An Enigma Solved

Adam Dumphy

Description

A story within a story, this is a romantic novel in the style of the 1940’s, which means it is brief, simple, plausible and clean. The first protagonist, a Hessian Lt. with Burgoyne’s Army at Saratoga in 1777, and an ancestor of the author, is sent with dispatches to General Cornwallis at Charleston. On a subsequent (fictional) trip his troop is ambushed carrying a British war chest of gold intended to equip Scottish Royalist troops in the Georgia hills. Although wounded he is not captured through the kindness of the then Mistress of the Fair Oaks Plantation who secrets him in a hidey-hole of the mansion.

What subsequently happens to him is unknown until 1909 when his diary is found between the thick walls of the mansion intact and legible. Legible except that the last pages are written in some strange code and cannot be read.

In 1946 Ab Andrus, the only Inheritance Investigator in the South is requested by the State of Georgia to make a formal statement as to the authenticity of the Diary.

Like the Hessian he gets to know too warmly the current Mistress of Fair Oaks and both couples learn a great about themselves and each other in their contacts made in the search. One wins his lady and the other does not.

Sujets

• Adventure
• Fiction
• Action

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 18 janvier 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781463459376
• Langue: English

Extrait

An Enigma Solved
 
The Fair Oaks Diary
 
by
 
Adam Dumphy
 
 

© 2004 Adam Dumphy
All Rights Reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
First published by AuthorHouse 12/09/04
 
 
ISBN: 1-4184-9813-0 (sc)
ISBN: 9781463459376 (ebk)
 
 
Printed in the United States of America
Bloomington, Indiana
 
Contents
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part II
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part III
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part IV
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Addendum: I
Addendum II
About the Author
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To Irene
As always
 
 
  Part 1
 
Baton Rouge, LA. June, 1947
 
  Chapter 1
 
“Well my young friend Abonijah, your fame as the only inheritance investigator extant, has spread afield…” The old man paused. “To distant, exotic, and uncultured climes…” He paused again drawing out his announcement. “The Attorney General’s Office of the State of Georgia requests your services.”
The old man stopped, looked over the top of his half glasses to observe the reaction to his words. Apparently satisfied at the astonishment produced he continued.
“Have you ever heard of the Fair Oaks Diary?”
The very tall, large, young man seated opposite him looked down suspiciously at the spindle legged Chippendale chair upon which he was perched and across the room from old man’s the huge mahogany desk. He stirred uncomfortably, crossed one leg over the other cautiously and scratched the back of his neck, as was his custom when considering deeply.
“No sir.” He admitted at last. He was reluctant to make the admission, as it seemed as if it was something he should know about, still he knew how the old man hated equivocation.
“Good, good.” Judge Dandridge dropped the glasses on the spotless, green blotter, a part of a handsome, tooled leather desk set, occupying the exact center of the great desk. Surrounded as it was by stacks of neatly piled manila folders on all other available space, it looked as if mounted.
“I was afraid that all my boning up last night might be wasted. ‘Tisn’t often I get to lecture to someone your age these days. Particularly someone who might listen.”
He again looked closely at the young man opposite him assuming the expression caught so well in the oil painting hanging in the State House Hall of Justice among other distinguished barristers. That was a noticeable oil as most subjects there were fat and pompous, while he looked like a gray, old eagle, lean and hungry, but still with beak and claws and formidable powers to strike out.
The contrast between the two men in the room was also remarkable. The young man was huge and ungainly with a shock of pale hair overhanging a high bossed forehead, quiet gray eyes, plain features and with that permanent half smile as if he was apologizing in advance for himself and his appearance.
And before him the old man withered now over the years from skinny to just bones. But under the surface they were much alike especially in their outlook. The old man was often reminded of that. It was just that half smile on the young man’s face. That gawky, ungainly body that even an obviously well tailored gray, flannel suit could not conceal; the bony knees cragged the knife sharp creases of the trousers; the white shirt with French cuffs and plain silver cuff links were not quite long enough to hide knobby wrists and great bony hands. The neat cordovan brogans must needs be a special size, thirteen or perhaps greater.
“Ruby!” The old man bellowed suddenly. A door at the side of the private suite opened suddenly and a woman peeped in. She was as old as the old man himself although no one would ever know for certain, for every Saturday found her at the hair stylist to renew the tight curls about her head and the quite unlikely pink tint of her hair. Every week day morning she appeared in a stylish business suit, whether personally flattering or not it was in the latest style and latest hem length. Three-inch heels still clicked briskly about the office below slender if now rather bumpy, and arthritic ankles.
She had been with the old man since he had first hung out a shingle announcing ‘Daniel Webster Dandredge, Atty. at Law’. How long ago that was no one knew or would tell.
For the old man at first there was a small neat sign, “Attorney at Law”, beneath the larger sign reading, ‘Daly Groceries’ and an arrow pointed to the rear of a store where a plank flight of outside stairs led to an upstairs office and living quarters.
And now as semi-retired head of the most prestigious law firm in all the South Central States, he and his twenty-five associates were duly respected, venerated, imitated and blasphemed by every legal and accounting system in a hundred counties and a dozen states.
Just as he had become the unofficial doyen and conscience of the law practice in this area, she had become the task-mistress and instructeress of the office personal. And woe be it to some desultory secretary, indolent young attorney or feckless accountant, for when one received a reprimand from Ruby you were left indelibly branded.
She fussed as she approached. “It was right on top of the ‘F’ file for Fair Oaks.” She chided.
“Not that, not that, I know that by heart, my glasses.”
She drew open a long desk drawer containing a case of a dozen half glasses in various shapes and frames. “For seeing or for gnawing on?” She asked.
When he didn’t answer she drew out a battered appearing pair and set them firmly before him. He picked them up squinted through them out the window, at the desk, at the floor and them satisfied he tucked an ear piece of the frame into the corner of his mouth and bit down contentedly.
“No reason you should know of it really, Lad. First found in 1909, fifteen years,” he looked at the young man, “or even more before you were even born…1909…” He considered. “Not a bad year actually considering most.”
Ab knew the old man was thinking of his young bride killed in 1913 in a buggy accident when a skittish carriage horse saw its first auto. She looked down now from a large, gilt-framed picture hanging behind his desk. A pale, young girl with a piquant face, the eyes too overly blue, cheeks too pink, skin too pasty white as was the custom with tinted photographs of those days.
Since then the firm had been his livelihood but also more, his mistress, his only mistress and he lived only for it.
Starting again. “Fair Oaks Plantation, site of the first settlement of the area, seat of the Fairfax family, and first settlement in what is now Fairfax County in Southwest Georgia, and Fair Oaks Manor the jewel in its plafond is ante primum bellum.”
Ab had to consider this until he realized that the old man was talking about the Revolutionary War. Most in that area did not consider the Revolutionary War as a Civil War but it actually was. The first in the nation’s history and as much Civil and bitter as that which was later called the War of the Rebellion.
“Started in 1743 it was not completed until ‘67. Late editions could not alter its original grace and beauty. Classical not Georgian, or some such, if I have my terms correct, and more remarkable it has never been allowed an owner outside the Fairfax family. Not that the Fairfaxes or Millhouses or Campbells or Allens were always good and worthy citizens. But almost by chance or perhaps luck, when a male heir was a wastrel he married a wealthy wife and when there were no male heirs the daughter married a financially solid citizen.”
He leafed through a file on one stack and with a half dozen ineffectual gestures the neat piles were instantly a shambles of randomly mixed files all in the middle of the desk.
“In its isolated location, wars, and depressions and calamities have passed it over as lightly as they did the family. It has remained the centerpiece, the shelter, the pride, and the conscience of an entire valley. In time of trouble the old settlers and even the younger generations that had moved away to greener climes, returned to the big house for guidance or sympathy or support, but not money I guess, never money. That was always in short supply. And no one has ever been turned away. Newcomers to the valley checked in to the “Kin-Folks” of the house for approval before they became newcomers in fact.
“And the family used their resources on the place, foregoing the stock market or race track or fancier pursuits in general to invest shrewdly. The place has been well kept up. Never a leaky roof to damage the plank oak floors and vintage furniture, and no indolent tenant to run the place down.
“So it was that in 1909 when a patch of dry rot was found in one of the upstairs bedrooms, money was found some how to cauterize the canker. Opening an inside wall they found lying on a fire block a package wrapped in watered silk. It had once been tied with a string, now unraveled, but how it got there no one could say.
“The owner also a prudent man stopped all further work, took photographs in place and subpoenas from all concerned.” The old man looked up.
The young man had dropped his stiff ‘at attention’ pose and elbows on knees were leaning forward like a boy listening to a tale of pirate plunder.
The old man continued. “It was opene