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Authors: Eric Christopherson
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here in my home of which you speak. The artifacts were all donated to museums long ago.”
“Not all,” Howard said, “and not including the Lydian Croeseids.”
“The what?” I said.
“Forty rare gold coins.”
“You are mistaken,” Noah told Howard. “I've never heard of the coins you mention, and I'm sure neither has Elizabeth. We haven't any collection of gold coins here, nor silver, nor even nickel. Just some loose change about. That is to say, besides a small collection of copper pennies. Ordinary pre-Lincoln pennies. Mostly Flying Eagles and Indian Heads, the bulk minted between 1880 and 1909. A hobby of mine, you see.”
“How rare are these gold coins?” I asked Howard.
“Exceedingly,” he said. “The coins are estimated to be more than twenty-five hundred years old. The only ones of their kind, very nearly. Minted by the legendary King Croesus.”
That name! I flashed back to what my father had often said of the colonel, that the man was richer than Croesus —an ancient king from Lydia, the same land where, as legend had it, King Midas had washed the golden touch from himself into a local river, leaving behind deposits that would become the source of fabulous wealth to later rulers.
Had my father known of these old coins? Had richer than Croesus been an inside joke only he understood?
“They were the first gold coins ever to be minted in the history of the Earth,” Howard continued. “Today worth as much as half a million dollars a piece to private collectors, assuming they're in roughly the same condition they were when Colonel Langley and his team excavated them from an ancient burial tomb in western Asia Minor, circa 1874, and later described them in detail for the New York Times.”
“Twenty million smackers,” Willie said and dropped his mask momentarily to kiss the air. “Cut only five ways too.”
Later in the evening, I would contemplate the identity of the fifth person with a share of the robbery's proceeds, given there were only four robbers. At the time, the incredible sum Willie mentioned—sufficient to impress J.D. Rockefeller himself—distracted me from the incongruity, delayed my noting of it. I said to Howard: “Are you quite sure the coins are, uh, buried here?”
“Dead sure.”
“Please,” Noah said to one and all. “You must believe me. There are no gold coins.” I wasn't a prayerful man anymore, but I reverted to the practice when I contemplated what would happen if it turned out Noah was telling the truth.
Dear God , I thought, please let him be lying .
The Codebook
With considerable relish Howard revealed himself to be the mastermind of the robbery. He said he'd been following the recent newspaper accounts of the Langleys and their cluttered mansion, initially “with the interest of your average reader.” But in the wake of a Daily News story that suggested the family were shareholders in at least two dozen companies, based on an interview with the mailman who delivered to their address, and a Post story—one I'd mentioned earlier, headlined Fall of a Great American Family— that described the archaeological treasures excavated by Colonel Langley in Egypt and in Asia Minor, his interest had turned professional.
“It was clear what we had here,” he said. “Two rich eccentrics, rather than a pair of impoverished nutters, and with the family affliction being, shall we say, a profound avarice for material things, I naturally wondered what objects of antiquity the Langleys had been hoarding for themselves—what treasures they'd held back from donation to public museums—ever since the colonel returned from his plundering of foreign lands all those years ago.”
Via yellowed back issues of the Times, which he'd read inside the New York Public Library, Howard had discovered that Colonel Langley's archaeological endeavors had been partially underwritten by Columbia University and conducted in partnership with one of its professors, a Dr.
“Not all,” Howard said, “and not including the Lydian Croeseids.”
“The what?” I said.
“Forty rare gold coins.”
“You are mistaken,” Noah told Howard. “I've never heard of the coins you mention, and I'm sure neither has Elizabeth. We haven't any collection of gold coins here, nor silver, nor even nickel. Just some loose change about. That is to say, besides a small collection of copper pennies. Ordinary pre-Lincoln pennies. Mostly Flying Eagles and Indian Heads, the bulk minted between 1880 and 1909. A hobby of mine, you see.”
“How rare are these gold coins?” I asked Howard.
“Exceedingly,” he said. “The coins are estimated to be more than twenty-five hundred years old. The only ones of their kind, very nearly. Minted by the legendary King Croesus.”
That name! I flashed back to what my father had often said of the colonel, that the man was richer than Croesus —an ancient king from Lydia, the same land where, as legend had it, King Midas had washed the golden touch from himself into a local river, leaving behind deposits that would become the source of fabulous wealth to later rulers.
Had my father known of these old coins? Had richer than Croesus been an inside joke only he understood?
“They were the first gold coins ever to be minted in the history of the Earth,” Howard continued. “Today worth as much as half a million dollars a piece to private collectors, assuming they're in roughly the same condition they were when Colonel Langley and his team excavated them from an ancient burial tomb in western Asia Minor, circa 1874, and later described them in detail for the New York Times.”
“Twenty million smackers,” Willie said and dropped his mask momentarily to kiss the air. “Cut only five ways too.”
Later in the evening, I would contemplate the identity of the fifth person with a share of the robbery's proceeds, given there were only four robbers. At the time, the incredible sum Willie mentioned—sufficient to impress J.D. Rockefeller himself—distracted me from the incongruity, delayed my noting of it. I said to Howard: “Are you quite sure the coins are, uh, buried here?”
“Dead sure.”
“Please,” Noah said to one and all. “You must believe me. There are no gold coins.” I wasn't a prayerful man anymore, but I reverted to the practice when I contemplated what would happen if it turned out Noah was telling the truth.
Dear God , I thought, please let him be lying .
The Codebook
With considerable relish Howard revealed himself to be the mastermind of the robbery. He said he'd been following the recent newspaper accounts of the Langleys and their cluttered mansion, initially “with the interest of your average reader.” But in the wake of a Daily News story that suggested the family were shareholders in at least two dozen companies, based on an interview with the mailman who delivered to their address, and a Post story—one I'd mentioned earlier, headlined Fall of a Great American Family— that described the archaeological treasures excavated by Colonel Langley in Egypt and in Asia Minor, his interest had turned professional.
“It was clear what we had here,” he said. “Two rich eccentrics, rather than a pair of impoverished nutters, and with the family affliction being, shall we say, a profound avarice for material things, I naturally wondered what objects of antiquity the Langleys had been hoarding for themselves—what treasures they'd held back from donation to public museums—ever since the colonel returned from his plundering of foreign lands all those years ago.”
Via yellowed back issues of the Times, which he'd read inside the New York Public Library, Howard had discovered that Colonel Langley's archaeological endeavors had been partially underwritten by Columbia University and conducted in partnership with one of its professors, a Dr.
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