Chapter Three: The Mystery Game
After we helped the time traveler arrive in Miles City we relaxed for a few days before we held a meeting and decided that we needed to get serious again and launch a new venture to make us millionaires.
“This time we will use Level One security,” Earl said.
Level One meant that we never discussed the plan unless we had at first performed a full security sweep, and anything we wrote down is kept securely locked in our club safe, hidden behind a panel in the wall in the greenhouse. When the panel was shut, you couldn’t even tell there was an opening there. It was a perfect spot.
“Okay.” Earl said. “The last thing we did was a blast and would have made us more money if it hadn’t been stolen out from us, but what happened is over and it’s time to move on.”
We knew he was really trying to convince himself since he was still upset that the idea was stolen from us.
“What’ll it be?” James asked. “Does anyone have any hot ideas?”
That started a rather lively discussion like it always did. Items from agate treasure hunts to UFO summoning all went by the wayside. This time I had been chewing on an idea for a couple of days and I was just waiting for what seemed to be the right moment to bring it up. Finally the inevitable moment of silence came.
“I was thinking it would be really cool to have a person living out a real live detective story.” I said, filling the silence.
“Explain please,” Cora said.
“Well,” I said. “What if we built a detective story that used real places and stores and things in Miles City and people would try to solve the mystery that we design?”
“Oh wow,” James said. “I think I love this.”
“Explain it a bit more, please.” Amie asked.
“Well,” I said. “My dad’s office is in the Masonic Temple building and you all know how huge that place is. There are a couple of empty offices on the top floor that we could outfit as a detective’s office. That’s where the story would start, and then we would plant a string of clues that the customer would have to follow to solve the mystery and win.”
“What would they win?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know that,” I said.
“How about something like the ‘key to the city’?” Amie suggested. “The mystery could center on something threatening the town and when the person solves it they would be the hero and get a presentation and award.”
“I love it,” Peter said.
We all did, and the idea brought to a vote carried 6-0 in favor. The rest of the night was spent brainstorming about ideas we could do and deciding who should be in charge of what things. We set a deadline to be ready for 10 days from today. I was in charge of getting permissions for the locations that we wanted to use. The first person I had to convince was my dad, which I did that night at the dinner table.
“What are you guys up to now?” he asked, adding, “Forget it. I don’t really want to know. Yes, you can use the office. Just make sure you don’t break anything and leave it the way you found it when you’re done.”
I had our starting point. The next day after school Amie and I started scouting out potential locations and asking permission. Due to the recent theft of our last idea, this time we asked the principles involved to take an oath of secrecy to not reveal our plan to anyone until we were ready to launch. We went to the library and asked Ms. Eliot if it would be okay to have someone come in there occasionally to find a clue that we hid in a book.
“If you keep it quiet, it’s ok.” she said. Ms. Eliot was a big believer in being quiet in the library.
Of course we stopped by the Collectible store, and then I wanted to go into the Blue Sky Drugstore where Ron Jorgenson worked. Stacy, the pharmacist, was working and said we could use the store as long as we weren’t disruptive or didn’t break anything. That seemed to be a recurring theme.
We stopped in about 12 stores downtown and all but two of them said that we could use the stores as long as we weren’t disruptive or break anything. Stallows Management Company said they needed to get permission from the owner Earlon Stallows, who was on a cruise at the moment and wouldn’t be available for another three months, if we wanted to come back then, and the Modern Bakery manager just looked scared and worried until we left. Before we stopped for the day we headed over to the Plaza, which was a shopping center on the west side of town containing a small strip mall with a Buttery’s, a large grocery store, a drug store, a department store and some little shops located inside a small inside hallway. My favorite of these was called “The Curio Shoppe”, which was owned by a friend of my family. Mark Foster was another friend who we had played with occasionally and might make a great addition to our club. The Curio Shoppe was filled with cool novelty jokes and gifts that I would spend hours laughing at and wanting to buy. I was thrilled when Mark, who happened to be there, said that he insisted that we use his store in our story.
We met the next day and compared notes. I supplied our potential list of locations and Cora started to summarize the story that she and James were writing. Earl and Peter were in charge of narrowing down a potential field of props and tools that we could use to move the story along.
It would run like this. The Private Eye would begin by sitting in the office at the Masonic Temple building. After a few minutes a person would enter and tell them that they need to hire them to find a missing treasure. They have eight hours to follow the clues and find the location or they will lose the treasure to their nasty first cousin on their mother’s side. With a series of clues the mystery would be solved when the treasure spot is located alongside a ditch on the edge of Carbon Hill, a local treasure spot for hiking and climbing located on the edge of town.
My job, along with Amie, was to develop some way of indicating when the person was making the right decisions and a way to alert them when they were off target. We decided the best way would be to use a chime when a correct course is decided upon and no sound when a mistake is made. This way a person learns to listen for the chime when they make a decision. If they hear it, they are on the right track. If not, try again.
We scheduled a run through for the next afternoon. Mark Foster agreed to be the subject of the test run to see how things went and help us find out where the trouble spots were.
Mark came to the office in the Masonic Temple building at around 3:45 and said that he was ready. He was wearing a long trench coat and had a magnifying glass in his hand for effect. I asked him where his Sherlock Holmes pipe was and he pulled out a bubble pipe and proceeded to blow a few colored bubbles while muttering “Elementary, my dear Steven. It’s right here.”
“Nice Sherlock impression.” I said. “Now are you ready to do this for real?”
“Of course.” He said laughingly, taking off the costume. “What do I do first?”
“That’s part of what we’re figuring out.” I answered. “First, what would you do if this was your office?”
“I’d sit at my desk and read my mail.” He answered, sitting down.
“That’s what we thought too.” I said, handing him a stack of envelopes. “Here’s your mail.”
The mail was a collection of junk mail ads that we had repackaged in envelopes with Mark’s Detective Agency on the address label and the office number and address of the Masonic Temple Building.
“Nice touch,” he said appreciatively. “Shall I open them all?”
“Why not?” I answered. “We can’t use those envelopes again anyway.”
Mark opened the envelopes one by one and briefly noted the contents. They were all unrelated ads that James had found in his parents mail and we had reused. The only envelope that mattered was strategically placed on the bottom of the pile. When Mark got to it, his reaction showed that he believed it was something unique. I made a note of that.
“Now what’s this?” he asked, opening it. “A letter, unsigned.”
The letter said:
Dear Mark,
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I’m sending this to you because I don’t know where else to turn. Many years ago someone in my family did something very bad. It involved the theft of a lot of valuables from the Miles City Museum. I think that it’s time to return those things to the city of Miles City but I am scared that it will damage my family’s reputation and force me to leave the city that I so love that I can’t come forward and reveal my identity or the identity of the person who committed this awful crime. That’s one of the reasons that I am coming to you. The other is because the person who committed this crime left me the following note which I found just recently while cleaning out some long forgotten spaces in our home. I think you’ll understand the second reason I need you after you read it. I hope you’ll forgive me for cutting off the last line where he signed it.
The folded note was handprinted on paper that was yellowed with age. You can purchase this at any print store in the special paper department. It sure comes in handy when you are writing a note that you want to look over 30 years old. The note read:
Greetings! I am glad that you have found this note. I placed it here on what I believe will be one of my last night’s alive on this earth. I also place it here expecting that it will be found by a family member who will be interested in finding a great treasure. You who are reading this note are that chosen person. The treasure I speak of is real, and although some might argue that it isn’t our family’s to own, I offer the following. You will be the finder of a hidden treasure and as the finder you will be entitled to keep it. I do add the following caveat. It will not be simple. To make sure that you really do find it and desire to do so, I have taken the liberty of hiding it and leaving a series of clues that you must solve to find the final location. When you do, you can then use the contents as you see fit. Good luck! To get started you need to follow the red in the brown above the apothecary. Good luck!
The other page in the envelope was a copy of a newspaper front page dated from over 25 years ago detailing a theft that occurred in the Miles City Museum and describing how a burglar had entered at night and somehow stolen many valuable gems and pieces of jewelry and old coins and collectibles. The thief was never discovered and the property had never been found. On the page was written in pen ‘I’m sure this is where this treasure came from.’ And below that it stated ‘I so hope you can help get this returned to the museum so my conscience can be clear.’ We also had this fake newspaper page printed up.
Mark finished reading everything and said “This looks great! I can’t wait to get started. What’s an apothecary?”
I had found out from James that an apothecary was an old term for a modern day drugstore. The first clue would be found in the brown brick room above the Miles City Drug Store which had a different pattern of red bricks in the midst which if followed leads to a loose brick that can be removed to find a paper placed inside the opening. Miles City Drug is located inside an old three story brick building that was built over a hundred years ago, like most of the downtown. This gave us lots of really cool spaces to use in our mystery.
The clue above the Drug Store would reveal an old map which we drew from an old book we found at the library. It would be an overlay of the town as it appeared 25 years ago and had a good old fashioned “x” drawn on it right where the town library is. The library was built 40 years ago so the time frame works for the next clue. The line printed on the map in bright red crayon is “The Founding of Miles Book page 23 is where you should look”.
James and Earl thought this was really clever since the play on the town name of Miles might temporarily confuse someone into thinking the book was about the founding of Miles City. It was really an old book printed in 1923 of photos taken by Miles Founding called “Photos of Montana.” The picture on page 23 was of the ditch at Carbon Hill where we had buried the treasure. We figured that we might want to add a couple of extra steps if these played out too fast, but we wanted to see how Mark worked through it before deciding how to change things.
Mark headed to the Miles City Drug building and was trying to find the right bricked room with the clue. We decided to let him search on his own to see just how difficult it would be to find the right brick. Ten minutes later, Mark came running out of the building holding a paper over his head.
“I found it!” He called out. “I don’t understand it, but I found it!”
He unfolded the paper and it was very obvious that this wasn’t the map that we had planted but was something completely different. The paper was crispy and very yellowed. The writing was in faded ink written with a flowing cursive style. At the top was written a date, that was very blurred.
“It looks like it’s dated June 6th, 1889.” I read. “This is not ours.”
“But I found it inside a brick.” Mark said. “If it’s not yours, then what is it?”
“That’s a great question.” I answered. “I think we need to hold an emergency meeting.”
All of the club members were close at hand anyway since this was the test of the Mystery Game. In a few minutes we were all closeted in our club room at the greenhouse with the strange note occupying all of our attentions.
Cora was holding it when Peter asked her to try to read it aloud.
“June 6, 1889,” she began. “I am writing this being of sound mind and decaying body. To whoever finds this note will come inheritance of my life on this earth. I am no longer concerned with whether what I have done is right or wrong, legal or illegal, just or unjust. I leave this record to allow for another to benefit from my act with the intercession of the Angel who led you to this letter. If the Angel of fortune leading you now will continue to show you the way, you will be the benefactor of a box of gold which I now bequeath to you. Whence the gold came into my possession is in a manner that would be considered less than noble but the crime committed was by me and the spoils pass to you. You need but to go and retrieve it and enjoy a life of luxury.”
Cora continued reading “The gold is under Main in the steam tunnel from the hotel. Where the tunnel starts to cross, step 52 paces and enter the southern crossing. Inside travel for 22 feet and open the hatch. The gold is there.”
Cora looked up. “The letter is signed Marcos Phillipe. That’s all there is.”
For a moment I thought everyone was going to dash out right then and there and head for Main Street to start digging for gold, but calmer heads took over the session as Amie spoke up.
“We need to get a lot more information before we try to get the gold,” she said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“We need to find out where the hotel was in 1889,” she answered. “We also need to figure out how we are going to get into this tunnel, if it even exists anymore. I would also like to know where this gold came from.”
“All great points,” Cora agreed. “Let’s split up and try to find some answers. Everyone realizes that absolute silence is mandatory on this one, right?”
We all agreed and soon we were divided into teams to gather information.
Amie and I were dispatched to the library and the county historian’s office to try to find any information we could about where a gold theft had occurred around 1889. We were also checking if there were any diagrams or maps showing the layout of the town in 1889 and the location of any tunnels that might have existed around that time.
We stopped into the historian’s office. She was hunched over a stack of papers and a magnifying glass. Annette Rogstad was her name and she had held this position for what seemed like a long enough time to have an entire section dealing with herself. She was the picture of the stereotypical librarian type with hair in a tight bun and the skinny bifocal glasses. She looked up and frowned until she spotted Amie and said hello.
“Amie. How are you?”
“Fine, Annette. This is Steve. He and I are looking for some information and sure hope that you can help us.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “What kind of information?”
“First off
,” Amie answered, “can you tell us if there are any records of gold thefts that occurred a long time ago, say before 1889?”
“Hmmm...” Annette answered. “I believe that won’t be too hard to find. I have records of almost all major events that happened. Something as major as a gold theft should he noted somewhere. How about if I let you know tomorrow?”
I almost said “NO! I need it today!” But Amie quickly stepped in and said “Tomorrow will be fine, thanks.”
“Do you need anything else?” Annette asked.
“Yes, actually,” Amie answered. “Do you know if there’s a plat of the town the way it was in 1889 including what the buildings and businesses were at that time?”
“Oh yes,” Annette answered. “I can get that for you right now.”
With that she stood and moved over to a large book and flipped through the pages before coming to the one she was looking for.
“Here it is,” she said. “I’ll make you a copy of it.”
A couple of minutes later we were outside looking over the town as it appeared in 1889.
“This has to be the spot,” Amie said. “Here’s the Miles City Hotel right where the 530 Grill is located today. The tunnel must go right under Main Street here.”
“I wonder if the others had any luck,” I said.
Earl and James were both dispatched to the downtown area to see if they were able to get inside any buildings and head into the basements without causing a disruption or being challenged. Cora, Peter and Mark were searching the building above Miles City Drug to see if there were any other bricks with hidden messages inside.
“It looks like Mark found the only other spot in the building with a loose brick and a paper behind it,” Peter reported, once we were all back at the Greenhouse. “We looked everywhere and there was nothing else hidden anyplace.”
“We found an access to the basement in the hotel,” Earl said. “We tried going down but we got challenged right away by an employee who wanted to know what we were doing.”
“Telling her you were looking for the airport didn’t help things,” James said.
“I was surprised. I don’t think fast on my feet,” Earl said.
“Obviously,” James answered.
I told them that Annette would have the gold information for us tomorrow. We decided that we would adjourn then and in the morning head to the library to get that info and then go to the hotel to see if we could get down to see if there are any tunnels in the basement.
The next day we met at the library at 9am. Annette wasn’t there yet. She finally came in around 9:25 and spotted us.
“I’m sorry I’m a bit late,” she said. “I didn’t know you’d be here so early.”
“That’s okay,” Amie said. “Did you have any luck finding out the information for us?”
“I sure did. It turns out that there was a big gold heist right here in Miles City in the year 1889. Someone broke into the Security Bank and blew open a safe with a stick of dynamite. Then they took out a bunch of gold and got clean away. No one was ever caught or charged with the crime and the gold was never found again.”
“Until today,” Earl said.
“Really?” asked Annette. “You know where it is?”
“We don’t really know anything,” Amie answered after glancing reproachfully at Earl. “We’re just going to spend some time playing prospector.”
“Well, good luck,” Annette said. “There’s a $5000 reward for the return of the gold which is still on the books payable by the Security Bank if the gold is returned.”
“When the gold is returned, you mean,” corrected Earl.
“Are you certain there’s not something you’re not telling me?” asked Annette.
“We’re certain that there’s nothing certain we could tell you,” Amie answered.
With that we hustled outside as soon as we could to keep Earl from saying anything else.
“Do you remember our oath to secrecy?” Peter asked once we were outside.
“I do now,” Earl answered.
From there we strolled over to the Miles City Hotel and tried to figure out our next plan. We decided to enter the hotel and see if we could get downstairs but Cora suggested going inside in small groups instead of all together.
“If we all go tramping in it will look like a raid,” she said. “Let’s go in in groups of two or three. Wait a couple of minutes before you enter. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
James and Earl went in first since they had been there before. We waited for two minutes and then Mark, Peter, and Amie went inside. Cora and I waited for another two minutes and then we opened the door and entered.
Inside was a huge room with a very high ceiling. There were several old fashioned ceiling fans slowly turning. The room had three large support beams which traveled from floor to ceiling. Beside each one was a large potted fern. At the end of the room was a long counter with a hotel worker standing behind it. In a frantic conversation with the employee was Earl with James standing alongside.
“But I only want the room for about an hour,” Earl was saying. “Why should I have to pay for the whole day?”
“That’s our policy, sir.” answered the rather bored clerk. “We don’t rent rooms by the hour, just by the day.”
“This is ridiculous,” Earl responded. “If you charge $60 for the whole day, then it should cost me $2.50 for one hour.”
“Well” James responded. “Technically that would be right if the rate were based on a person staying for an actual period of 24 hours. But, since in reality, most hotel stays are for a period of approximately 12 hours then the hourly rate, if prorated, would be approximately $5.00 per hour.”
We learned later that as soon as Earl and James entered the Hotel, the clerk on duty recognized them from the day before and challenged them as to why they were there. Knowing that we would soon also be entering, they quickly decided to engage the clerk in a dialogue to cover our entering the hotel and hopefully allow time for us to search.
We moved through the lobby quickly and quietly and headed into a small hallway towards the side of the room. There was an old elevator there and at the end of it was a door labeled stairs. We entered the door and inside there was a dreary dark cement stair which headed up and down.
“Let’s go down,” Cora suggested.
We moved down the stairs. There were three turns before we reached the bottom. Another door at the end was labeled “B”.
“I assume that stands for basement,” I said.
We opened the door which wasn’t locked and entered into a dimly lit hallway with several doors opening along each side. At that moment one of them opened and we started to head back to the stairs when we saw Mark come out of the door.
“Hi,” he said. “You made it too.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I think Earl will keep him going for awhile. Have you found anything?”
Amie and Peter entered the hallway.
“Not yet,” Peter answered. “We just started looking though. Let’s split up and search all the doors.”
We each headed into a room. Luckily all of the doors were very old and none of them had a lock on the handle. I headed down towards the end of the hallway and opened the last door on the left side. Inside was absolute darkness. I felt alongside the edge and my hand found a light switch. I flipped it and a single bulb slowly lit in the center of the narrow room. I stepped inside and started moving further towards the rear. The room was only about eight feet wide and very long. I couldn’t see the back end clearly and slowly moved further inside. As I got into the center of the room I could start to make out the other end and noticed what appeared to be a small set of steps dropping down towards another door. This one was short and metal with a long bar for a handle that could be lifted up from the hasp to open inwards. Around the door was a semicircle of bricks that definitely appeared to form the shape of a tunnel. I quickly headed back towards the hallway to call the others.
“I think
I found it!” I whispered hoarsely.
One by one the others appeared and joined me inside the room crossing to the other side.
“That must be it,” Mark said. “Try to open it.”
Peter was the first one to put his hand on the opening bar and lift it. It made a squeaking sound but it slowly lifted up over the locking bars. Pulling on the bar the door started to open inwards and reveal a dark opening behind. We really couldn’t see anything behind the door and it was at that moment that Cora once again showed her awareness as she pulled out a small but powerful flashlight and snapped on the light.
“More steps,” she said, as the light showed a series of concrete steps descending a short ways.
“Shall we go?” she asked, somewhat nervously.
“I think we have to,” Peter answered. “We might not get another chance.”
With those words prodding us on, we climbed down the stairs in single file and headed into the unknown darkness below. The steps numbered 12 which meant we were quite a ways below street level and could definitely be at a tunnel point. At the bottom of the steps a hallway turning to the left opened and as we looked inside we knew that we were in the right spot. This was the tunnel.
“Now what?” asked Mark.
“We count 52 paces and find the southern opening,” answered Cora.
We started counting together with Cora leading the way. The walls were lined with shelves containing what mostly looked to be boxes filled with old metal parts and masonry. We didn’t see any openings as we kept moving through the tunnel. When we were approaching 50 Mark pointed a bit further up at what looked to be a small hatch on the south side of the tunnel.
“That must be it!” he exclaimed.
We all agreed and moved to the spot. There was a small two shelf in front of the hatch that we moved out of the way. There were a couple of old pipes that entered alongside the hatch which was secured with a couple of thumb screws that we were able to remove without any problems. We placed the hatch opening along the wall and Cora shone her light inside. The smaller opening looked to go for about 50 feet before coming to an end at a wall of stone. We couldn’t see anything along the sides that looked like openings. There were no shelves inside this tunnel but there were some scattered wooden boxes along the floor.
Cora and Mark moved inside while the rest of us waited at the opening. We could hear Cora counting footsteps as she walked along. When she got to 21 she stopped and we saw the light flash along the wall.
“There’s a vent here!” she yelled. “It’s covered with a grill.”
“Can you open it?” Peter asked.
“I think so,” she answered.
We could hear a small squeak as she turned the screws and slowly removed the cover. We waited excitedly as she searched inside and suddenly gasped.
“There’s a bag here!”
We saw her slide a heavy bag out of the opening and watched as Peter helped her lift it out of the opening and move toward us. Together we lifted it out and set it down before Cora shone the light as we looked inside. There was a metallic flash of golden light as we viewed a pile of gold coins inside.
“We found it!” Mark yelled.
Celebrating for a few minutes we enjoyed the moment before we figured out a way to carry the gold out of the tunnel. It required four of us at a time to lift it so we took turns heading back outside. Luckily the Security Bank was only half a block down from the Hotel so we didn’t have too far to travel until we placed the treasure on a desk in the bank and shared our find with the people inside.
Earl, who along with James, joined us as soon as we got the gold outside the hotel, said “we’d like to deposit the $5000 reward please, if we get one of those cool cameras you offer for new accounts.”