before the oil tank even arrived. You know I had to phone almost twenty septic tank companies before I found the right one? Kincaid had paid for the thing in cash. The company is in Stoneham. He sure didn't want to leave any tracks. While the oil tank was public and official, with records to prove and document it, the septic tank was strictly on the QT.'
We descended into the basement-which people in New England call the cellah-and I located the southwest corner of the building, then paced off eight steps. We were in the furnace room.
We paced around the place for fifteen minutes. Zilch.
'Yah know, Doc, you're the best bullshitter I've ever known.'
'Now why on earth would you say that?'
'OK, here's Doc Adams, the hero who cracked the gun-running ring. Fine. But then you get me to tap the post office I box of what's-his-ass-'
'Wallace Kinchloe. Who of course was really Walter Kincaid.'
'Fine. Anyway, we tap the box and what do we find? A letter from this plush bank in the Caribbean that indicates that old Kinchloe's got a fortune in gold he's about to deposit there.'
'So?'
'So then, what you do is convince me to go in with you to buy the Rose at auction, with the hopes-no,. wait, not the hopes, the expectation-the expectation, mind you, of cutting open the hull and having gold ingots pour out all over us.'
'Let's try over here near this workbench?
'But where are the ingots? Where are those doubloons?'
'Get over here will you?'
''No dammit! To hell with it; I'm leaving.'
'OK fine. Leave me the key.'
'What are you doing?'
'We've checked the oil pipes; they're in the right places. There is a big oil tank out there, buried beyond this foundation wall. It does have feeder pipes to the smaller tank inside. So be it. But look farther down the wall.'
He joined me as we slid aside the heavy workbench. Low on the basement wall was a metal flue door.
I opened the metal door and shined the flashlight inside. I fully expected to see a tunnel, with 'all that - glitters' at its terminus. The bottom of the flue was filled with ashes. It was elbow deep in stupid ashes. The back of it was lined with brick.
'Well?'
I felt back at the brick that lined the flue pipe. It was genuine: raspy, rough, ceramic-any description you could name. It was going nowhere.
We went upstairs. I checked the portion of the living room that was exactly above the room in the basement we'd just left. Nothing. We looked under rugs, behind curtains, in window sills-nothing.
'Charlie, look,' said Joe in a tired, placating tone, 'your hunch just didn't turn out, that's all. If there was a fortune, and if Kinchloe or Kincaid-whatever the fuck his name was-hid it away, don't you think he'd do it in some rented place where he could get at it quickly and safely-at a moment's notice-away from his wife and her boyfriend, huh?'
I admitted to myself that his theory made sense. Unhappy and disgusted with his home life, why would he bother to hide his treasure trove here?
'Let's go,' I said. I picked up flashlight, Polaroid camera, and began to zombie myself toward the front door.
We locked the mansion up carefully as we departed, then I got in the car and purred off.
But two blocks away, I found myself turning the car around. It had to be there. Had to. If it were a stash of cash, or even jewels, another hiding place might make more sense. But not gold bullion. It was heavy and hard to carry around. It needed a home.
'You crazy?'
'Let's give that furnace room forty good minutes, Joe, then I'll throw in the towel.'
'Done,' he said with a weary sigh.
We went over the room with the systematic precision only a detective and a surgeon could muster. In considerably less time than forty minutes we found a bucket with a shovel in it. The bucket had been concealed behind the boiler.
'I may be crazy, but these look like fireplace ashes to me,' said Joe, raking through them.
We opened the flue again. The ashes in the bottom matched those in the bucket. I didn't know enough about flues to be sure, but I would bet odds something fishy was happening with the furnace flue. And come to think of it, the door to the flue looked awfully big too. We examined the iron door, its. hinges and mountings… everything. It looked as old as the house.
'Goddarmnit Joe, there is a septic tank buried alongside that oil tank. What the hell's it there for?'
'If there's an entrance to it, maybe it's outside.'
'Maybe, but I doubt it. I've looked it over three times carefully. And remember how close to the foundation it is.'
I stepped back and looked at the brick wall in front of me. The big oil pipe came in at exactly the right place. OK, that made sense. The flue, and the door, was in exactly the right place. There was a flue, and I could look up it to where it joined the chimney.
No good. I could not detect the signs of disturbed masonry anywhere. But this Kincaid was a clever old guy. He did everything in style. He spared no pains, or costs. I knew that by his house and his company headquarters. He was a sharpie, was old Kincaid. Perhaps he'd been laying treasure away for years and years, and finally decided to construct some secret vault before disappearing. And he would enter the place on the eve of his departure, and take the stuff aboard his refitted boat, seal it in down near the keel, and slide aways to Queen's Beach, 'Where Paradise Begins…'
'It's in there, Joey. I tell you it's in there. It's just very cleverly concealed.'
Joe opened his pocket knife and began picking and pecking inside the flue.
'Hey hey hey, look at this, Charlie. This corner mortar is peeling off like rubber cement.'
The jackknife blade scooped away the old mortar along both back seams of the brick flue. Then we realized that it wasn't mortar; it was simply caulking compound-probably applied with a gun and smoothed down with a fingertip-covered with wood ashes to make it appear old. Joe worked quickly. In less than a minute both seams were clear; the back wall of the brick flue was free of the side walls by an eighth of an inch. I rapped hard on the back wall, which was two feet across. It didn't sound hollow; it was gen-u-wine brick. Joe shoved at it, tried to slide it. No go. It was solid. Joe hunched down in front of the hole and took his chin in his hand. `
'Sombitch Charlie. She doesn't wanna budge.'
'There's gotta be a gizrno… a lever or-'
'Yeah I know what you mean. Let's get back to looking.'
So we scoured the place again from top to bottom. Nothing. Yet we'd found some fake mortar; that was enough to keep us at it. So we trudged around the furnace and all its pipes; we examined the floor and all the walls. Clean as a whistle. We were just about to give up for a second time when Joe noticed the small hole in the masonry right behind the furnace. It was only as big in diameter as the base of my thumb. It was low in the wall, about two feet from the floor. It was just about invisible. But it was the only thing in the to wall that wasn't perfect. I shined the flashlight beam into the hole. I had a lot of trouble peeking in because it was so small. About six inches inside a brass nut shined back at me. The curious thing was, it was three-sided. It was an equilateral triangle. I stepped back and looked at the hole again. Its outer edges were worn and rounded. It was whitewashed the same shade of white as the remainder of the foundation wall. Yet inside it was a shiny brass bolt head of strange configuration. I'll be damned, I thought.
The innocuous-looking hole in the wall was ten feet from the ash door.
'Naw, it couldn't be-' said Joe.
'Oh yes it could. Thing is, where the hell is the gizmo used to turn the nut? Perhaps old Walter carried it with him. If that's the case we'll never-'
'No! No he wouldn't. Don't you see? The head's triangular. How many triangular bolt-heads have you ever seen in your lifetime?'
