Vi frowned deeply and then crossed to the window and pushed it up, swinging her legs over the edge and then looking back for Smith. “You gave the final necessary clue.”
“What clue was that?” Smith demanded.
“I’d never have figured it out without you. The goblet of Nemo. That cranky old man.”
“What did you discover? Did you find the line of the map out there?” Smith asked. “I can’t see it. I’ve tried everything I can think of.”
“The first problem was ever believing him at all.”
Chapter 18
Violet summoned everyone to the patio. “I think I might have figured it out.”
Harriet scoffed, but given it was only their mercy that had kept them from calling the constables so far, she scoffed quietly. Vi met Jack’s gaze and said, “We all agree this whole thing was a game to the old man, right?”
“Right,” Jack said, speaking for everyone.
“We’ve ruled out the ruins simply because they’re obvious. Give it enough time and anyone would have found the treasure in the ruins.”
“Of course it’s in the ruins,” Harriet argued. “There’s an old map of the great house here. The line of it matched the bottom of the goblet.”
Vi shrugged. “But he was a cheater, wasn’t he? He didn’t play fair.”
“You think you know him?” Harriet’s voice was a rasp but it wasn’t worse than the stark hatred on Oscar’s face. “You think you knew what it was like?”
“I think the goblet is a lie.”
“A lie?”
“The clue is in the name itself.”
“The name is a clue that the treasure belongs to nobody,” Oscar said, sounding exhausted. “You aren’t the only one who can figure out the Latin meaning of a word and realize that Grandfather called the goblet that for a reason. It was the promise of his blasted treasure hunt.”
“It’s named so for two reasons,” Vi told Oscar. “The one you ferreted out and one other.”
“What is the other?” Harriet asked. Her gaze almost roiled. If Harriet had been a weather pattern, lightning would be streaking across the sky.
Vi looked down at the patio where she stood, her gaze focused on the curve of the patio. “This was added later.”
Both Oscar and Harriet froze.
Vi walked along the line of the patio. It was just brick. Someone had done a good job with it. It had been expensive, Vi thought. It had been expensive and right there in front of them all the whole time. The old man was a sadistic creep. He was the type of man to sell his house and leave his fortune to a school, so he could have a building named after him. He was the kind of man whose daughter-in-law protected her children from him, regardless of the money.
He was the kind of man who added a patio, hid his money, and then started a treasure hunt after. What children wouldn’t look in the ruins for buried treasure?
But the addition right there in front of them? How could they begin to suspect?
Vi walked the patio, staring down and when she found it she wasn’t even surprised.
A carved X on a pillar at the edge of the patio near the steps. X for nobody. X for treasure. And right there in front of their eyes every time they walked out of the house and towards the ruins.
On either side of the steps down to the garden there was a stone lion on a pedestal. Vi’s fingers moved easily over the statue with the X and she found the switch just by the lion’s great paw, looking like a missed cut in the stone.
A moment after she pushed it, there was the sound of stone moving against stone and a small entrance on the house opened up. Just beneath the back parlor, right in the side of the old house, a hidden entrance led down to the cellars.
At first, no one moved. Then gasps of shock and confusion. Oscar demanded to see the button. Harriet made for the discovered door, but Ham caught her.
Smith and Jack went first with the torch, but Vi didn’t. She stayed outside as everyone, including the surviving members of the old man’s family, went to find the treasure.
Rita hesitated at the entrance. “Don’t you want to know what is in there?”
Vi shook her head and took a seat on a nearby bench. After a glance at the gaping doorway, Rita crossed to sit next to her friend. Vi laid her head on Rita’s shoulder.
“What if it’s pirate gold?” Rita’s voice was filled with humor, but neither of them were actually amused.
“I’ll know how to describe it for my book.” Vi squeezed Rita’s hand.
“Should I hate this place now?” Rita asked without any attempt at humor. “We’ve learned too much about its past.”
“No,” Vi said. “This isn’t the hot bed of our nightmares. It’s theirs.”
Rita sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I could say that bad things happened here. Only that’s true of any old house.”
Their friends started filing out of the room and Vi and Rita looked their question.
“Quite a nasty letter,” Beatrice told them.
“And a key,” Smith added. “It goes to a bank box in London. They can gather whatever was left there.”
“Shall we call the constables now?” Rita asked Ham.
“They’re leaving,” he told her. “They’ve sworn never to return. We won’t be so kind next time.”
“I can’t believe we found it,” Edward cheered. He raised his hands overhead and then slapped his brother on the back. “Now I can stop wondering.”
“But you aren’t going to get any of the treasure,” Vi told him.
“Oh, I would have taken some if I could have.” Edward grinned wickedly with a look for his brother. “We’d have just sold it and gone to the Amazon. Now, however, your brother is financing our trip to the Amazon, so we got what we wanted after all.”
“They have quite large snakes there,” Rita told them. “As I recall, you’re a baby about
