The Mysterious Mailbox Message

Ernest never meant to become a gravedigger. But then again, he thought, it’s not the kind of thing anyone ever means to become. He wiped his forehead with the damp cloth he always kept in his back pocket, and sat back on his heels to reexamine the little, black notebook on the ground.

He had found it in his mailbox this morning when he went out to collect the newspaper and, upon opening, was disconcerted to see HELLO ERNEST on the front page in bold, black, blaring letters. He blinked. The letters remained. He turned the page and found a message scrawled over the following two pages in bright red ink.

I REQUIRE HELP AND SOME INSURANCE THAT YOU WILL DO SO AND WITH EXPEDIENCY. PLEASE FIND SAID INSURANCE ENCLOSED IN RED BOX ON PORCH. ASSUMING YOU ARE (NOW MORE) AMENABLE, PLEASE BEGIN DIGGING AT PLOT 43 TODAY, 10 AM. I WILL FOLLOW SHORTLY.

Well, he thought, no harm in helping someone, even if they were as yet unknown. He acknowledged the red box, and decided to pick it up and bring it with him, as it was already nearing 10 a.m. At a red light, finally overcome by curiosity, he clicked open the buckles on the red box. Inside he was stunned to find $1,000 in cash and a note in the now familiar hand: THERE ARE 19 MORE TO COME.

Ernest plucked at his shirt with his fingertips and desperately tried to release some of the heat that had accumulated underneath. He liked digging graves, but he didn’t appreciate the crypticness of this particular job. He had arrived at plot 43 at 10 a.m. on the dot. Armed with his habitual shovel, and red box in hand, he had found exactly what he didn’t expect. Nobody was there, no body was there. In fact, nothing at all was there, except some overturned grass a few feet away, and fresh flowers on plot 44.

He placed his left boot on the shovel to begin slicing into the ground, assuming that he had a job to do and might as well get to it. The dirt slid easily away and dribbled off around the edges of the shovel as he slung it aside.

As he shoveled, he daydreamed in idle amusement about the mystery of the money and its sudden appearance. There is more to come, he thought, and surprised himself by smiling. Regardless of how it came to be, $20,000 would certainly make an impact on someone’s bank account. Perhaps his son’s account, whom he hadn’t seen in over a year. He imagined surprising him with a trip, or a sudden visit, or an unexpected windfall of unknown origins. As he contemplated the details of this delightful prospect, he began to catch glimpses of a sort of metallic glinting. At first, he couldn’t tell what the sunlight was catching on - a long-since abandoned tool, the glitter of fool’s gold, or just an oddly placed raindrop. Whatever was causing it, Ernest had made up his mind. It needed inspecting, excavating, and extracting — and not necessarily in that order.

By the time Ernest had cleared the dirt away enough to tell that it was a large strongbox, with ornate designs and gold lettering, it was nearing midday, and the shadows had fled to wait for the afternoon. He contemplated lifting it out, but, upon feeling its heft and weight, ultimately decided to sit and rest in the shade of a large oak tree nearby.

He wiped his forehead with the damp cloth he always kept in his back pocket, and sat back on his heels to reexamine the little, black notebook on the ground. It looked much the same as it had the first time he’d seen it, but as he’d only given a cursory glance to it before, he took his time in his perusal through the pages, checking meticulously that each page appeared to be empty white space, before moving on.

Close to the end of the notebook, he paused. A shadow had fallen over the pages, and a brightly-dressed young man stood at the end of it. “You Ernest?” he asked. “Sorry I’m late. I see you found my notebook message.” He jerked his head in the direction of plot 43.

Ernest nodded slowly, waiting for more information.

“I’m Toades”, said Toades. “Well, really I’m Arthur Toades, but everyone calls me Toades. Evangeline Toades was my great-grandma. She’s the one who bought the plot way back when. Apparently her most treasured collection was buried here, and her ashes scattered to the four winds! Ain’t that something? Anywho,” he continued without waiting for an answer, “I’m sorry about all the super secret stuff, been told I can be kinda dramatic.” At Ernest’s raised eyebrow, he continued, holding up his hands, “OK, OK, very dramatic. I’m surprised you came at all. My little sister said it was silly to drag you all the way out here on a Tuesday morning for a lark, the way I did. But I promise I’ll make it up to you. At least I didn’t leave you sitting out here all day long!”

“What was in your grandmother’s collection?” asked Ernest, rising smoothly to his feet.

“Great-grandma, and that’s what I need you for. She wanted to make it a treasure hunt, leave us descendants clues and everything to find it later, but after she died suddenly during the war, they found a letter saying she was sorry but it was up to uncle Roger now to save the family treasure. He died last Saturday, and left me and my sister a boatload of money in his will. We’re the only surviving family left, ya see. Anywho, we found out about all this in his will. He left me $200,000 just to deal with this, and I figure on giving you 10% of it, if you’ll help me. Apparently there’s some rule about not digging in the graveyard, unless you’re staff. Got busted for it last Halloween. It was just a prank, long story.” He waved his hand dismissively. “At any rate, that’s how I knew I needed you for this part. I have to say, uncle Roger didn’t get the dramatic gene I got by any stretch. He just said, ‘dig up plot 43’. A bit disappointing, if you ask me. I like mysteries, so I decided to make it more mysterious. I got my friend James to write the note and I told him to make it sound mysterious. He’s an English teacher, so he knows how to do that. I asked the cemetery for a digger’s phone number, and they gave me your address instead. Who doesn’t have a phone these days?”

Ernest ignored him in favor of leaning over the hole now occupying plot 43. “It is an expensive box,” he remarked. “Perhaps there is actual treasure interred within.”

Arthur’s face made a sort of offended-horrified-bewildered expression, caught between disbelief and mocking. He settled on surprise, and said, “Good golly Miss Molly, you don’t talk much but when you do, you sure like to use big words, huh?”

Ernest began to scrape the dirt gently away from the strongbox. “I was named for Ernest Hemingway”, he eventually answered. “I never did care much for his use of terse words and short sentence structure.”

After determining that the box was liftable by the two of them, Ernest hunkered down in the deep trench he had made on his side, and Arthur did the same. He grasped the handle on his side, and with a heave and a grunt, the entire box was finally revealed.

“You wanna open it?” Arthur asked tentatively. “I’m almost afraid great-grandma left a booby trap or something in there…”

“Didn’t you mention that your great-grandmother was unable to complete her wishes regarding this plot and the treasure therein?”

Arthur gave him an unimpressed look.

“All right, well then, give me one moment to remove my gloves,” said Ernest, caught off guard by both the request and the look. He carefully pulled off his thick, well-worn, work gloves, one finger at a time.

Arthur sighed impatiently and tapped his foot, but said nothing.

Ernest examined the latch, and determined it should open easily, as there was no lock in place. He freed the latches, and began to gently tug on the lid.

“I’m afraid you may need to be more involved than you previously wished, Mr. Toades. The lid appears to have become sealed over time.”

“‘Appears to have become’” Arthur, mocked under his breath, but obediently returned to his side of the box. They both pushed, and as the lid began to give way, they heard a crack as it creaked open.

“Notebooks?!” Arthur exclaimed in surprise. “Why’d notebooks be in a treasure chest?”

Ernest sifted through the piles of notebooks, and opened one at random. He ran his eye over the first few pages, noting the rough sketches and distinctive pen strokes.

Meanwhile Arthur had overcome his initial disappointment, and was holding up a weather-beaten, torn and ratty notebook. “I think it’s a journal!” he cried, holding it aloft as though Ernest could see it better that way. Seeing the moleskin cover flapping in the breeze, Ernest suddenly came to his senses.

“We’d better return these books to the chest, until we can inspect them at a later date with the proper equipment,” he said. “I hope we haven’t caused irrevocable damage already.”

“No way!” Arthur protested. “We finally get it open, and then all you’ll let us do is close it up again?”

Ernest plucked the wax covered notebook from Arthur’s outstretched hand, and returned it gently to its place amongst the others.

“I have a friend who works in the archives downtown,” he said. “He may be very interested to see these. He could potentially provide us with a method of authenticating your find, Mr. Toades.”

“It’s just Toades,” complained Arthur. “But yeah, OK. Let’s see what your friend says."

The following afternoon, Ernest and Arthur stood in front of the archives, the box hoisted between them. “I spoke to my friend,” explained Ernest, shifting the box to his other hand.

“How’d you do that, send a carrier pigeon or something?” Arthur mocked him.

Ernest ignored him. “He postulates the notebooks belonged to the artist Vincent Van Gogh. He wonders if your great-grandmother may have concealed them under so much secrecy due to World War II. Several works of Van Gogh’s art were stolen during that time, perhaps she anticipated the same fate for his sketchbooks.”

“Awesome!” exclaimed Arthur. "Now what do I do with them?"

“I suggest approaching the Van Gogh Museum with your find, and asking if they would be willing to authenticate it, on the condition that you’d donate the notebooks afterward. I imagine they will be quite pleased with the arrangement.”

EPILOGUE

Three and a half weeks later, Ernest coolly sipped iced tea on his front porch in the late afternoon sunlight. He sat with Arthur in rocking chairs that were slightly too big for them, and discussed ‘The Mystery of Plot 43’, as Arthur insisted on calling it.

“I was thinking of making another treasure hunt for someone new,” said Arthur excitedly. “But I don’t know what I’d make the treasure, since the museum has the notebooks now.”

“I’ve been pondering a similar idea,” mused Ernest. “I was considering $20,000 for the prize. Perhaps you could assist me in making a ‘treasure hunt’ for my son, culminating with a surprise party?”

Arthur whipped out a blank Moleskine notebook from his back pocket. “Obviously I’m in! Let’s talk balloons! And coffins!”