“So, you visited their house? Where is it?” I asked.
“‘House’ doesn’t quite cover it. It was an estate, one that’s long gone. As a leading member of the Baltimore City Historical Society, I, as well as my peers, vehemently protested when the city granted authorization to tear it down. A pack of shameless developers reduced it to rubble, erecting upscale condominiums in its place. This despicable skullduggery is laying to waste our heritage and history, all for the benefit of a select few. This city has become infested with corruption and greed that goes as high as our former mayor, just one more poor fool who flew too close to the sun. Luckily, the new mayor has integrity, luckily for you, considering it’s that very trait that drove her to send you here to me. On that note, I believe it’s high time I returned to my duties.”
“First, could you tell me more about the estate?” I insisted.
“It was opulent, richly furnished, lined with canvas masterpieces, and imbued with a grandeur that is, alas, all but forgotten now.”
“So, what became of their art collection?”
“Mrs. Stanfield was forced to part with it out of necessity, I suppose. The parting came at a great cost, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. I apologize if this comes as a disappointment, but that collection is long gone. Lost and buried in the sands of time.”
Morrison walked us to the door and bid us good luck.
George-Harrison sat behind the wheel in silence for a long time before at last starting the pickup and pulling onto the road. Ten minutes later, I decided to ask where we were headed.
“Well, clearly the Stanfields saw their fair share of tragedy, but so what?” he began. “Most of what he said was useless, except for—”
“You can stop there. You’re right, I was wrong. You don’t have to gloat. It was a dead end. And what’s worse, I don’t have a clue where we should head next.”
George-Harrison pulled over and stopped the truck in front of a police station. “Except, as I was saying, there was one thing the lovely Professor Morrisman said that fits with our story.”
“The theft. When he mentioned them being robbed? That occurred to me as well. But a city of this size has got tragedies and insurance scams to spare.”
“Exactly. But that’s not what stuck with me. It was the Scotch. The 1926 Macallan.”
“What, you’re some kind of aficionado?”
“Not at all, and neither is my mother. And yet she had that very bottle of whisky. I remember seeing it, up on the shelf, all through my childhood. Every October, she’d take just the tiniest little glass of it, savoring every drop. I guess that makes sense now, considering how much it’s worth. I eventually did ask her what was up with her weird annual ritual, but she never gave me a direct answer.”
“Just to play devil’s advocate, there must be as many bottles of this type of Scotch in Baltimore as there are thefts and tragedies.”
“Not according to the professor, not from 1926. Barely ten of them left at the time, he told us. And he seemed to know what he was talking about. Seems a bit of a stretch for it to be a coincidence that my mother lived in Baltimore and ended up with a bottle. I think it’s safe to say, the Macallan on my mother’s shelf must have come from Robert Stanfield’s own liquor cabinet.”
“Could that be the treasure she talked about in the letter?”
“Well, we could look into the actual value of the Scotch, but I doubt that’s what she meant. Although that would be hysterical, thinking back on how she treasured it! But seriously . . . I can’t help but feel like we’re following someone’s trail of bread crumbs, and I’d like to know who it is.”
“You’re not honestly telling me you think running into the mayor was part of some master plan?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But Morris could have been.”
“For the last time, it’s Morrison!”
“Baltimore’s very own ‘living memory,’ as the mayor put it. Those anonymous letters put the two of us together right in front of a photo of our mothers. That photo led us to the archives of the Independent, which put us on the trail to the Stanfields. Sooner or later, we were bound to stumble upon that statue, or at least learn it was out there. Plenty of clues that lead back to that charming professor.”
“You really suspect him?”
“Well, why not? Who else would know what really happened at the Stanfield estate?”