“Yes,” Oscar said.
“Then you must realize that this idea of an ancient treasure is ridiculous.”
“But it’s not,” Edward Hollands cut in. “Oscar—I—I don’t know why they’ve got you bound, but I can guess. Was it you who hit me?”
“You had the goblet.” Oscar didn’t even sound apologetic. Dr. Hollands examined the ties on Oscar and his nephew’s wrists, but the doctor was entirely unbothered.
“What do you mean it’s not, Mr. Hollands?” Beatrice asked.
“Oh the goblet is old,” Edward told them. “The Nemo name must be a family story, but the goblet itself. It’s been around for a long time.”
“Jack and I verified that,” Ham said.
Vi’s head turned among the others and she asked Edward, “Is it likely that there really was a missing fortune?”
Edward nodded immediately. “They were rich. Like you, Mrs. Wakefield. They were remarkably wealthy. Look at this place. What happened to it all?”
“You go back far enough and you’ll find people lost fortunes gambling. Or investing in schemes that didn’t turn out. They wouldn’t have been the first family to lose everything. Most have, by now.”
“But they didn’t,” Edward said. “I know you all think I’m an idiot, but I’m not. I heard the stories Oscar told. I followed the money lines, I did the research. They got quite a bit of money in unsavory ways, but they didn’t lose it. There wasn’t record of an heir who gambled it away. They were the perpetrators of schemes that led to other families’ ruins, not theirs.”
“Father did pay quite a bit for this house,” Rita said. “Where did that money go?”
“He left it to a university,” Oscar snapped. “They named a building after him.”
“Where did he sit in this house?” Smith suddenly demanded. “Where did he spend his time?”
“Why?” Oscar asked.
Before he could answer they saw Harriet and John step from the trees. Harriet eyed her cousin and then said, “Idiot.”
“They hunted us like dogs,” Oscar told his cousin. Harriet’s gaze moved over him and then landed on the others.
“It’s ours,” Harriet told them.
No one agreed, but Beatrice repeated Smith’s question.
“Did your grandfather have somewhere he lingered in the house? A favorite room? The library, perhaps?”
“He didn’t read,” Harriet said. Her eyes were distant, and her memories were clearly haunted. She snapped back to their presence and her lips flattened into a dark scowl. “He tormented us or he drank. Or he did both.”
“Where?” Smith demanded with the callousness of a man who had been through his own nightmares.
“The back parlor,” Harriet said. “The back parlor where he could see the ruins or us in the garden. Where he could watch us. We weren’t allowed in the front of the house. We were to be seen and not heard and if we played at all, we had to play out of sight.”
John stepped forward and handed his gun to Violet. “I’m sorry for what we did to you.”
Jack watched it all carefully.
Vi looked at the man. “I assume you were doing what you could for them.” She gestured at Harriet and Oscar.
It was an exit from the madness he’d been drawn into and John recognized the chance and took it. “Great-grandfather was a monster. Our mother told us stories about him. She refused to let him anywhere near us. Father never once objected to Mother’s rules for us.”
“She was kinder to you than our parents were to us,” Harriet told John. “My brother chose his wife well.”
Violet stepped away. She had to. The madness and pain that poured off of Harriet was more than Vi wanted. Instead, she went into the house and moved towards the back parlor and knew that Victor followed. She could almost bet that Jack had shot Victor a look and commanded him to go, but it hadn’t been necessary.
“Thank heaven for Aunt Agatha,” Victor said and Vi stepped into her brother’s arms and shuddered. She didn’t have the strength to just dismiss everything as Smith did. After a few stolen moments of comfort, Vi pulled the sketch Kate had made and stepped up to the back parlor. The curving edge of the back patio was there and Vi could easily imagine the malevolent old man watching his grandchildren desperately searching for the treasure.
It wasn’t money, Vi thought, that they wanted so badly. Those children had wanted an escape from the man. They’d wanted to win against him, but most of all, they had probably thought, ‘With the treasure, I’ll finally get away. I’ll be able to do what I want to do. I’ll be able to—’ The particulars didn’t matter, Vi thought. In many ways, it had been a mercy to dream and obsess over the supposed fortune. It gave them a hope for the future.
But now? Now Oscar and Harriet were old. They weren’t going to have the happily ever after they’d dreamed over. Not after decades of continuing to try to win and failing at each turn.
“You know,” Vi said as she stepped into the parlor and examined the room. “It’s interesting that it’s so verifiable.”
“What do you mean?” Victor asked.
“Everyone who has spent any sort of time looking for this fortune is sure it is real.”
“Perhaps,” Victor suggested, “that’s because they want to believe.”
Vi took a chair and moved it to the windows. She sat down and then pulled out the map and stared at it. Down and up, back and forth she examined. She sat for well over an hour. Long enough for Jack to check on her. Long enough to hear the sounds of the babies crying. Long enough for Victor to become bored and for Smith to reappear.
Vi watched the others walk about with their own copies of maps. Finally, Vi slowly stood, stretching. “Who gave the goblet its name?”
Smith
