Chapter 17

Of course, we all vowed to keep silent. For one thing we didn’t want the publicity, for another, we didn’t want every whack job and druggie in the area trying to rob us. We had put a little pistol range on the back of the property, and I had taken a backhoe and built up a four foot thick berm eight feet high, reinforced with thick timbers. It faced a little hill, in case we were way off in our aim, and the land behind it was empty farmland. Eighty four acres, and we were seriously thinking about trying to buy it, for privacy more than anything else. The thought of a new housing development going up behind us didn’t sit well with any of us.

I had my Smith .40, my ‘go to’ weapon of choice, and an old colt Python .357 revolver I had picked up years ago. The girls, including Gwen, had fired them, and didn’t care for either. Jen had her little Remington .380, and she was notoriously accurate up to twenty yards, every shot center body mass. Lindsey had been afraid of guns, but we brought her along, until she was confident to find her own weapon. I swear those girls shopped for pistols like they did dresses, wanting to ‘try them on’ before deciding. We joined a gun range that also had a shop, and they could check out a rental, run a box of ammo through it, then return it. She still hadn’t found anything she liked, when I thought about the vault. All the weapons were old, some over a hundred years, but all were mechanically sound and could fire modern ammunition.

I went down to the basement one evening and stood, thinking, before talking to Mom. “Would you mind terribly if I let Lindsey fire one of your weapons? I know they’re yours, because a man wouldn’t own a pistol that ornate except as a collector’s item, and besides, your initials are woven into the red rose on the ivory handles. It might be just what she needs, and if she likes them we can get a modern version and put yours back in the vault.”

For an answer the vault(we had started calling it that because frankly, it was too big to be considered a safe)swung open, a beam of light higlighting a case we had opened just once. I took them out reverently, almost unwilling to touch them. I took the revolver out first, a Colt Lightning. It was nickel, with a red rose scrimshawed into the ivory handles, A J M cleverly worked in, almost unable to be detected. In .32 caliber, it had a two inch barrel and a five round cylinder. Most people deride the caliber, but it was still a pretty efficient weapon at close quarters. The other pistol was a .380 automatic, with the same design in the handle. Both were heavily engraved. They looked like works of art, not the deadly weapons they were. “Jen” flashed in my mind when I held the automatic, ‘Lindsey’ when I held the revolver.

Both were made in 1916, just before her husband went off to war. I think he gave them to her for safety, she could easily carry either one in her purse or concealed in the folds of her dress. We had them estimated for insurance purposes later, and as a set, in the custom built case, with the matching .45 automatic(his weapon, I suspect), the value was almost thirty thousand.

The next Saturday I took them to the gun range, and had them checked by a professional before I would allow the girls to fire either. I insisted we do it in the managers’ office, after his promise of confidentiality. He actually went a little pale, not saying a word until he checked his computer. “Do you know what these are? The former owner must have known someone in the Colt system. There are a lot of these out there, but only five matching sets like this were ever made. One was presented to the Queen of England in 1910, the other four went to private individuals. The one belonging to the Queen is in a museum in London, another is owned by the Roosevelt family, the other three changed hands until they disappeared. Now only two are unaccounted for. Collectors suspect the sets were broken up in wills, and will never see the light of day again. If it still had the 1911.45, it would be worth even more.” I grinned, thinking about the weapon, safely tucked away in the vault.

I never volunteered how I had acquired them, and he was smart enough not to ask. He declared them in excellent condition, estimating they had been fired very little. He assured me they could handle modern ammunition, but suggested I buy a special brand, manufactured for vintage and antique weapons, closely matching orginal specifications for the weapon. He had two boxes of the .32 in stock, and four of the .380. I bought all he had, and put in an order for three more boxes each.

I wouldn’t let them be fired in public, not wanting to give explanations of where they came from. I took the girls to the home range, and showed them the weapons. “Mom and I had a talk. Linds, Mom thought you might be comfortable with the revolver, and Jen, since you are already familiar with a .380, she wanted you to have this.” After they oohed and ahhed over them, they loaded them, and test fired a few rounds, from the standard distances for pistols, nine, fifteen, and twenty-five yards. Linds hit center mass every time, the shots closely grouped just to the left of center. Jen did the same, except two rounds each were head shots. Showoff.

To legally carry them, I had them registered, telling the police I had inherited them from a time when registration wasn’t necessary. They did the standard checks, and they didn’t come back stolen, so it was just a matter of filling out the forms. The girls both bought special handbags that allowed them to have easy access to their weapons. They could even fire them without taking them out, if it was necesary. Jen still carried her old .380, in a specially designed pocket holster. It would be very bad for someone if the girls were ever placed in a situation requiring they use them.

The existence of the vault started to worry all of us, and we agreed to consider moving the valuables to a more secure location. If people found out, we would be an instant target, and not just from the amateurs. We voted, and everyone but Gwen thought it was a good idea. She said the less people knew of our business, the better off we are. “I agree, Gwen. That makes it even more important we move them. We will all be safer for it.”

Linds came up with the idea of doing a documentary on the vault, Miss Agnes, and the whole Merchant family. We had already talked to the local history museum, letting them get a look at some of the things we’d found in the tack shed, and now there was a whole section of the museum dedicated to the Merchant family and their impact on local history. The exhibit showed photos of the family through time. The reports of their sons dying in action, and the other disappearing, took up one section alone. There was a wedding picture of Miss Agnes, her sister, and her husband in their gowns and suit, sitting side by side of a picture of Jen, me, and Lindsey in the same clothes. There were also period toys we’d found in one of the trunks, as well as children’s clothing of the times.

We didn’t know it, but the family sponsored the local baseball team, footing the bill for their uniforms, equipment, and transportation. In those days, every town had at least one team, roughly similar to a single A team of the modern era. Games were huge draws on Saturday afternoons, people wearing their summer best as they rooted for the home team. Mr. Merchant, it seems, was a very good pitcher, but he only pitched as a reliever, leaving the glory to the ones who deserved it. There was even a photo we found of all of them, down to the last son, wearing team jerseys. Several trophies, old gloves, and autographed balls were in a case under the picture.

When we privately viewed it, as guests of the museum, we were really impressed. Things were moving along until we got to the baseball collection, Jen and Linds just stopped, gaping at a photo of Mr. Merchant, in his uniform and cap, before turning their eyes to me. “What?”

“You look just like him, right down to the ball cap. Same eyes, chin, cheekbones. Even your ears are shaped the same!”

I looked more closely, and could actually see she was right. That might explain why Mom liked me so much. “Well, what about that? Maybe I’m his illegitimate great grandson, what do you think?”

The assistant curator giving us the tour grinned. “You mean you’re not a descendent? Fooled me, I was sure I was dealing with the last of the Merchant family. Strange world, huh?”

Along with the display there was a long article on how they got their wealth. Miss Agnes was the eldest daughter of a wealthy landowner, he had seven farms, a retail store catering to farm supplies, and a hotel, all doing a prosperous business. Her future husband Jim came from a long line of lawyers and engineers. His father was a judge, rising to the state Supreme Court, where he served ten years before retiring. Jim chose the engineering part of his family, following his uncle, joining his business as soon as he left college. Between them, they managed to invent and hold patents on six machines, expanding their workshop into a pretty impressive manufacturing plant. The family held pretty liberal views about workers, and conservative views on family. No one in the plant, including the managers, could work over ten hours a day, and every other Saturday, if it was necessary. They paid a substatial wage, far and above what others did, and as result, they got the best of the best. Several of their managers and workers saved enough to open their own businesses, not as competitors, but as suppliers. Instead of building mill villages, they offered their workers good rates on loans, and many took advantage, achieving something they thought they would never see, home ownership.

Miss Agnes and Jim met when his company sold some machinery to her father, and he came along to make sure they met specifications. He was a likeable fellow, open, honest (sometimes too honest, Miss Agnes said once in a letter), a man that stood on his convictions and by his word. Soon, he was taking dinner most evenings with the Monroe family, finishing the night by sitting in the porch swing with Agnes and her little sister, watching the stars and fireflies. Jim played guitar, Agnes played piano, her little sister the violin, so they gave impromtu concerts to the rest of the family and whatever neighbors happened by.

When the machines were in place, Jim asked Mr. Monroe if he would give him permission to court his daughter, and the man laughed. “Young man, whether you know it or not, by this time next year we’ll be talking about the wedding. Agnes already has her dress picked out.” They were engaged in nine months, and married six months later. It was pretty much a whirlwind courtship by the standards of the day.

When the first world war started, before Americans got involved, the Merchants and the Monroes held a business discussion, led by the elder Monroe. “War is raging in Europe right now, and whether we like it or not, eventually America will be forced to choose a side. In the meantime, commerce will be spotty at best in Europe, foodstuffs like grain, corn, and potatoes will be in short supply. People will starve, economies will crumble.

I propose a joint venture. My family will supply the skill and knowledge, and forty per cent of the money, if your family supplies the other sixty per cent. We’ll split any profits 50/50. We need to buy or lease as much farmland as we can get, produce as much food as we can, for export. I also suggest that you look at upping production of your machinery, every factory over there that can be will be converted to help the war effort. They’ll need those machines when this is over, and it will take them a long time to rebuild.”

They took his suggestion, and while many tried to get outrageous prices, they kept their prices as fair as they could. Their biggest customer ended up being the U.S. government, who came to them with a suggestion. They wanted them to also grow cotton, for uniforms, underwear, and a thousand other uses. We found a certificate issued to them, Merchant Monroe Inc., for their contribution to the war effort.

Jim had been educated in military schools, and when the U.S. entered the war he volunteered. He was given the rank captian, went through refresher training, and spent two years overseas, leading a troop in France. His group were scouts, and were spared most of the misery that came with trench warfare. His was a much more hazardous assignment, and over half his men died in battle or were captured. Jim was captured once, and spent three weeks as a prisoner, before he escaped with six men and made his way back, gathering information as he went. When it was over, the French gave him the third highest medal they could bestow on a foreigner, and the U.S. loaded his chest down even more.

He didn’t get to return for almost another year, detained to help the British and the French with rebuilding their factories and resuming production of much needed goods. Both countries gave him certificates of merit for his work. Miss Agnes, after waiting for over two years, took matters in her own hands and went to England, surprising her husband. In her diary, she described the next three days as “exhilirating, exhausting, and satisfying, as both of us tried to make up our husbandly and wifely duties that we had missed during this time.” Miss Agnes seemed to really, really like making love to her husband.

The display in place, we recruited a top property lawyer, the realtor that sold me the house, a security expert, our banker, and the curator of the museum to bear witness as we emptied the vault. The cameras were set up, and we had a Brinks truck waiting outside, to take things to a secured facility. They had to make five trips, our security expert along on every one. The place was insured, bonded, and had never been robbed, though there had been eleven attempts.

Before we started, we removed a few things we didn’t want anyone to see, keepsakes and valuables we didn’t want the public to know about. Gwen was running one of the cameras, and I noticed how badly she was shaking. When I asked her about is, she said she didn’t sleep much last night thinking about today. It made sense, the girls and I had a general idea what the vault contained thanks to the ledger, but we had actually seen little of it. We didn’t sleep much last night either. We filmed the faces of the witnesses as the vault was opened. I thought the curator might faint, and the rest were stunned into silence.

It took eight hours to remove everything. I think everyone was numb by the time it was over. The banker kept a running tally, consulting his laptop every once in a while to determine estimated value, getting progressively paler as we went. He sighed when the last item was removed. “Just an estimate, and a very conservative one at that, but if you took the values I calculated, it comes to... , “ he looked at his notes, to make sure he was correct, “just over sixty-three million. It will probably be at least twenty percent more, if you factor in the historical value of some of the pieces, and I consult with experts in various fields. Not counting, of course, what’s in the safety deposit boxes.”

I thought this might be a grey area, but the property lawyer assured me that even though they weren’t on the grounds, the keys were, and if you owned the keys, you owned the deposit boxes. We decided to save those for another day. Carefully placing the items we wanted to keep back into the vault, we went upstairs, made coffee, and discussed what to do next. We turned to our security expert.