“Through coded messages in her cookbook,” I said, returning to the table. “Brilliant. But how would they pass the information back and forth?”
“That’s easy.” Dalton tapped the cookbook lightly with his knuckles. “She would write out the message in code on a predetermined page. Then she would take the cookbook to the marketplace with her. At some appointed spot, she would leave it or pass it on to a contact. A few days later, the book would be returned the same way.”
“Poor Obedience,” Savannah said again, with a sigh. “Betrayed by love.”
“Isn’t it possible that Obedience was the one doing the betraying?” Derek suggested. “She and the general were in cahoots. He was deliberately feeding her false information and she was passing it on to her friends in the revolutionary army.”
“Oh, that’s good.” Savannah clapped her hands. “I like that Obedience might’ve had a little more gumption than just being a fool for love.”
“It’s feasible,” I said. I knew it was all conjecture at this point, but it was fun to hypothesize. “She was very loyal to the general. He could’ve dumped her when he found out she didn’t know how to cook, but he allowed her to stay and learn on the job. Obedience was grateful for that.”
Dalton nodded. “I read one small passage where she spoke of being scared to death of the American savages. So she would be extremely grateful to have a job and a home.”
“Savages,” Savannah said, frowning. “That’s probably what the British people considered us upstart Americans back then.”
“We still do,” Dalton said, and grinned when Savannah smacked his arm. “But to my point, perhaps the general and Obedience worked out a plan for her to catch the attentions of a gullible Yank. The British, after all, were far superior in the art of deception, having been at it for centuries already.”
“Hey, we Yanks got pretty good at it, too,” I said stoutly. “Wasn’t Benjamin Franklin considered some kind of master spy?”
“Indeed he was,” Dalton said, beaming at me as though I were a brilliant second grader. “The war for American independence spawned a world of covert societies and secret codes. Franklin was said to have an extensive network of agents and couriers and often sent out false information to catch the moles and traitors within his own circle.”
“And don’t forget, he was a Freemason,” Derek said.
“They’re everywhere,” I murmured.
“Yes,” Dalton said. “The paranoid conspiracy theorists would have a field day with this diary.”
“I still don’t know how you can decipher this thing.” I grabbed one of the loose copy pages. “Some of those symbols look like something you’d see in an ancient cave drawing.”
“Interesting you should say that,” Dalton said, turning the page sideways and pointing to the margin. “You see these wavy lines here and this curlicue pattern?”
I leaned over for a closer look. “Yes.”
“According to my best guess, it’s—”
“Don’t let him fool you,” Derek interrupted. “He never guesses.”
“True,” Dalton admitted. “I know for a fact that these symbols were derived from a different alphabet than the rest. It was used by certain tribes of indigenous Americans living in Massachusetts during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Possibly Wampanoag or Mohican.”
“Wow,” I said softly. “Kind of makes you wonder how all those disparate groups wound up in a recipe book written by a British cook.”
“Someone clever and learned devised this code,” Derek said. “Obedience just followed the rule book.”
“Exactly, but there’s more to see here.” Dalton scanned the scattered copy pages, then picked up the one he’d been looking for. “Some of the symbols can be traced to an old Jesuit manuscript. And some belong to the Freemasons, as was clear from the beginning.”
“To you, maybe,” I muttered.
“This General Blakeslee was almost certainly a Freemason,” he continued. “Most of the high-ranking British army personnel were. But so were Washington and Franklin and many of the most prominent American politicians of the time.”
“So you really think there was a conspiracy between the British and the Americans through their affiliation with the Freemasons?”
“No,” Dalton said, grinning. “But any conspiracy theorist worth his salt would think so.”
I was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Does any of this have to do with our murder investigation?”
“No,” Dalton said easily.
“Then why are you so happy?” Savannah asked.
“Because it’s all so fascinating, isn’t it?” He scooted forward in his chair, his enthusiasm palpable. “It was these Illuminati symbols that caught Derek’s attention first.”
“And those Masonic figures,” Derek added. “I knew it would grab his interest. I didn’t want to explain too much to you until Dalton could verify the code.”