Wilmington, NC 10 - Much Ado About Murder

Dalton was involved. He’d been discharged from the hospital and was living at Brightmore .
    I wondered if Binkie remembered that his mother had accused the Montjoys of having delusions of grandeur. Now it turned out their stories were not delusional at all but the truth. The treasure was real. But was it the real thing?
    “What I’d like to know,” Melanie began, “is how that playscript survived in that tree for two hundred years. Actually, how it survived for four hundred years.”
    “I wondered the same thing, Melanie,” Binkie said, “that’s why I’ve confided in my friend and colleague, Spenser Pennington from the English department. Spenser is a Shakespearean scholar.”
    When Professor Pennington had viewed the manuscript, or playscript as it was called, spread out on Melanie’s dining room table, he had grasped the back of a chair and almost fallen into it. “I’m trembling with excitement,” he said. “If this is real . . . if this is real . . . well, I’m speechless.”
    Cam brought him a glass of whiskey. “I needed this after I saw these papers myself,” Cam told Spenser.
    Spenser sipped the whiskey and recovered. “Let me tell you about the parchment they used four hundred years ago. Plus, bear in mind, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in good condition after two thousand years. So these miracles do occur.”
    “What kind of parchment did they use?” Cam asked.
    Spenser explained, “The superior longevity and stability of some papers and the rapid decline of others have intrigued paper researchers for generations. Early European paper was made from pure cellulose, that is rags, which were neutral and sized with a non-acidic material. Unlike our modern-day paper, the rag paper held up for centuries. The ink they used was made of natural materials as well, charcoal or berries.
    “After this manuscript was written, the paper was left to dry, then rolled up and inserted into those leather cylinders for safe keeping. The playscript here was further sealed in a stoneware jar, then inserted into the heart of the tree where it was dry. And the hole was sealed over with a mixture of sand, shells and water. Eighteenth century cement .”
    “And then,” I said, “the tree grew a woody scar over the hole. The manuscript was snug as a bug.”
    “But Dalton, why was it hidden in the first place?” Melanie asked.
    Dalton leaned forward in his wing chair. “I don’t think we’ll ever know the answer to that question. The only explanation I can think of was that the first Dalton Montjoy was afraid of fires. In those days, it was common for houses to be destroyed by fire. He might have been afraid to hide the treasure in the house. He might have thought the tree would be a safer place.”
    “But didn’t trees burn as well?” Melanie persisted.
    “Well, sure. But less likely. And that oak tree was some distance from the house.”
    “But why hide it at all?” Scarlett wanted to know. “As you say the first Dalton was a founder of the Thalian Association. Wouldn’t he want to see the play performed? They did perform Shakespeare’s plays in those days.”
    “Yes,” Binkie said, “we do know that one of the founders, Colonel Archibald McNeill played Hamlet.”
    “And perhaps they did perform this play,” Dalton said. “How would we know? Before the theater at the Innes Academy was constructed, the Thalian players were street actors. Or performed their plays in private homes. Love’s Labour’s Won may have been one of the plays they performed. That was not the digital age as it is now when everything is known.
    “And then for some reason the first Dalton hid the play away. We can only speculate what his motives might have been.”
    “Tell me about your family history, Dalton,” Spenser invited, “and we’ll see if we can’t piece this together.”
    Dalton began, “Our family traces its roots back to Edward Montjoy who lived in the time of Shakespeare. He was one of Queen Elizabeth’s censors.”
    Spenser said, “ Ah, that explains it. You see, Elizabeth was paranoid, afraid of the Catholics, afraid of being overthrown. Possibly afraid of being murdered. If you know anything about her father, King Henry the Eighth and the fate of his wives, you can surely understand. Elizabeth appointed Sir Francis Walsingham to select and oversee the censors. Walsingham played upon her paranoia in order to control her. It was the censors’ duty to root out and destroy seditious