Legend of the Gilded Saber Read online

  "Hah!" Wentsworth proclaimed, stooping to reach something on the grass. "Another!"

  He'd found the second Cheeto from Ralphy's nose and picked it up.

  "Most peculiar," he said to the others. He sniffed it. "Dead, just like the first. And rather slippery, too."

  Just as I was about to drop to my knees and howl with laughter at Wentsworth, two policemen in uniform walked out of the clubhouse and toward the tee box. It was enough of a distraction to rescue me. That was the good news.

  "Sorry to interrupt," the first one said as they got closer, "but we're looking for Ted Emmett."

  That was the bad news. Thirty seconds later they arrested Mike's uncle right there. On the tee box. In front of the clubhouse.

  With a television crew waiting on the street to film all of it.

  Chapter 3

  I stared in fascination at the old buildings lining both sides of the street. Mike and Ralphy and Lisa and I were in a taxi, and we'd left the country club twenty minutes earlier. The route had taken us from the outskirts of Charleston to the historic area on the southern peninsula.

  The buildings were brick and stone, facing sideways to the street, with long porches running down the sides. Many of the buildings were pushed right up to the street, with no yards or lawns. I'd read about Charleston before leaving our hometown of Jamesville, and I knew that many of the buildings were hundreds of years old.

  Charleston was one of the oldest cities in the United States. It had been founded in 1670 and was first named Charles Town, in honor of King Charles II of England. Charleston had survived a couple of wars—the War of Independence against the British, and the Civil War. Plus it had survived hurricanes and fires and earthquakes.

  The southern peninsula itself was a piece of land barely a mile wide, with the Ashley and Cooper Rivers on each side. It was only a few feet above sea level, and both of those rivers emptied a few miles away into the Atlantic.

  Seeing the old city reminded me a lot of photographs of crowded European towns, until the taxi reached the very end of the peninsula. Here it was much different. A row of huge mansions faced the water.

  "Wow," I said when the taxi stopped.

  The four of us stepped out of the taxi and walked from the street up the sidewalk to the Emmett mansion.

  "Wow," I said again, staring at the columns and the wide front porch. The mansion seemed like a smaller version of the White House in Washington, D.C. "This is something."

  When we had arrived the night before, it had been too dark to really appreciate where we were staying. All I'd really seen was the hallway on my way to the guest room where I'd placed my luggage. We'd left for the golf course so early, I hadn't seen much more on my way out. Now, in the sunshine, I saw how big the place was. And how beautiful.

  "Yeah," Lisa said. "Like from the movie Gone With the Wind!'

  She was right. Large flowering bushes screened the porch railing. Vines climbed up the side of the house. The balconies were huge. The front of the mansion overlooked a park called White Point Gardens. Beyond that was the harbor where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers joined as they flowed out to the Atlantic Ocean. From where we stood, we could see the distant outline of Fort Sumter, an island where the first cannon shots of the Civil War were fired in 1861.

  "Yeah," Mike said without enthusiasm. "Beautiful."

  I didn't blame him for his depressed mood. I'd feel the same if I had just watched my uncle get escorted to a police cruiser in front of all the guests and members at the country club. Especially since we didn't know why he'd been arrested.

  Mike flopped himself onto a large wicker chair on the porch.

  Ralphy and Lisa and I found chairs beside him.

  "So," I said to Mike, "what next?"

  Mike stared over the lawn, at the street and the water beyond. "I don't know. I mean, we don't even have a key to get inside. And I sure don't feel like calling my mother and telling her that her brother's just been thrown in jail. Not with the other stuff going on in her life."

  The other stuff was going on in Mike's life, too, but he hated to talk about it and pretended it didn't bother him. It was the troubles between his mother and his father. They were separated right now, and it was tough on Mike. I had hoped going to Charleston would take his mind off it, but now...

  "It's got to be a mistake," Ralphy said. "There's nothing your uncle would do against the law, right? I mean, look at this place. It's not like he needs to steal anything. Not with his money. Right?"

  Mike didn't answer.

  A hummingbird buzzed past us and stopped to sip at a feeder hanging nearby.

  "Right?" Ralphy repeated.

  "I wish I could answer that," Mike said. "I hardly know him. He's always been too busy to visit and too busy for us to visit him. Then, out of the blue, he calls my mom and says he's sorry that they never get together and would it be all right for me to visit to make up for lost time."

  Mike had told his uncle over the phone that he had three friends that he had promised to go to a summer camp with. Ralphy and Lisa and me. So his uncle had volunteered to bring us out as well. It helped that his uncle was an amateur historian and was in charge of running a historical golf tournament that needed some caddies. And by the size of the house Mike's uncle lived in, it sure seemed like he could afford the plane tickets.

  "So all I really know about him," Mike continued, "is that he and his partner have a successful stockbroker business here in Charleston. That he bought this mansion because he's a historical preservationist. And that before his wife died, they had a son, who is now in his twenties."

  "That would be me," a voice said from the open window behind us. "Come on in, and I'll tell you what I just learned from Dad's lawyer."

  Chapter 4

  The hallway of the main level of the mansion had a huge spiral staircase that led up to the six bedrooms on the second floor. Past the hallway was a dining room big enough to hold a table with fourteen chairs around it. Plates and silverware were set up, as if company was expected immediately The kitchen overlooked a courtyard with flowering bushes and a sitting area. There was a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A sitting room filled with antique furniture. Two more bedrooms. And a large room that Devon Emmett explained had once been three rooms, with the walls now taken out. This room was filled with Civil War relics, including two life-sized mannequins dressed in full soldiers' uniforms.

  This was the room where Devon led us after letting us into the mansion. We all sat on cane- backed chairs and waited for him to speak.

  "So you're Mike," he said, nodding directly at Mike. "I recognize you from the pictures your mother sends every year on your birthday. Lousy way to meet, huh?"

  Mike nodded. "I still can't believe it's actually happening. He didn't do anything wrong, right?"

  "That's not the way it looks," Devon said. "An anonymous tip led the police here this morning just after Stang stopped by to pick all of you up."

  Stang, of course, was Ted Emmett's business partner. There'd been plenty of room for all of us in his gigantic sports utility vehicle.

  At that time in the morning Devon had been asleep, so we had not had a chance to meet him before this. Shadows from sunlight that came through a window covered part of him, but I could see he was a younger version of Uncle Ted, minus the cigarettes. His face was the same, hollow and skinny, but he had longer and thicker hair. He wore khakis and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, exposing a tattoo of an angel on his right bicep.

  "The police officers asked if they could look through Dad's Mercedes," Devon continued, leaning forward on his chair, "but didn't explain why. They said if I didn't want them to look, they would leave an officer to watch it while they went for a warrant. I knew there was nothing to hide, so I let them into the garage. I was there when they found it in the trunk."

  "It?" Mike asked.

  Devon allowed himself a half smile. "It. The one possession in this world that Dad couldn't use his money to buy."
r />   He ran his hands through his hair. "My dad collects pieces of history. This is his Civil War room. You haven't had a chance to see some of the upstairs rooms, but he has them grouped in themes. One room has golf stuff, centuries old. Which is why he arranges the yearly ancient golf tournament. Another room for tennis history. A third for things related to Charleston's marine history. All together, he has seven rooms with seven different themes. The house could be a museum. And of all his rooms, this is his favorite. The Civil War."

  Devon stood and pointed at an empty glass case hanging on the wall like a picture frame. The long, narrow case was lined with velvet on the inside. It was empty.

  "Dad has had that hanging there for years. He was determined to fill it with a saber that legend says General Sherman used to point at Atlanta as he gave the command to burn it to the ground. He left the case empty to remind him every day of his determination. Trouble was, the saber belonged to another private collector, who refused to sell it to him, even when Dad offered him a hundred thousand dollars. They'd been enemies a long time, ever since they'd both once proposed to the same woman, who said no to each of them and married someone else. In many ways, this part of Charleston is like a small village. People have long memories."

  Mike coughed. "Funny, I thought I just heard you say a hundred thousand dollars. For a sword."

  Devon smiled grimly. "I did. The handle was gilded with gold plating, but even so, at an auction it wouldn't be worth more than ten thousand dollars. But Dad absolutely hates it when he can't get his way. He was willing to pay ten times its worth to get it. The other private collector knew how much Dad wanted it, and in the end, because of their feud, managed to make sure Dad would never get his hands on it."

  "In the end," I echoed.

  "In the end," Devon repeated. "The other private collector died about a year ago. And as part of his will, he donated the saber to a local museum, under the condition it never be sold. That amused a lot of people around here, because they knew he'd done it just to spite my father."

  A hundred thousand dollars is a lot of spite. Rich people definitely lived in a different world than the one I was used

  "Are you saying," Mike said, "that the police found this gilded saber in your dad's car?"

  Devon nodded. "In the trunk."

  "Did the museum people know it was missing?" I asked.

  Devon nodded again. "So did most of Charleston. It was stolen a few nights ago, along with a half million dollars' worth of other antique Civil War relics."

  Mike whistled.

  "Well," I said. "Obviously your dad wasn't the thief. Otherwise they would have found the other stuff with the saber."

  "That's just it," Devon said. "They did find the other missing museum stuff with the saber. All of it. In the trunk."

  Chapter 5

  "Here it is," Ralphy announced to Mike and Lisa and me. "No problem at all."

  It was half an hour after Devon had told us why Mike's uncle Ted had been arrested. The police had called for Devon to go down to the station, and he'd apologized and told us he'd be back as soon as possible.

  The four of us were waiting in Ralphy's guest bedroom on the third floor of Theodore Emmett's mansion. Antiques and knickknacks and oil paintings and doilies were everywhere. It was so impressive that I was sure it was the reason Ralphy had folded all his clothes and hung them neatly instead of leaving them scattered all over the floor the way he did in his own bedroom.

  Mike and I moved from the windows that overlooked the park below. We crowded behind Ralphy and his laptop, peering over his shoulders to see the screen of his brand-new iBook that he loved to show off. Lisa crouched beside Ralphy.

  Ralphy had pulled up the Web site of the local newspaper and scrolled back to the news articles from a couple of days earlier. He pointed at the screen, where a photo of a sword covered half of it.

  "It's all there," he said. "Do you want me to read it for you guys?"

  Mike snorted. "I'm out of preschool. I know the alphabet."

  "Yeah," Ralphy grinned, twisting his head to look at Mike. "But I notice your lips still move when you read, and you point to every word with your finger. When you write, do you space out every word by putting a finger down first, like kids in first grade do?"

  "Hah, hah, hah," Mike said. "At least I don't keep my finger up my nose."

  "How can you suggest that I pick my nose when you—" "Gentlemen," I interrupted Ralphy as they started to get into our game of trading insults. "Speaking of nostrils, both of you need to brush your teeth or stop yakking. I can't concentrate here with your buffalo breath floating into my face."

  "Hah, hah, hah," Mike and Ralphy each said. I grinned when they couldn't think of a quick insult in return, then I scanned the first few paragraphs of the article on Ralphy's computer screen.

  Museum Theft Baffles Police

  Charleston police were called to the Civil War museum this morning when director George Reah reported that many of the most priceless pieces were missing.

  "It's unbelievable," Mr. Reah said. "While insurance will cover the value of the stolen property, many of the pieces are irreplaceable. It's as if the thief or thieves knew exactly what had the most importance in the various Civil War displays."

  Although the museum is heavily monitored with electronic devices to alert authorities to any break-in attempts, a police spokesperson confirmed that no alarm occurred during the night.

  "We have no indication whatsoever of how the theft occurred," the spokesperson said. "There are no signs of forced entry or other evidence to suggest the method or methods used in the robbery."

  When asked if the robbery was an inside job, the spokesperson answered with a simple "no comment."

  Mr. Reah believes the pieces will go to a private collector. "There is no way that the thief or thieves can pawn off the pieces or sell them at any public auction. These pieces are simply too well known, especially the gilded saber used by Sherman himself during his successful campaign through the state of Georgia."

  Because of this, Mr. Reah fears the pieces may never be found. "Once they reach a private collector," he said, "they will disappear completely from public life. It is a shame that our heritage can be stolen in this manner."

  Police are requesting that any members of the public with information that might help solve this crime call the police as soon as possible.

  The newspaper article continued with descriptions of some of the other stolen pieces and a few comments from citizens expressing concern about the disappearance of valuable museum items. There was also a photo of the director of the museum, George Reah, facing the camera in a tweed jacket and a pipe in his mouth, like Sherlock Holmes.

  "Private collector," Mike said softly.

  "I know," I said with sympathy. "I was thinking the same thing. If anyone in the world is a private collector, it's your uncle."

  "I can't believe he stole the stuff, though," Ralphy said. Lisa nodded her agreement.

  Mike got up and began to pace around the room. His footsteps were deadened by the expensive Persian carpets.

  "You don't want to believe it's him," Mike finally answered, "just because he's my uncle. I don't want to believe it's him, either."

  Mike stopped pacing suddenly and craned his head to look out the window again.

  "Oh, no," he groaned. "Look."

  We looked.

  Devon had just pulled up and parked by the sidewalk. He drove an older red Mustang.

  It wasn't Devon or his car that Mike had groaned about.

  It was the van that had pulled up right behind Devon's Mustang.

  A van for a local television station.

  We could see it clearly from our vantage point on the third floor.

  As Devon began to walk toward the house, a reporter and a cameraman began to chase him up the steps.

  Chapter 6

  Earlier Devon had listened to our conversation on the front porch through the open window on the main floor.

  N
ow was our chance to do the same. Not that we were trying to be sneaky. We just weren't sure if Devon wanted us to be out there with him as the television reporter chased him to the front door.

  "How do you feel about your father being in jail right now?" the reporter asked.

  She was a redhead, with an older face well baked from too much sun and too much makeup.

  "Jail?" Devon said. "What makes you say he's in jail?"

  "Nice try, kid," the reporter said. "A little bird told me. A little bird that wouldn't be wrong."

  The redhead waved the cameraman closer. "Get him from this angle," she commanded, pointing at Devon. "The door behind him is impressive. Looks like a door belonging to a rich man."

  She said in a nasty voice to Devon, "A rich man who stole from a museum."

  "My father is innocent," Devon said. "Now, leave me alone."

  "Tell us, then," the reporter half snarled, "did your father do it because of the financial difficulties of his real- estate venture?"

  "No!" Devon sounded trapped.

  "So it is true that your father is in financial trouble."

  "That's not what I said!"

  "Well, is it true?"

  "Leave me alone," Devon answered. "Please."

  "Just let me get this straight. Your father's in jail, and you deny his financial troubles."

  "Quit trying to put words into my mouth." Devon clicked open the door.

  "Get this shot," the redhead said to the cameraman. "The kid running from the truth."

  She and the cameraman stood on the steps of the front porch.

  Devon fell for her trick. Instead of continuing inside, he stopped, holding the door half open. It was a camera shot we would see on the news that night. It showed many of the expensive antiques and oil paintings.

  "Leave my father and me alone," Devon said. That cry also showed on the news later, with his face distorted by anger. It made him look like a rich, spoiled young man, something I guessed the redhead wanted so the story would be more dramatic.

  "Last question, then," the reporter said. "Police have suspected all along that this was an inside job. Is it just a coincidence that you work at the museum? Or did you help your father steal the half million dollars' worth of Civil War relics?"