Читать книгу Four For A Fortune - Albert Lee - Страница 5

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It was late when we left Chiffard’s. The rain had ceased, and as we walked slowly homeward over the dappled pavements we discussed the unusual events of the evening. We both frankly admitted to each other being deeply affected by what we had seen and heard, and neither concealed his anxiety to get to work at the deciphering of the mysterious chart—an undertaking which must—now—seem to any sane person an absolutely impossible task. But the sane person is not under the influence which overpowered us at that time.

“Let us be systematic, and, at least, begin at the beginning,” I suggested, as we laid the tracing out on the table. “The first sentence we find somewhat the worse for wear, but what there is of it is plain enough:

“Ici son 0000 . . .

environ en or pieces et . .

“That doesn’t look over-promising, does it?” said Thatcher. “But it is plain that son was originally sont.”

“Plain as day. Ici sont—here are; or, in the words of the head-stones, ‘here lie.’ ”

“Four zeros.”

“That must have been at the very least 10000,” I said.

“Fully that. I don’t see how it could have been less. You are conservative.”

“My real opinion, however, is that the total figure represented a larger sum.”

“There is certainly room enough for more figures on that line,” said Thatcher, laughing.

“Oh yes; but you’ve got to put a word in between sont and the zeros—enterres, or caches, or deposes, or something equivalent”

“But even the longest one of those words would leave plenty of space for more figures.” And we went at our problem with a millimetre measure, gauging the spread of the chart-maker’s chirography. But of course it all came to naught, and we presently abandoned that investigation and took up the second line, “environ en or pièces et…”

“It looks as if there might have been another word after those zeros,” said Thatcher.

“There’s certainly something lacking in the sentence as it stands. Suppose the first missing word were ‘hidden.’ Then it would read, ‘Ici sont cachés…0…environ en or pièces et…’ I think there ought to be some punctuation after or, say a comma or a dash; ‘pièces et’ and whatever followed were explanatory of the gold; don’t you think so? Pièces means coin—pieces of money. Evidently the treasure is in coin and bullion, or ingots, eh? Ingots is a good old pirate word; pièces et lingots. How’s that?”

“Make it pièces et lingots for the present. But how about the word following the zeros?”

After a good deal of debate and thought, it struck us that this word must have been some expression of monetary value—such as francs, pounds, ducats, doubloons, or Louis d’or; and this seemed reasonable, since it would have been only natural for the writer of the map to designate in some way the value of his buried hoard. So we gave up speculating upon that sentence and turned to the consideration of the eight capital letters that stood below, near the outline of the islands, and, after a brief examination, we concluded that these fragments

ILE

SAI

MI

must represent the name of the group. We determined, at any rate, to proceed on this basis, and should our premises prove false, we could but begin over again.

“ILE is certainly the French for island,” said Thatcher, writing the letters out on a pad.

“It was probably written ILES,” said I, “in the plural, for you see there are more islands than one shown on the map, and the last letter has no doubt been burned off. Let us take that for granted—we have got to take a lot for granted in this search, so it matters little where we begin. Now here we have ILES SAI…MI…”

“Exactly,” returned Thatcher. “Now, the main question is, Where are the Iles Sai ... Mi…?”

“By Jericho!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet, “I have it! It’s as plain as day! The S-A-I stands for Saint. They are the Isles of Saint something.”

“Certainly!” shouted Thatcher, now very much excited; “that’s it precisely. Saint Michael, eh?—or, rather, Saint Michel.”

“Are there any Iles Saint Michel?” I asked, trembling with excitement.

“Oh, there must be!” gasped Thatcher—“there must be! The French have islands and towns for every saint on the calendar.”

“They probably have,” I continued, more calmly; “but Michael surely has not a monopoly on the initial letters M I. There may be any number of saints whose names begin with those letters.”

“How shall we find out?”

“One way is to get a gazetteer or a geographical dictionary, and write out a list of all the islands whose names begin with Saint Mi…”

“That’s it,” interrupted Thatcher, gleefully; “and then we’ll get a map and look up each one until we find the group that corresponds in outline and general configuration with the one sketched on the chart. My boy, my boy, have a million with me!”

It took us much longer, of course, to arrive at these conclusions than I have here set down, but having reached them in approximately that line of reasoning, we felt satisfied with our achievement, and brought down the stocky bottle of King William from the top shelf and built castles so high and so late that the dawn crept in through the windows and gilded their mythical battlements before we parted, promising to meet a few hours later in the Astor Library.

Here we encountered our first disappointment, as I had had a vague fear we should, as the gazetteer was replete with names of saintly islands that began with the letters MI. There were Saint Michaels, Saint Michels, Saint Mihiels, Saint Miguels, and Saint Miniatos without number.

“Well,” observed Thatcher, sadly, “it’s a case of take-your-choice, I suppose.”

“It’s a case of work,” I answered. “The process of elimination will be a long one, but it must be thoroughly done. Get an atlas.”

While Thatcher was making life a burden to the librarian in his attempt to get maps of the world on the largest possible scale, I wrote down one beneath the other, in a long list, the names of the islands that might hold our secret. When completed, there were over thirty on the list, the most promising being the islands of Saint Michael in the Azores, Saint Michael in Cornwall, and Saint Michael off the coast of Labrador. We patiently searched out each individual isle and each group separately, and compared them with our tracing of Carquemort’s chart, but not one corresponded in any way. Then we made a second and a third comparison, and at the end we had not even a hope left that the chart-maker had been a poor draftsman, and had only roughly outlined the spot where his treasure lay. There was no group of four islands with a name beginning “Saint Mi.”

“Well,” sighed Thatcher—and his face wore a look of disappointment that was pathetic—“there is one thing left. We can go through these atlases and compare our chart with every group of islands in the world.”

“That would be nonsense,” I replied, “and no one but a crazy man would think of such a thing.”

“I don’t pretend to be anything else but a crazy man now,” he said.

“In the first place, that atlas or any other does not show all the islands of the world. It could not. There are millions of islands. Every river, every bay, every shore is dotted with islands. Many are not shown on any map. It is more than likely that this treasure is laid away in some obscure group that used to be frequented by pirates and sea-robbers. I don’t know what we can do.”

“I know what we won’t do,” retorted Thatcher; “we won’t give up—not just yet, at least. If you think the stuff is hidden on an island that used to be frequented by pirates, I am willing to investigate all the West Indian groups and all the Louisiana and Florida islands.”

“Investigate?” I exclaimed.

“Not personally,” said Thatcher. “I am not as mad as that. But I’ll stay here all day and go over every map I can lay hold of. I shall then at least have the satisfaction of knowing where the islands are not, even if I don’t locate them.”

I could not stay with him, because I had an appointment down town. I would not have stayed with him if I could. I considered his scheme rank lunacy, and told him so; but Thatcher was not to be dissuaded. He was an individual of unlimited determination and spasmodic perseverance. If this latter quality had been fixed in him, Thatcher would have been a genius. So I left him with his atlases, agreeing to meet him in the evening at Chiffard’s, and promising to fill out in the meanwhile, if I could, the half-burned inscription on the lower part of the chart, which neither of us had attempted to decipher as yet.