The Last Will and Testament of Simon Alexander Brown

Peter Gilmore was exactly 27 years, 157 days old. He knew this because he had been exactly 27 years and one day old when he heard the name Simon Brown for the first time, relayed with sober efficiency by the police officer calling to tell him that Simon Brown was dead. He knew this because he had marked the passing of each subsequent day with a small black tick in the margin of the small black notebook that had been Simon’s only possession on the day of his death. He knew this because he only had seven days left to find his inheritance.

They had given him the book at the police station, almost as a consolation for his failure to identify the body. They told him how Simon had been found outside Union Station, half covered in snow. He died with no known address, no social security number, no identification of any kind, apart from the small black notebook found in the pocket of his coat. Folded inside, on a separate piece of paper, were his final words:

This is the Last Will and Testament of Simon Alexander Brown. I have nothing to bequeath except my regret and this book. Please ensure that both are conveyed to Peter Gilmore, resident of this city, my nephew and only living relative. I am sad we never met. I can only hope that this book brings you more joy than it did me.

The first half of the notebook was filled with entries written in an old-fashioned hand, faded and cramped and hard to read. The second half told the story of Simon Brown. The story went like this:

On September 22, 1948 a man named Arthur MacDonald, a custodian at the Royal Canadian Mint, stole a box containing 2,000 freshly minted silver dollars. Ten days later, he was arrested in Toronto. The trial that followed established his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but the money was never recovered. He died in prison two years later, without ever revealing to authorities the location of the stolen coins. In August, 1989, Simon Brown purchased an old farm north of Oshawa, Ontario. In December of that same year, he found a small black notebook, wrapped in canvas, under a loose floorboard in the attic. It was the diary of Arthur MacDonald. The final entry read: “Mary, if I don’t get the chance to tell you myself, the money is hidden in the usual place”. That was it, nothing more. The undisturbed nature of the notebook’s hiding place, combined with the fact that it was still there to be found at all, convinced Simon that Mary had never read Arthur’s last message. He couldn’t know for sure whether she had ever been given the information in person, but he chose to believe that the secret had died with Arthur. He chose to believe that there was a cache of silver concealed somewhere on his farm. Driven by that belief, Simon spent the next twenty years tearing the house apart, digging countless holes in the surrounding fields, and scouring the notebook for the tiniest scraps of clues. It became an obsession that eventually destroyed his career and every relationship he had. His own sister wouldn’t let him meet his only nephew. When the bank foreclosed on the property, forcing him to leave, he would sneak back onto the farm after dark and dig holes by moonlight. He never found anything, but he died still dreaming of a fortune just waiting to be discovered.

And now he had passed that obsession on to his nephew. Peter was initially confused as to why Simon had gone to such lengths for the sake of $2,000, but a quick internet search provided the history lesson his uncle had neglected to teach. He learned that India had gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, a minor consequence of this being that the words ET IND: IMP, declaring King George VI as the Emperor of India, could no longer be stamped on any official currency used within the British Empire. Due to a delay in shipping the necessary tools and dies from England, the Royal Canadian Mint couldn’t start making coinage without the ET IND: IMP notation until halfway through the year. As a result, they were only able to mint a total of 18,780 dollar coins dated 1948, making it the rarest Canadian silver dollar ever circulated. In 2009, a near mint condition example sold for $67,580.

Peter had barely been able to type the equation 2,000 x 67,580 into the calculator on his phone. He could have done it in his head but he wanted to be sure. 2,000 x 67,580. More than $135,000,000. It truly was a fortune.

The missing coins became all Peter could think about. He spent every spare moment studying the notebook, just as Simon had done; and almost every Sunday, he made the three-hour round trip out to his uncle’s old farm. It was abandoned now, the farmhouse fallen into ruin, the fallow cornfield dominated by a large billboard advertising lavish new condominiums. He walked the boundaries of the property, looking for anything that could be taken as a sign, an x to mark the spot. He broke into the house and spent hours digging in the cellar and knocking holes into the few parts of wall and floor that didn’t already have holes in them. He probed the kitchen garden by driving a long crow bar into the ground at intervals, hoping to strike something solid. There was an oak tree in the front yard, massive and twisted with age, a tailor-made signpost for pointing to buried treasure. He managed to dig a hole three feet deep at the base of the tree before a passing neighbour stopped him and threatened to call the police. He didn’t find anything. And now the bulldozers were only seven days away.

The dust and decay of the crumbling farmhouse kitchen surrounded Peter as he thought about his uncle, a man he had never met, whose name he had only known for 160 days, who had surrendered the entirety of his body and soul to something that Peter was beginning to think had never existed. Three days in row now he had called in sick so he could continue the hunt, risking his job to follow a fairy tale. Was this how it had all started for Simon? Peter had wasted five months scratching in the dirt without finding so much as a penny, and now the thought of it made him feel sicker than he had pretended to be once again that morning. Simon had wasted decades. You stupid idiot, you threw your life away chasing a fantasy. We could have had years together, Christmases and birthdays and summers together. We could have been a family. But instead you traded your family for a fraction of a sliver of a chance at a fortune. You sad, stupid idiot. I hope it was worth it. Peter was sure now that the coins had never been stashed on the farm at all, that the “usual place” was somewhere else altogether. Even if they had been buried in the cellar or hidden in the wall, they had clearly been unearthed at some point in the past. He hoped that Mary had found them, and that they had helped her find as much happiness as she could without Arthur by her side. He hoped that he could forget ever hearing about their story. He hoped that his uncle could forgive him for giving up. It was time to go home. The bulldozers were coming in two days and he didn’t care.

He stood in the shadow of the oak tree, staring at the derelict house that had steadfastly refused to give up its secret. He had convinced himself to abandon the search, but he couldn’t help taking one last look before the end. He kicked absentmindedly at the stray rocks and clods of dirt surrounding the hole he had dug a week before, as though to finally bury the ghosts of Simon and Arthur and Mary. To his left, just visible beyond the house, workers in orange vests were offloading a backhoe from a flatbed truck. The man with the clipboard had to speak three times before Peter heard him.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, sorry. I was a million miles away. A hundred and thirty-five million miles away, actually.”

“Excuse me?”

“Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

“If you say so. Either way, you’ll need to clear out of here pretty quick. I don’t think we have enough insurance to cover a stranger getting a house demolished on top of him.”

“My uncle used to live here. I’m just….saying goodbye.”

“Fair enough. I bet you got up to all sorts of adventures here back in the day. I wouldn’t let my kids within a hundred feet of the place in its current state, mind you. I’d say it’s about ten minutes away from falling down all on its own. It’ll be a real shame to lose that tree, though.”

“Yeah, real shame.”

“Well, I hate to rush you, but we’re behind schedule already, so as soon as you’re done looking. Take your money with you.”

“Pardon?”

The man pointed to the ground at Peter’s feet.

“You dropped some change.”

Peter looked down and saw three coins lying there half covered by dirt. They were silver in colour, larger than quarters. One of the coins was flipped onto its reverse side and he could plainly see the image of two men piloting a canoe. He picked them up and read the date: 1948. The man with the clipboard was standing there watching him, waiting to make sure that he actually left. Peter put his hand in his pocket, fingers squeezed tightly around the last relics of his late uncle’s dying wish.

They weren’t in mint condition anymore, having spent almost 70 years in the ground, but the appraiser was confident they still had significant value. In fact, he had offered to put Peter in contact with a private collector who would happily pay $20,000 for the set. As he walked back to his car, Peter felt for the small black notebook he carried in his coat pocket, making sure it was still there, still safe, still real. A business card was tucked inside, safely enfolded with three silver coins and the Last Will and Testament of Simon Alexander Brown. He just needed to make the call.