Lost Empire (25 page)

As Selma was herself from Romania’s next-door neighbor, Hungary, she and Dobo liked to both reminisce and quarrel about the “old country.”

“She said he’s going to work on it throughout the night,” Remi added.

“What, the surf’s bad?”

“Terrible.”

“How’re they doing on the journal?”

“All she said was ‘still working.’”

In Selmaspeak that meant slow but steady progress that could be imperiled by any further questions.

“She also mentioned the spiral and the Fibonacci sequence. They’re finding both of them repeated everywhere. Like a mantra. What an interesting man, Blaylock.”

Sam jingled the keys and said, “Let’s get moving.”

“What did you get?”

“Cadillac Escalade.”

“Sam . . .”

“Hybrid.”

“Okay.”

 

 

FOR SAM AND REMI, Savannah epitomized Southern charm and history—it was in every turn of her shaded oak- and Spanish moss- lined streets; in her cherry blossom-filled squares and around her well-tended monuments; dripping from balconies and stone walls in the form of hydrangea and honeysuckle; and in the facades of the pillared Greek Revival plantation houses and the sprawling neoclassical estates. Even the buzz of cicadas was part of Savannah’s charm. In fact, it was their love of Savannah that led them to accept Severson’s travel suggestion without question. When pushed for a hint, the librarian had merely smiled and said, “I think you’ll find something familiar there.”

 

 

DESPITE THE HEAT, they kept the Escalade’s tinted windows rolled down so they could admire the scenery. With one hand on her fluttering beach hat, Remi asked, “Where exactly are we going?”

“Whitaker Street, near Forsyth Park. Very close to the Heyward House, I think.”

The former summer house of a onetime plantation owner and one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, Heyward House was just one of the many landmarks in the city’s Bluffton’s National Register Historic District. A stroll in Bluffton was a stroll through history.

They parked on the east side of Forsyth Park under a sprawling oak and walked a block south to a taupe-colored house with mint green shutters. Sam checked the address against the one Severson had given them.

“This is it.”

A hand-painted sign above the porch steps said in flowing cursive: MISS CYNTHIA’S MUSEUM AND GALLERY.

As they mounted the steps, a bony, white-muzzled coonhound lifted its head from the mat on which it was lying, let out a single howl, then put its head back down and went back to sleep.

The front door opened, revealing a wizened woman in a white skirt and pink blouse standing behind the screen door. “Afternoon, folks,” she said in a melodic Georgia drawl.

“Good afternoon,” Remi replied.

“Bubba is my doorbell, you see.”

“He’s good at it,” said Sam.

“Oh, yes, he takes his job very seriously. Please, come in.”

She unlatched the screen door and pushed it open a few inches. Sam opened it the rest of the way, then followed Remi through.

“I’m Miss Cynthia,” the woman said and extended her hand.

“Remi—”

“Fargo, yes. And you would be Mr. Sam Fargo.”

“Yes, ma’am. How did you—”

“Julianne told me to expect you. And I don’t get many visitors, you see, so it was a safe guess. Please, come in. I’m making tea.”

In an unsteady yet strangely elegant shuffle, she led them into what Sam and Remi could describe as a parlor. The heavy ornate furniture, lace curtains, and velvet-covered settees and chairs could have been taken straight from the set of
Gone with the Wind
.

Sam asked, “Miss Cynthia, how do you and Julianne know each other?”

“I try to make it up to Washington once a year. I love its history. I met Miss Julianne about five years ago during a tour. I guess she found my pestering questions endearing, so we stayed in touch. Whenever I find a new piece I can’t identify, I call her for help. She’s been here to visit. Excuse me while I check on our tea.” She disappeared through another door and returned two minutes later. “It’s steeping. While we’re waiting, let me show you what you came to see.”

She led them back out of the parlor, across the foyer, down a short hall, and through a door into a spacious, sunlit room painted snow white.

“Welcome to Miss Cynthia’s Museum and Gallery,” she said.

Much like in Morton’s Museum and Curiosity Shop in Bagamoyo, Miss Cynthia had assembled a plethora of artifacts—these all related to the Civil War—from musket balls and rifles to uniform patches and daguerreotypes.

“I collected all of this with my own hands,” Miss Cynthia said proudly. “On battlefield sites, garage and estate sales . . . You’d be surprised what you find if you know what you’re looking for. Oh, my, that sounded very wise, didn’t it?”

Sam and Remi laughed. Remi said, “It did indeed.”

“Those bits come to you now and again as you age. Well, you can look around at your leisure later, but let me show you this.”

Miss Cynthia walked to the room’s northern wall, which was packed from floor to ceiling with framed photographs and sketches. She stood before it, lips pursed, as she scanned her eyes back and forth.

“Ah, there you are.”

She hobbled to the corner, reached up, and took down a black-framed four-by-six-inch image. She shuffled back and handed it to Sam.

A grainy daguerreotype showed a three-masted wooden ship sitting at anchor.

“My God,” Remi breathed. “It’s her.”

“Remi, look at this.” Sam brought the picture closer to their faces.

In the photo’s lower right-hand corner, etched in faded ink, was a single word: Ophelia.

 

 

FIVE MINUTES LATER in the parlor, teacups in hand, they were still staring, dumbfounded, at the photograph. Sam said, “How did you . . . ? Where . . . ?”

“That Julianne has quite a memory—eidetic, I think it’s called.”

“Photographic memory.”

“Yes. She spent hours in my museum. This morning she sent me a pencil sketch through the e-mail whatsahoozit and asked me to compare it to mine. I assume the sketch was yours?”

“Something tells us it’s more yours than ours,” Remi replied.

Miss Cynthia smiled, waved her hand. “I told Julianne the two could be twins, despite the difference in media. The same right down to the inscription.”

“Ophelia.”

“Yes. Sadly, we never knew much about her.”

“Pardon me?” said Sam.

“My apologies. I’m getting ahead of myself. You see, William Lynd Blaylock was my great-great-great—I’m not sure how many ‘great’s, but he was my uncle.”

Miss Cynthia smiled sweetly and took a sip of tea.

Sam and Remi exchanged glances. Remi pursed her lips, thinking, then said, “You’re a Blaylock?”

“Oh, no, no. I’m an Ashworth. So was Ophelia until she married William. After Aunt Ophelia was killed, my great-great—my grandmother Constance stayed in touch with William. It was never more than a friendship, of course, but I imagine there was some fondness there. He wrote her often, starting a few months after he got back from England and all the way until the end. Around 1883, I think.”

“The end,” Sam repeated. “You mean his death?”

“Oh, I don’t know. In fact, no one knows what became of him. I’m simply talking about the last letter he sent Grandmother Constance.” Miss Cynthia’s eyes brightened. “Goodness, there are dozens of them, with the most wonderful postmarks and stamps from all over. He was quite the character. Always on some kind of adventure or quest. As I understand it, Grandmother Constance was worried that he was a bit touched in the head. She took all his stories with a grain of salt.”

“You mentioned letters,” Remi said. “Do you still—”

“Oh, yes, certainly. They’re in the basement. Would you like to see them?”

Sam, not trusting himself to speak, merely nodded.

 

 

THEY FOLLOWED HER through the kitchen and down a set of narrow steps near the back door. Predictably, the basement was dark and dank, with rough stone walls and a veined concrete floor. Using the light streaming down the stairs, Miss Cynthia found the light switch. In the center of the basement a single sixty-watt bulb glowed to life. The walls and floor were stacked with cardboard boxes of all sizes and shapes.

“You see the three shoe boxes there?” Miss Cynthia said. “Beside the Christmas-tree box?”

“Yes,” said Sam.

“That’s them.”

Back in the parlor, Sam and Remi opened the boxes and were immediately relieved to find the letters had been divided and stored in gallon-sized Ziploc baggies.

Sam said, “Miss Cynthia, you’re our hero.”

“Nonsense. Now, I have one condition,” she said sternly. “Are you listening?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sam.

“Take care of them and bring them back when you’re done.”

“I don’t understand,” Remi replied. “You’re letting us—”

“Of course. Julianne said you were decent people. She said you were trying to find out what happened to Uncle Blaylock in Africa—or wherever he ended up. It’s been a mystery in our family for a hundred twenty-seven years. It would be nice to have it solved. Since I’m too old for that kind of adventure, at least I can hear about it later from you. Providing you promise to come back and tell me everything.”

“We promise,” Sam said.

 

 

“PETE, WENDY, GET THESE INTO THE VAULT AND DO A QUICK assessment,” Selma said. She slid the shoe boxes across the worktable, and her assistants picked them up and disappeared into the archive chamber.

Unsure of the Blaylock letters’ condition, Sam and Remi had resisted temptation and refrained from opening the Ziplocs before they got home.

“A fruitful trip, it seems,” Selma said.

“Your friend Julianne is one of a kind,” Remi said.

“Tell me something I don’t know. If I’m ever hit by a bus, she should be your first call for a replacement.”

“Before or after we call 911?” Sam said.

“You’re a funny one, Mr. Fargo. This Ashworth woman . . . she seemed genuine?”

“She did,” replied Remi. “Between Blaylock’s journal and Morton’s biography we should be able to definitively prove or disprove the letters’ bona fides.”

Selma nodded. “While Pete and Wendy are working with those, care to see what progress we’ve made on the journal?”

“Can’t wait,” said Sam.

The three of them sat down at the worktable facing the nearest LCD screen, and Selma used the remote to scroll into their server. She located the file she wanted and double-clicked it. It filled the screen:

“Wow,” Sam murmured. “That’s a busy mind. Could be the thoughts of a genius or a nut.”

“Or someone who did a lot of daydreaming,” Remi said. “But in this case Blaylock doesn’t strike me as the fanciful type. He was a type A personality before the term was coined.”

Selma said, “This is a fairly representative page. Some have nothing but writing, but the majority are a mishmash of notes and drawings, some freehand and some probably done with a template or drafting tools.”

“Clearly the image in the upper left-hand corner is a hand-drawn map,” Sam said. “And some text in the middle of it . . . ‘Great green jeweled bird.’ To the right of that, some more text—can’t make it out—then some geometric symbols in the corner. Have you tried enlarging the text?”

Selma nodded. “I had Wendy work on it—she’s the graphics wizard. The more we enlarged it, the fuzzier it got.”

“What’s at the bottom right? Was ‘Orizaga’ there? Selma, have you seen that elsewhere?”

“The name? In many places.”

Remi stood up and walked closer to the screen. “In the middle, on the left and right . . . ‘Leonardo the Liar’ and ‘63 great men.’ Between them, these numbers here . . . ‘1123581321.’ Boy, talk about cryptic.”

“The bottom right is clearly a bird of some kind,” Selma added.

“The ‘great green jeweled bird’?” Remi suggested.

“Could be. As for two images in the middle—the one that looks a little like a cave painting and the arc below it—they’ve appeared on dozens and dozens of pages so far.”

The three fell silent, staring at the screen for several minutes. Eyes narrowed, Sam stood up and walked to screen and tapped the number sequence Remi had pointed out. “I must be more tired than I thought,” he said. “These numbers are the Fibonacci sequence.” Knowing his wife didn’t share his love of math, Sam explained: “When added together, the sum of the first two digits equals the third digit. You add the third and fourth digit together and get the sum of the fifth digit, and so on.” He walked back to the worktable and scribbled on a pad: