The Lost Treasure Of Joseph Christian
The Lost Treasure of Joseph Christian
By Cameron Reese
1
Joseph Christian died under mysterious circumstances in the summer of 1903 year of our Lord A.D. Although it was never proven, many of the locals, and those amongst the brass of the authorities charged with uncovering the identity of his murderer, invariably thought the person responsible to be his wife, Marina.
She married him when she was a young girl and he an old man. Most expected that she had married into money and was patiently waiting for him to pass and collect the vast wealth which he was known to hoard like a squirrel in winter. She birthed his children, she mothered them into upstanding adults, and she never went a day without professing her love. But as the years passed, and he grew older at a snail’s pace and would not die naturally, she was subjected to becoming an old maiden who, at first envisioned only having to devote a portion of her life with the old man but had now found herself greying and aging faster than he. After a diagnosis of an illness, the looming truth became a certainty which was that she would be outlived by the old man whom she had married for money.
J. Christian bought gold, diamonds, priceless works of art, Faberge Eggs, ancient alabaster inscriptions, antique statues, and original bibles. He did not trust currency to be a stable vessel to carry his wealth into the future, and because of this belief he was made prophetic. All of those priceless possessions which held sway over third world nations, various religious groups, and museums who offered rewards for retrieval, they were all stored in a secret location, and the knowledge of its whereabouts died with Joseph Christian. Survived only by a single letter.
The morning after he died, investigators found the body in bed, lifeless and unharmed. No poison, no signs of strangulation, and no signs of struggle. He died peacefully in his sleep beside his wife Marina. The police took exceptional notice to how uncannily placed they had found the body. He was sitting upright, hands in his lap, with a placid smile born upon his lips. He was old enough to have died from old age, which became the official statement at the recently constructed Flagler Hospital but, again, many have reason to suspect it was Marina.
At the execution of J. Christian’s will, the probate lawyer announced his children’s wealth was secure enough for them to avoid the dregs of impoverishment, but not enough for them to escape life without having to earn an income. In derogatory terms they were bequeathed an allowance as even posthumously J. Christian would only allot a small portion of his accountable wealth to be distributed to his children, a thought spawned from the fear of instilling in them the virtues of iniquity.
As for Marina, she was left nothing in her name except for the hollow estate and the king-sized bed, the very one in which they found him dead. In no shorter than a fortnight did she too pass, a bitter, vengeful, spiteful old soul. Never a finger did she lay upon the treasure.
As for his fabled treasure, he left behind a singular clue which was writ upon his personal stationery, penned in his own quill, and dipped into his own ink, and left behind in a lockbox for only select eyes to see, the eyes of his three children. The eldest was a lawyer who spent no time looking for the treasure, raised a family of his own and lost connection to his kin; the second was a daughter who looked at the clue but could not solve it upon a cursory glance and quickly abandoned it altogether—she later married into wealth like her mother and was promptly never seen or heard from again; and lastly there was the youngest child, and my grandfather, who looked around and saw no one was left to find it so he rolled up his sleeves and went to work. The clue was a note which was locked away in a safety deposit for safe keeping. It is the only living document that gives any hint of the treasure’s location.
He spent years searching but all of his efforts led him to debt and ruin and yielded nothing except for dead ends. Toward the end of his life, and at the inception of my earliest memories, he spoke of a passageway where he dared not to enter. He said, after fifty years of searching, he’d finally found the treasure but decided to leave it undiscovered. All of the clues, Grandpa said, revealed its location for a more incisive mind to find—a mind that keenly observes nature, a mind that listens to the wind! A more apt mind than my own would have noticed long before I, and how obvious it seems now, to listen to the wind. He reiterated: Feel the wind blow and it will lead you to the treasure.
My father, having grown up impoverished and subjected to watching grandpa’s descent into madness, vowed to never spend a moment of his life concerned with the futile endeavor that was searching for a treasure which may or may not exist. But as for myself, more especially in my youth, I imagined it to be my birthright to claim and that I would be the one who would redeem the lost family heirloom. Be it a mythical treasure trove, the dying vanity of a rich recluse, or the last gag of a dead man, I was determined to discover the truth!
2
During my stay at University, I was called home by my father who was in critical condition but was being cared for by the great men and women employed at Flagler Hospital’s superb Intensive Care Unit. I stayed with him at his bedside until he gathered the requisite strength to tell me what happened. “I was visited by men with red ties. They busted the door down and beat me senselessly. They tied me up and searched the house twice over. They did not take money, drugs, or any valuables. They were looking for the key to the safety deposit box. I’m afraid that they found it. These men work for the Goodman Gold Company, and they’ve been after our treasure for years now. Now they’re in possession of the clue.”
Grandpa died years ago to a silent war with old age. We kept his belongings in storage for sentimental purposes as well as for antiquity’s sake. If there was any trace of the clue, there’d be no better place to look on Earth. It was nighttime and I was alone as I sat in the quiet halls of the storage facility with nothing but the sound of my beating heart and the low hum of the air conditioning. I had files scattered about in the hallway as I searched through the closet-sized unit which was mostly stacks of unfiled documents. Roughly an hour into my study, a gust of wind scattered the papers like a tornado, and one fell into my lap as though it were dropped by an unseen hand. Then I heard a low whistle which was inharmonious to the sounds of the surrounding ether.
The page which fell into my lap was an encrypted letter written on the stationary of one J. Christian. My grandfather had made a copy of the note and worked out all of the details of the hidden message. The page was a sloppily penned letter of alphabet soup which appeared at first glance to have no rhyme or reason, but as we shall soon see, that was not the case.
In its entirety the page read as follows:
HOR ETE LH LE !
COAI AUDS NRT YEH ?
IROLTOO FMDSRTN YEFYYHE OTAOAE UHIUNR .
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
CVSJFE XJUI NF JO NZ USVF QMBDF PG SFTUJOH , ZPV TIBMM GJOE B TMJWFS PG B NBQ PG DPMPOJBM BNFSJDB , XIJDI TIBMM QSPWF FTTFOUJBM UP UIF FGGPSU PG QSPDVSJOH ZPVS VQ JO UIF XSPOH QFSTPOT IBOET.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
6/13/03
-VNUR XRFNU
For those of you who fancy themselves as having a keen mind for detection and have a curiosity for encryption and puzzles, stop reading at once if you do not wish to have your fun spoiled. As for the rest of you, we shall continue with the narration.
The page was a copy of a copy which was filled to the brim with scribbled annotations. The letter was broken down into three different ciphers all of which would be solved by use of three different and distinct methods. The topmost section was the simplest method where all one needed to do was follow the letters in sequential order starting from the first letter of the first set, then to the first letter of the second set, then the third, and forth until you come back around to the first set and then extract the second letters of each set and so on and so forth until the message unfolds before you. Try it for yourself if to see what I mean. The first message read: Hello there! The second set of letters reads, having used the same process of following the letters, read as: Can you read me? And then the final line says: If your method fails you try another one.
The second section was a substitution cypher known as the Caesar Shift. The name is eponymous with the long-deceased Emperor of Rome, Julius Caesar who commonly used the cypher to communicate with his confidants in secret. After attempting variations of the method, which were more complex and gave the author of the letter more credit than due, he returned to the phrase above “If your method fails try another one.” One? What purpose did this message serve? My grandfather noted the importance of the word “one” and he applied it to the second tier and shifted every letter in the alphabet by one. The result was ‘A’ was represented as ‘B’ and B as C and C became D and so on and so forth concluding with Z becoming the letter A—i.e., shifting the stated letter to the left by one. Apply this method to the second section of the puzzle and the message soon becomes clear; the first collage of letters is CVSJFE = BURIED.
For those of you who wish to decrypt the message yourself, go ahead and do so—I’ll wait—but as for the rest of you, I have done all of the labor of decryption so you do not have to and thus the narrative may continue. I present to you the message unadulterated:
“Buried with me in my true place of resting, you shall find a sliver of a map of colonial America, which shall prove essential to the effort of procuring your birthright, my treasure, from ending up in the wrong persons hands.”
In his true place of burial, there was a map of America when it was an English colony which was crucial to finding the location of the buried treasure. Only those of us related to J. Christian know that his true resting place was not in his cited entombment, which would be an obvious target for grave robbers, but rather by a nondescript headstone bearing another name. His true resting place was expressed to none except for those tasked and handily compensated for the discretion of the body who are by now long dead, their secrets with them.
The final section of the letter was encrypted using a Vigenère Cypher, which proved difficult without the known key. But after years of looking at the letter, repeatedly putting it down and revisiting it, and scrutinizing every letter on the page, he noted the date and thought it may have significance. As it came to pass, this avenue of thought led to the solving of the final tier of the puzzle, which was the name of the man he was buried under.
The date referenced in the letter above was 6/13/03. This was the exact date of J. Christian’s death, which must have been penned, since he was found dead in the morning, before the date was written. The letter seems to suggest that J. Christian was alluding to his coming demise, which itself has served as the sole impetus for the conjecture of those who believe Marina to be his killer. The numbers themselves, as Grandpa found them, were the key to unlocking the final tier of the cypher. In a similar fashion to the Caesar Shift, these numbers (6, 13, and 3) count the times each letter needs to be shifted. The phrase: VNUR XRFNU. The first letter is to be shifted 6 times, the next letter 13 times, and then the next one only 3 times, and then we continue onto the next letter repeating the process again by shifting 6 letters, then 13 and 3 and so on and so forth. The first letter ‘V’ once shifted six times, falls on the letter ‘P’. Once the process was completed, the message gave the name: “Paul Kozar.”
A map waited for me to find at the grave site of one Paul Kozar, and with that I had my next lead. “Thanks,” I said as I tidied up the documents at Grandpa’s storage space and then pulled down the overhead steel shutters, like the ones found at warehouses, and left the building. When I got outside, it was cold and began to rain. The damp winter air began to pick up speed and became harsh. Gusts of wind thrashed me both left and right as I ran to my car, but when I got there, I saw a message on the driver’s side window. It was written for me in the frost of the glass penned by the thin tip of an unseen, wicked hand which read, “You’re welcome.”
3
I searched the directories in the surrounding Flagler area for men named Paul Kozar who died around the same time as J. Christian. I scoured the vital records departments of northern Florida for two days making dozens of calls and visiting the offices of one Bunnell county on a lead turned cold. I finally found a man named Paul Murphy Kozar in St. Augustine who was born in 1837 and died on June 3rd, 1903, year of our Lord A.D.
I thusly spent another full day—and half a night—inquiring every local cemetery and churchyard in the greater St. John’s County until, at a little before midnight, I spoke with a polite and lonely man who was working the overnight shift at the graveyard, and he happily cooperated with my simple inquiry of his inventory. “He’s here. Paul Kozar—yes—we got him right here.”
“Okay, make sure he doesn’t go anywhere…” I said. Well, it wasn’t that funny, and he accordingly did not laugh.
When I arrived at the graveyard, I parked along the fence at the spot furthest from the entrance where I saw a lit office and a lonely soul inside, preoccupied by a book. I threw the shovel over and then climbed up and jumped over the cast iron fence. I crept through the field of plots with my head held low looking for the headstone of one Paul Kozar. The moon was shelved high among the stars and shone big and bright during a cloudless night.
After scrutinizing nearly every last headstone, I finally came upon the one marked Paul Murphy Kozar (1837-1903). His stone was slimy, covered in moss, unkempt, and forgotten. The inscription read: “Treasure the ones closest to you.” Cheeky bastard.
I dug up his grave under the shade of a sickly-thin tree devoid of leaves silhouetted by the light of the yellow moon. I hit the coffin—steel—cranked it open and was stunned to find my great grandfather’s body was perfectly preserved. His face was made up and looked silk like a rubber doll and his eyes, still possessing its white glint, stared into my soul. He was embalmed and preserved like Lenin without the constant upkeep. As was promised, his hands, which rested on his stomach, held a brown, ripped up shard of a map. I grabbed it and then I felt the wind at my back blow hard and encouraged my attention toward the entrance. I saw a car had parked, and the lights were now turned off in the office. Two men donning dark suits and hats which shaded their faces, walked up the path with their guns drawn. It was the thugs who worked for the Goodman Gold company.
When they saw me from a distance, they started to run toward me. I grabbed the map and ran back down back to the fence from which I came. They chased after me but, with the help of the shifting winds at my back, I was quick and made it to the fence and climbed up with alacrity. Guns blasted and I heard wayward bullets whistling by me, several punctured my car door. I jumped into the driver’s seat, peeled out, and left them in the dust.
Again, as my grandfather had said, listening to the wind saved me from certain death. It was a strange phenomenon where it seemed to me that I was being guided by a soul. As strange as it may sound, I soon began to realize that my journey for the treasure was being aided by none other than J. Christian himself. Even after death, he would not let his fortune fall into the wrong hands. My suspicions were confirmed when later that night, as I was studying the map, the wind returned.
I sat under the lamp in a dark room as the window was opened wide exposing my dwelling to the dark forest animated to the sounds of the coastal breeze, the moonlight stared at me from above. The map from the grave depicted an island, small, with nameless villages. The cartography was choppy and its outline was jagged and curious in its manner unlike any I’d seen in the modern age as GPS has rid any imprecisions. I was examining the geography of the map along the edges of the continental United States until the wind blew swiftly into my room and lifted the crinkled parchment from my desk whereupon it swirled round and round until it landed gracefully upon my map in its exact location. When I lifted the paper from the map, I saw that it had landed on the island of Nantucket.
Off the coast of Massachusetts, the small island sat no longer than fourteen miles, and upon it’s coastline, the x marked the spot. It was a day long voyage via two flights, one from Orlando to Boston whereupon I boarded a puddle jumper over to the island. My stay? As long as it took. Before I left, I told no one of my business or of my whereabouts on the island, which was a mistake I would later come to regret.
I walked down a dirt road as I followed along with my finger to the outdated precolonial map. Beside the road there were grassy dunes which tapered off into a cliff. I went to the ledge and beheld with my own eyes the eroding beaches which were swallowed by the crashing waves and then carried off to sea. I kept walking I came upon a man walking his dog. He was older, grey, and wore a flat cap. “Excuse me,” said I, “can you point me in the direction of Sconset? I’m looking for a house by the sea.”
“You’re in Sconset, son, whose house are you lookin’ for?”
“I do not know to whom it belongs, only it’s location.” Then I proceeded to show him the map and he pointed in the direction over yonder and said, “It’s been condemned. If you’re looking for its occupant, you’re unlikely to find him… Most likely.”
I thanked him and continued onward. The house was not much further ahead and before I was within a stone’s toss, I could see it standing alone, tall and dark was its manner. The house stood two stories, grey, wooden, weatherworn, and sat on the brink of the cliff dangling off the ledge; it was but a few years from falling into the sea completely. The windows were shattered, the panel was peeling and flapping, and its wood was wet from being grazed by the sea. The wooden floorboards creaked as they dangled in the breeze clinging to earth above thrashing waves against the crescent shoreline. Cracks ran along the Shingle-styled roof and nearly divided it into two halves with one side fading towards the ocean and the other clinging to land.
As I stepped onto the porch, I felt a sudden gust of wind pass right through me and in its gale it blew open the double doors for me to make my grand entrance. Listen to the wind! The doors opened to an empty living area where the floors were torn and tattered, the walls were damp and the breeze from the sea whistled in through the cracks—the sound of waves crashing echoed throughout the vaulted ceilings.
I searched high and low, inspected every crevice and corner, and looked through all the empty hallways, but I could not find any anomaly or clue which could aid my investigation. It was at this time that I sat down on the floor and I listened to the sea. I listened and heard the wind blowing and then I shut my eyes. The sound seemed to be like a faint whistle which was like an estranged ultrasonic wave which blew constant. I followed the noise to the study where there stood an empty bookshelf. Once I was at the bookshelf, I found a slight crack just big enough to wedge three fingers into and I proceeded to pull at the door, but it would not budge. Once I cranked it back hard enough it gave way and half of the bookshelf slid open against the splintered floor, and it opened up into a dark room.
There was a door made of stone which was closed and whose bars and padlocks had been disassembled by another visitor and now sat at the foot of the entrance. The door behind me blew in the breeze back and forth nearly shutting, the light in the doorway brightened and dimmed as it swung. I pulled at the knob and the door opened and it led down to a dark passageway where no light could escape. I felt the wind return at my back. It was guiding me down under. It was my great grandfather, J. Christian himself, who urged me to go down under. From beyond the grave, he could not rest until I found his treasure, I knew ever since I was a kid that I would be the one to find his treasure and claim my birthright.
I walked down the steps of the passage and looked behind me back up to the see the light shining in from the open door. I went further and further and the light grew fainter and smaller until I reached the bottom of the passageway and ended up in a dark dungeon which smelled like the sea and was damp all around. I could not find a light but I moved my hands in the darkness and I felt a vase and when I held it up to the light from the hall I could see it was made entirely of gold and bedazzled with diamonds. Tears! Joyous tears poured down my face after all the years of waiting and imagining this very moment, and all the travels on my journey and near life and death encounters, it was all finally worth it! I was so happy I shouted my praise to the wind, I said, “Thank you, Joseph Christian, thank you so much.”
Then, I felt the gust of wind blowing harsly from the top of the stairs down toward me. The wind blew like a hurricane and shook the stone door violently which began to sway shut. “Marina!”
I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, but the stone door shut and I found myself entombed inside the room with the lost treasure of Joseph Christian.
