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Noah pulled up an empty chair and sat down in it backwards. He folded his two huge forearms casually across the back.
“Yeah Edgar,” he said, drawing the name out. “What are the two of you doing together?”
Edgar, looking petrified, said nothing. Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but Julian clamped a hand over his shoulder, menacingly.
“We’re asking him. Not you.”
A waitress arrived, happily depositing two full pints in front of the two men. Julian took one, and Noah took the other. The wounded look on Jonathan’s face was extremely satisfying.
“Well?” asked Noah, bringing the glass to his lips. “Go on, then.”
The two men looked at each other, and for a moment I thought we’d get nothing. Eventually Jonathan nodded, and Edgar’s expression changed from worry to resignation.
“Alright,” the man said, tugging his ear nervously. “Your property… well, your property is rumored…”
“To hide a treasure horde,” I finished for him. “Yeah. Go on.”
Edgar blinked in surprise. Jonathan only shrugged. He called for the waitress again and ordered another two pints.
“So yeah, I was out looking for it,” admitted Edgar. “With my metal detector, and—”
“We,” Jonathan corrected him. “We were looking for it.”
“Fine. We.”
“And that was you, right?” asked Julian. “Out in the field that night?”
Edgar looked into his lap and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“You’re fast,” Julian admitted. “I’ll give you that.”
The man blushed. “I tossed my detector into the woods and ran. You almost had me.”
“So did you find anything?” asked Noah. “Not that you’d admit it if you did, but I figured I’d—”
“No,” Edgar cut him off. “Nothing yet. I mean, the place is huge. And the horde was initially buried out near the edge of that field, so I started there, and—”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Research. Two specific books at the Edinburgh library, plus a collection of old maps I found online, that show where the original farm fields were in relation to the castle.”
“You said buried the first time,” said Julian. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well the castle was burned twice,” said Jonathan. “And both times, anything of value would’ve been hidden.” He shrugged as all eyes turned on him. “But you knew that, right?”
“No,” I admitted. “I didn’t.”
The man was impeccably dressed again, for some reason. I saw him pull at his tie, to loosen it.
“What exactly do you do, Jonathan?” I asked.
“I deal in antiquities,” the man answered. “All types, really. And I’ve been chasing rumors of this horde for half my life. Edgar here is a friend of a friend, who I heard was good with a metal detector.”
“And so you got him a job working the stables,” I reasoned. “And told him where to start looking.”
“Very astute,” he nodded.
“If you’re trying to buy the property, you must be getting close,” said Noah. “You wouldn’t make offers like that unless you knew something.”
