“Technically, you’re still wrong,” she said. “Louisiana and the Confederacy also minted United States $20 double eagle gold coins in New Orleans. The product runs for these coins was about 5,000 by the U.S., 9,750 by Louisiana, and 2991 by the Confederacy. The South also minted approximately 10,000 United States gold $1 and $5 coins at Charlotte and Dahlonega before running out of stock and closing down these two operations.”
“Sure, but those were still, fundamentally U.S. coins.” Tom turned the gold coin over in his hand. “This has a clear depiction of Jefferson Davis’s face, and an ironclad with a Confederate motto. How do you explain that?”
“The Confederate States, as an independent nation, wanted to produce their own coins, not just copy U.S. coins. My guess is these gold coins were privately minted for the Confederate States of America.”
Sam asked, “Any way we could find out who that was?”
Virginia made a thin-lipped smile. “Who minted this batch of coins, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Normally during that period, the name of the goldsmith would be imprinted on the coin, as a means of confirming its authenticity. A good craftsman earned his reputation by ensuring the specified amount of gold or silver to any other metal was found in the coin. What’s the name on the coin?”
Sam said, “C. Bechtker.”
“I’ve heard of Bechtker. He was a German-born industrialist from Carolina named Christopher Bechtker and produced gold coins from the first private mint in 1830. But he couldn’t have minted this.”
“Really? Why not?”
Virginia said, “Because Christopher Bechtker died in 1843. Some of his coins have fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars in today’s markets.”
Tom said, “So that proves it. This is a fake.”
Virginia nodded. “I guess so. Albeit a very good one.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Sam said, putting away his satellite smartphone after making a quick internet search. “The C doesn’t refer to Christopher. It refers to his son, Charles, who had learned the family trade. As such, he’d been commissioned in secret to mint a particular batch of gold coins for the Confederacy.”
“That makes more sense,” Virginia said, returning to leafing through Jack Holman’s journal. “But it still doesn’t answer my question. If the Confederate treasure was real, where did it all go?”
Chapter Sixty
Virginia continued to study Jack Holman’s journal, while Sam contacted Elise to get her to do a search of Murphy and Holman’s finances at their death, in the off chance they could pick up the otherwise cold trail to the treasure. Tom and David got a nice fire crackling. As it burned to lower embers, they began heating up ration packs for lunch.
There was something hidden in the journal. Like a sixth sense, Virginia felt certain of it, but so far, she just couldn’t find anything to back up her gut feeling.
She turned another page. Sam had spoken about Holman’s son telling stories about his dad getting drunk and showing off gold Confederate coins, but that could have simply been the imaginings of a young child. Still, there was more to it. She felt certain that Holman hadn’t just spotted the pyramid-shaped casement of the CSS Mississippi.
He’d been inside and found the treasure.
His journal would prove it, she was certain.
“What do you expect to find in there?” David asked, bitterly. “Jack Holman didn’t know anything about the gold. His relationship to this entire thing was that he spotted what he thought to be a pyramid in the middle of nowhere out from North Dakota.”
“I’ve no idea, but it’s the only lead I have right now, so I’m going to keep searching for it.”
David shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Virginia flicked another page, looked at the date, and stopped. She went back a couple pages, and then skimmed forward. There was something wrong with the dating sequence. At first, she thought she’d made a mistake, turning the pages out of sequence, but now realized it wasn’t her fault. Dates were all over the place. Events that happen on one day would be repeated several years later and vice versa. Three or four dates would follow a natural sequence of events, before fluctuating to a period sometimes years earlier.
How can that possibly be?
No one makes that sort of blunder. It was almost like a form of dyslexia, where the author of the journal had ended up writing the dates in a jumbled, disordered mess. It was hard to believe. Much more likely, Holman had intentionally made the anomalies.
But why?
The answer hit her like a heavy rock to the chest.
To protect the Confederate treasure if his journal should be discovered.
It was a simple code. Dates appeared as though they had been randomly placed, but there was a purpose hidden within. Regarding the year, the first two digits always remained unchanged — 19 — whereas the second two would fluctuate between 10–31.
Looking at just the year column in regards to dates in the journal, it appeared Holman had given each entry a year date entirely at random. Likewise, pairing the day and month appeared entirely random. It was only when the two were compared with each other, that Virginia started to see a sequence.
Her heart hammered as her eyes scanned the next page to confirm her theory. She had an analytical mind that naturally computed complex algorithms quickly. In this case, something simply didn’t look right, until she’d stared at it long enough, for the code to reach the surface.
She was right.
Most of the journal was filled with trivial information, in which to bury the code. For example, on two pages, the month on the first page would be subtracted by the month on the second page, to achieve the actual month the event took place on the third page.
The same algorithm was applied to the day and year.
She tried it on an event that she already knew about and after applying the formula the date came to 12/5/1925 — the year Jack Holman won the Schneider Cup with his experimental Seaplane.
Her heart raced.
She flicked back to the page she’d marked earlier with dogears, where Holman discussed seeing a pyramid through the trees near North Dakota. The corrected year for 1931 became 1922. Six years before Robert Murphy died.
David shifted. “I’m going to get some more firewood.”
“You want us to come?” Tom asked.
“Nah. You’re all right. I don’t need to collect much,” David said as he pushed to his feet. “I just thought we might as well be comfortable while we have lunch.”
Virginia continued to read. Some entries referred to routine flights, abnormal weather, important events coming up. Nothing that referred to the ironclad.
Virginia skimmed the barely legible writing that she recognized as Holman’s scrawl. She turned to the previous page. The handwriting was similar, but not the same. She flicked over another four to five pages. There was no doubt about it.
Someone else regularly joined him on his flights.
Virginia quickly turned the pages back to the section describing the sighting of the ironclad. The notes were written as though by Holman, but it wasn’t his handwriting. The revelation was startling as it was irrefutable.
Holman wasn’t alone when he spotted the ironclad!
She folded a couple dogears into the paper, feeling a familiar twinge of guilt. Mrs. Brand, her fourth grade English teacher would have put her in the corner during recess for the abuse of the book, much less an old document like this one.
Frowning with concentration, she continued to scan more of the pages. If Holman wasn’t alone when he spotted the ironclad, the real question remained, who was?
Sam interrupted her thoughts. “Food’s ready, Virginia.”