie. Instead, I said, “Do you think this is what Marc was looking for?”
Jack slowly shook his head as he regarded me. “It’s possible, although there was nothing in the shoebox or the folder that mentioned it. Unless he read something in the papers he already discarded.”
“There’s more,” Yvonne said.
We both looked at her, and it appeared Yvonne was enjoying the suspense just a little too much.
She slid an enlarged copy of a grainy photograph in our direction. I recognized the triangular shape of the mausoleum I’d seen at Gallen Hall Plantation. This was an old photograph of the front of it, showing the names and dates of the mausoleum’s residents engraved on the granite.
I recognized Eliza Grosvenor’s name, but the other two names, Lawrence Vanderhorst and Alexander Monroe, were unfamiliar, except for the Vanderhorst last name, of course. The only thing that stood out was that all three had died in 1782, Eliza in July and the two men on different dates in October. “Do we know anything about the two men?” I asked.
“We do now,” Yvonne said as she slid two more pages toward us, both apparently from the same book as Eliza’s biography.
I squinted at the photograph of the mausoleum’s plaque while I waited for Jack to read the two biographies. He was silent for a few minutes, then straightened. He took a deep breath. “Well, that’s an unexpected turn of events.”
“What?” I said without looking up, distracted by something in the photograph.
“Alexander was a British soldier quartered at Gallen Hall during the occupation of Charleston, which began in 1780. And Lawrence”—he paused for effect—“was engaged to marry Eliza.”
That made me look up. “So what happened?”
“It’s not really clear. It just says that Alexander was found floating facedown in the Ashley River. Cause of death was accidental drowning.”
“And Lawrence?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “He was found four days later, a pistol shot to the middle of his chest. According to the biography, no one was ever charged with his death.”
“According tothatsource,” Yvonne interrupted. “But inthissource, an atlas of Revolutionary War spies published in the thirties, their deaths had something to do with a spy ring, and one of the men might have been a double agent, selling secrets.”
Jack and I shared a glance, both of us recalling something Greco had told us about a spy ring. He’d been pointing to a peacock carving on the claw-foot of Nola’s bed.
“What was the spy ring called?” Jack asked.
“There’s not a lot of information on it,” Yvonne said. “Some historians even doubt its existence because there aren’t any existing rosters of member names. The only way they identified each other was in the use of a symbol shaped like a peacock.”
I felt Jack looking at me, but I was focused on the photo in my hand. “I think the rumors were right,” I said, not looking up from the photograph of the mausoleum, the graininess of the old photo making details hard to discern.
Jack stood behind me, his warm breath brushing the back of my head as I felt the tension in his body, the pent-up excitement that we might have found something, however obscure, that might help us break free of Marc’s hold on us.
