The big man fixed Sanders with a baleful eye. “That was a pretty reckless thing to do, sir. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t deliberate, but it was reckless, and you did put these ladies in danger. I’d have to testify to what I saw. It’d be wrong not to. And you’ve as good as admitted to taking this lady’s property. I’d have to testify to that too.”
He and the three women looked at Sanders, waiting for his response. For a while, he just sat there, his nostrils flaring and his lips twitching as he glared at them. Then he threw up his hands.
“All right. All right! It was a crazy thing to do. You know the Civil War period is a special interest of mine. A few years ago, I bid on some antique pieces from the Whyte estate. Part of the lot was a box of books, and one of those books was Geoffrey Whyte’s diary. There wasn’t much in it of note. He kept some detailed records of his expenses and sometimes commented on current events and parties he’d gone to. But that changed in 1861. He wrote about this girl he’d met, except he never used her name. He just said things like, ‘A and I met at a supper party at J’s’ or ‘Saw A at Mrs. B’s barbecue, terribly fetching.’ Later on, things evidently got serious between them, and he was worried about what would happen to her if he went to war and was killed. His mother, it seemed, held the purse strings still and disapproved of the girl. He seemed very upset that she found the girl not of a suitable class to consider marriageable and wouldn’t give him even a portion of some inheritance he had due him from a deceased grandfather. The moment he was of age, he took all the money and bought something. I don’t know what, but it was something he thought would provide for this girl in case he didn’t come home from the war.”
Annie narrowed her eyes at him. “It must have been something with intrinsic value,” she said. “I don’t know about right then, but at some point Confederate currency was notoriously unstable.”
Sanders nodded. “He said he wanted something his mother wouldn’t find and demand the girl return, something ‘A’ could easily conceal. Something durable.”
“What was it?”
“He never said anything specific in the diary. I tried to do a little nosing around, but I never could find out anything about it or even who ‘A’ was. He never wrote out her name in his diary. Maybe he didn’t want Mother scaring her off.”
Annie gave him a hint of a smile. “I understand Georgianna Flippin Whyte was quite a formidable woman in her day.”
“Must have been. Geoffrey thought so at any rate.” Sanders shrugged. “Anyway, I thought it was a great story, but I didn’t think anything else about it until I bought that writing desk of hers.” Sanders jerked his chin toward Mary Beth. “I couldn’t believe it when I checked it out at Park Cambridge Antiques and found that clue in it.”
“There was a key, too, wasn’t there?”
He glanced at Annie, his mouth taut. “Maybe.”
“Mr. Sanders, do you want these charges dropped or not?”
“OK, OK.” He dug in his pocket and brought out a little key, small and brass like the others Geoffrey had left behind. “But I couldn’t figure out what it goes to. There’s nothing on the clock with a keyhole except where you wind it, and that’s the wrong kind of key. The base of the clock is just a solid block of wood. And where are the trees he’s talking about? If that place they’re about to clear doesn’t have anything to do with this—”
“And it doesn’t,” Annie said.
“—then where are the trees he’s talking about? I’ve been out to the old Whyte place, or what’s left of it. If there were two specific trees he had in mind, I guess they’re gone now. I thought there had to be another clue inside the clock that gave the right path to the trees he mentioned. I even thought there might be something in those carvings that would give me a path—some kind of directions to find the treasure—but I don’t see it. I’ve studied that stupid clock until I’m cross-eyed and color blind, and I can’t find the clue he’s talking about.” He tossed the key onto the table in front of her. “I suppose whatever he left is gone now too. I don’t guess there’s any reason for me to go to jail for something that’s not there anymore.”
Annie looked at Mary Beth. “Does that satisfy you?”
“What did you do to make my clock stop?” Mary Beth asked, her mouth taut.
Sanders shook his head. “Nothing. Why do you think that?”