Free The Grub-And-Stakers House a Haunt by Charlotte MacLeod, Alisa Craig

he rubbed at the spot from which, according to Hiram Jellyby’s tale as repeated by Zilla, the lock ought to have been knocked off a century ago. The lock was however still in place, not rusty, just tarnished; not broken, but whole.
    Osbert was good at locks; he whipped out his trusty Boy Scout knife and jimmied this one with only a small amount of difficulty and that little due mainly to the dirt that had been clogging the keyhole.
    Even as he released the catch, however, Osbert was puzzling. Here was a curious anomaly. The box, which was actually a small trunk, had turned up just where Hiram had said it was. It was the proper size as far as a person could tell who hadn’t been around long enough to know the exact dimensions of the crates that canned peaches had come in a century ago. It had the right kind of cover, but the cover was in oddly good repair considering its presumed centurylong proximity to the spring. The iron bands Hiram had mentioned were not present, Osbert could see no sign that they ever had been. On the other hand, there were ornamental brass doodads at the corners-doodads was probably not the correct term for them, but it was the best one Osbert could think of in the confusion of the moment-that Hiram hadn’t mentioned at all.
    But this was no time for pondering. An inexperienced ghost couldn’t be expected to remember details with any great degree of accuracy and the cries of “Open it” were mounting to a crescendo. Osbert moved back and, with as courtly a bow as he could manage without falling into the water hole, gave Zilla the honor of raising the lid.
    The hinges still held and still worked, albeit a trifle stiffly as was only to be expected. There was a mass holding of breath among the onlookers as she pushed the lid back, and a mass whooshing of exhales as she reached in to dislodge the crumple of brown canvas that hid whatever might be lying inside. Instinctively, everybody took a giant step forward, nor did Sergeant MacVicar glare at anyone for having done so. His eyes, like all the others’, were on the box.
    And well they might have been. The box was packed solid, not with antique gold pieces but with heavy sacks covered in clear plastic. And inside the sealed sacks were small packets, many of them, each sealed up in its own little Zip-locked plastic bag. And inside each little bag was a neat stack some three inches thick. And these stacks appeared to be made up entirely of crisp, clean, Canadian one-hundred-dollar bills.
    “Well, flip me for a pancake!”
    Zilla Trott had clearly voiced the mood of the gathering.
    They were flipping, too; there was no holding them back. To crowd around and goggle was the only reasonable thing to do. Even Sergeant MacVicar goggled, but only for a second. Then he said crisply, “Deputy Monk, wad ye kindly shut yon box?”
    “But we want to see how much is in it,” wailed Dot Coskoff.
    As treasurer for the garden club, for its museum, and potentially for its community garden, Dot of all people had a right to ask, but the sergeant was adamant. “Mrs.
    Coskoff, there is a grave doot in my mind as to whether yon box was buried here for any legitimate reason. And belike in yours as weel. Am I no’ correct?”
    When Sergeant MacVicar started calling people by their last names and talking broad Scots, those who knew him did not gainsay him. “I suppose so,” Dot admitted. “I can’t imagine who in his right mind would bury a trunkful of money out here in the middle of nowhere just for the fun of it. Unless it’s counterfeit, and the person was scared to keep it around the house.”
    “Aye, but to get rid of counterfeit money, a pairson needs only a lighted match. A likelier reason, to my mind, is that this is real money that has been stolen, that the thief who buried it here has gone into hiding or else to jail, and intends to come back and excavate his loot when it becomes feasible to do so. That is why I dinna want anybody, including myself,