The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library

ST. FRANCIS COLLEGE

The card had fallen out of a notebook, which was larger than the others. When I opened it, several other business cards spilled out. One for a roofing company, another for a home-care outfit in Newport. I realized at once that this was an account ledger. Written in the same careful hand that cataloged the contents of the library were the monthly expenses paid by Peter Chesley. The electric bill, gas, food, water, nursing care, doctor’s visits—it was all there, and up to date practically to the day he died.

I found a column outlining payments to one Nelson Spinner, for “archive consultation.” It took only a moment to discover that Peter Chesley had written Nelson over a dozen checks—one every two weeks for the past six or seven months.

The latest entry was dated the Friday before Peter Chesley died. Apparently, Nelson had been dealing with Peter Chesley up until just two days before the man perished.

The information in this ledger book was astounding. The night Nelson Spinner had come to Buy the Book, he acted as though he’d never before seen the Phelps volumes of Poe. He picked them up and examined them and went out of his way to dissuade us from believing there was any credence to a Poe Code.

“Why would Nelson pretend that he’d never seen Peter’s books before?” I whispered. “What was he trying to hide?”

I think we both suspect what he was dodging, Jack said.

“You mean you think Nelson’s the killer now? But what about Claymore Chesley?”

I didn’t say your sweetheart Spinner clipped anyone. I’m only saying his debunking of the code was a dog and pony show. I’ll bet dollars to donuts Spinner had his peepers on the dingus—

“Huh?”

—the treasure. Spinner’s been eyeing the goods from the start. In fact, Golden Boy might have cozied up to Grandpa Chesley just to get close to the goods, figuring he’d put the squeeze on the geezer once he found the swag.

“Do you think Spinner might have found the treasure already?”

Nix, doll. He would have lammed it from old Chesley if he had. Why come back to this mausoleum if you don’t have to?

“Speaking of the treasure, let’s find it now and make like shepards, okay?”

Baby, I love it when you speak my language.

I remembered the wall of old portraits and photographs near the weird Poe clock. I ran the flashlight across the shelves of books until I located the pictures. There were over a dozen, all in frames, several oval-shaped. A closer examination revealed brass nameplates on each frame—all of the images were of the Chesley family, dating back to the Civil War and earlier.

“Dead end,” I muttered.

Keep looking, cupcake. There are a lot of mug shots on these old walls.

I played the beam around the four walls, but all I found were books, thousands of them, lined up in neat rows on heavy wooden shelves. I was about to give up when the light played across something round—a large, freestanding terrestrial globe on a thick, Victorian-era wooden base. Only a portion of the globe was visible, the bulk of it tucked into a curved niche sunk into the wall between two tall shelves.

As I approached the globe, I saw a gleaming brass plaque at its base. In the flashlight’s glare, I read the inscription: MADE BY NEW YORK–BASED GLOBE MAKER HERMAN SCHEDLER, CIRCA 1889. PROPERTY OF MYSTIC HOUSE.

“Mystic House, Jack! This globe belonged to Eugene Phelps, the man who hid the treasure.” I played the flash light along the curved wall behind the globe. There were four portraits hanging there, all of them in oval frames.

“Eureka!” I cried, laughing at my own unintentional Poe reference.

Close your head, doll. You’re sleuthing, remember?

I should have listened to Jack, but in the excitement of discovery, I did kind of lose my head. I found the nearest lamp and turned it on. Light filled this small corner of the massive library.

Are you smoking the mud-pipe, toots? Put a sock over it!

“I need light to take these pictures. I have no choice. I’m sure there’s no one here, Jack.”

Your call. But me? I’m twitchy. This setup doesn’t feel right.

I adjusted the lamp and removed the shade so that the bare bulb illuminated the entire niche. In order to get closer to the portraits, I pushed a thick-backed chair next to the globe and stood on it. Bending over the globe, I began to take pictures.

Two of the portraits were amateurish renderings of Poe, one in oil, the other pen and ink. They were signed EP—Eugene Phelps, I presumed—and if the artist thought these were “treasures,” he surely misjudged his own skills. Below those were two images of Poe hung side by side—I recognized the high, domed forehead, the pale flesh, nearly identical. Both pictures were set in thick, heavy frames.

Poe seemed to be wearing the same clothes in both pictures, though in one he appeared disheveled, distracted.

I captured multiple images of each portrait, checking occasionally to make sure the digital reproduction was clear. When I was finished, I tucked the phone into my pocket. I was about to step off the chair when I was interrupted.

“Who are you and why are you in this house?” a raspy voice demanded. “You have no business being here.”

With a startled yelp, I tumbled off the chair—and landed hard.

Flat on my back, I looked up to find a sinewy young man looming over me. He had curly dark blond hair and wide blue-green eyes. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt and his right hand clutched a long iron poker with a hooked tip.

Didn’t I warn you to keep your peepers wide and your ears unplugged?

I scrambled to my feet. “What are you doing here?” I fired back with false bravado. “The owner of this house is dead!”

The man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “My father died this week, it’s true,” he replied, his voice hoarse.

“You’re Peter Chesley’s son?”

“I’m Raymond Chesley…. Who are you?”

“Listen, I know this looks bad,” I began, my words tripping over themselves. “But I can explain. My name is Penelope Thornton-McClure. I co-own a bookstore in Quindicott, and I met your father just the other night, the night he died. In fact, I was the one who found him—uh, his corpse. My aunt Sadie and I, that is. You see, it was really my aunt who—”

“Be quiet.”

My mouth snapped shut.

“I don’t care a whit about my father,” Raymond Chesley said. “I lived most of my life in Boston, with my mother and stepfather. My father and I were estranged, so I don’t want to hear your explanations. You have to leave now.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

I refused to budge. Instead, I began to tell Raymond about the Phelps Poes, the Poe Code, and the treasure hidden somewhere in this library. His reaction shocked me. He laughed, right in my face! A laugh that quickly broke into a cough. He drew a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his nose.

“A treasure? You sound as insane as this despicable family—like all the Chesleys. My late mother was right to get away from them as soon as I was born.”

“Listen, Raymond. We’ve sold two of the Phelps books. We will sell the rest. That means we owe the estate—you—some money. Thousands of dollars—”

“Keep it,” he said, waving his hand. “He gave them to you, and I don’t care. I’m selling everything you see as soon as possible, and giving it all to charity. An antique dealer is coming here to assess this junk and haul it away.”

“What! When?”