THE TREASURE OF
THE BUCOLEON
BY
ARTHUR D. HOWDEN SMITH
Author of "THE DOOM TRAIL" "BEYOND
THE SUNSET," etc.
NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S
Publishers
Copyright, 1923, by
BRENTANO'S, Inc.
Copyright, 1923, by
THE RIDGEWAY COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To
JACK NASH
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. The Cable from Hugh's Uncle
II. The Broken Message
III. The Papers in the Charter Chest
IV. The Gunroom at Castle Chesby
V. A Blind Alley
VI. The Hilyer Party
VII. The Fight in the Gunroom
VIII. The Prior's Vent
IX. Hide and Seek
X. Stole Away
XI. We Split the Scent
XII. The Balkan Trail
XIII. The Road to Stamboul
XIV. The House in Sokaki Masyeri
XV. Watkins Plays the Goat
XVI. The Red Stone
XVII. The Dance in the Courtyard
XVIII. The Big Show Begins
XIX. First Cruise of the Curlew
XX. Out of Luck
XXI. Watkins to the Rescue
XXII. Hilmi's Friend
XXIII. Our Backs to the Wall
XXIV. In the Storm
XXV. The Reckoning
XXVI. Under the Red Stone
XXVII. Antiques, Statuary, Chgs. Pd., with Care
The Treasure of the Bucoleon
CHAPTER I
THE CABLE FROM HUGH'S UNCLE
The messenger was peering at the card above the push-button beside
the apartment entrance as I came up the stairs.
"Chesby?" he said laconically, extending a pink envelope.
"He lives here," I answered. "I'll sign for it."
The boy clumped off downstairs, and I let myself in, never dreaming
that I held the key to destiny in my hand--or, rather, in the pink
envelope.
A samovar was bubbling in the studio, and my cousin Betty King hailed
me from the couch on which she sat between her father and Hugh.
"Here you are at last," she cried. "Dad and I have come to say
good-by to you."
"What's the matter?" I asked. "Can't you stand Hugh any longer?"
Hugh glowered at me.
"Always raggin'," he commented.
Betty laughed.
"We are going to Constantinople to hunt for Greek manuscripts."
"I have a theory," explained my uncle, Vernon King, "that the
upheavals of the war and the occupation of the city by Christian
garrisons should be productive of rich opportunities for bibliophiles
like myself, aside from an enhanced chance for archæological
research."
"Well, I wish you luck," I grumbled. "And I wish I was not tied down
to an architect's drawing-board."
"'Matter of fact, I'm about fed up with Wall Street," growled Hugh.
"Nobody can make money any more."
"It's very funny," remarked Betty. "Both you and Jack announced when
you settled down after the war, Hugh, that nothing could ever root
you up again. All you wanted, you said, was a good job and plenty of
hard work."
"I know it," admitted Hugh. "I remember Nash, here, and Nikka
Zaranko--"
"You mean the famous Gypsy violinist?" interrupted my uncle, who, I
ought to say, uses the millions he receives from his oil-holdings to
patronize the arts and sciences.
"Yes, sir. He was in the Foreign Legion durin' the war. We all met
in the last big push in Flanders. I went in with my battalion to
help out Jack's crowd, and was snowed under with them. Then Nikka
tried to extricate both outfits, and the upshot was the Aussies
finally turned the trick. Some show!
"Well, we three became pals. What I was going to say was that the
last time we got together before demobilization we agreed we never
wanted to feel the threat of danger again. We wanted to become rich
and prosperous and fat and contented. That was why I came over to
New York with Jack, instead of staying home and fighting with my
uncle."
"That reminds me," I said, extending the pink envelope. "Here's a
cable for you. Maybe--"
"If it's from Uncle James I shall be surprised," replied Hugh,
ripping open the envelope. "A line once in six months is his idea of
avuncular correspondence. Hullo!"
He pursed his lips in a prolonged whistle.
"Anything wrong?" asked Betty anxiously.
"No--well--humph! It's hard to say. Listen to this: 'Sailing
_Aquitania_ to-day due New York eighteenth must see you immediately
have made important discovery your aid essential family fortunes
involved this confidential."
"Yes, on second thought, it is wrong, all wrong. He's after that
treasure again. Oh, lord! I did my best to persuade him to be
sensible before I left England with Jack."
"A treasure!" exclaimed Betty. "But you never told me about it!"
"Oh, it's a long story," protested Hugh. "Frightfully boring. It's
a sort of family curse--like leprosy or housemaid's knee. It's
supposed to be located in Constantinople, and my uncle has spent his
life and most of the family's property trying to find it. That's why
I have to make money in New York instead of playing the country
gentleman. There was little enough in the family treasury before
Uncle James reached it. Now-- Well, the new Lord, who will probably
be me, will find trouble paying the Herald's fees, let alone
succession duties."
"You really are too exasperating," declared Betty. "A treasure story
is never boring."
"I am on Betty's side," said her father.
My uncle Vernon is a very decent sort, despite the fact that he is a
millionaire. He is a professor several times over, and hates the
title. And he is one of the few learned men I know who can be
genuinely interested in low-brow diversions.
"So am I," I said, backing him up. "You have been guilty of secrecy
with your friends, which is an English vice I thought I had broken
you of, Hugh. Come clean!"
"But there's so little to tell," he said. "I had an ancestor about
seven hundred years ago, who is generally called Hugh the First.
This Hugh was son to Lord James, who went to the Crusades and was a
famous character in his time. On his way to Palestine, the stories
say, James stayed a while with the Emperor Andronicus, who ruled in
the Eastern Empire--'
"Ah, yes," interrupted King eagerly, "would that have been Andronicus
Comnenus, sometimes called The Butcher?"
"I believe so, sir."
"Very interesting," nodded King. "Andronicus amassed a great wealth
through fines and exactions from the nobles, so the contemporary
chronicles tell us."
"And this treasure is supposed to be in Constantinople!" exploded
Betty. "Where we are going! Isn't that so, Hugh?"
"Yes, it is always located in Constantinople," answered Hugh. "In
fact, it is generally referred to as the Treasure of the Bucoleon,
which, I understand from Uncle James and other authorities of my
university days, was the principal palace of the Eastern Emperors."
"Quite right," agreed Vernon King, his scholar's interest whipped
aflame. "It was a magnificent residence, vying with the Palace of
the Cæsars in Rome. In reality, in light of modern antiquarian
research, we may describe it as a group of noble structures, standing
isolated from the city within a spacious park, surrounded by an
independent series of fortifications and with its own naval harbor on
the Bosphorus."
"An extensive area to hunt over for an apocryphal treasure," remarked
Hugh drily.
"You may well say so," endorsed my uncle. "I have been in
Constantinople for extended periods upon several occasions, and I
have never satisfied myself as to the existence at this time of any
bone fide portions of the Bucoleon, although it is difficult to
pronounce definitely on this point. The older portions of the city,
especially those most massively constructed, have been so over-built
since the Turkish conquest that frequently what is ostensibly a
relatively modern building turns out to be almost unbelieveably
ancient at the core. But the prejudices of the Turks and their
distaste for foreign--"
Betty, chewing her finger with impatience, waved to her father to be
silent.
"Daddy!" she exclaimed. "Really, you aren't lecturing, you know! Do
let Hugh get on with the treasure."
"But I'm afraid I've gotten as far as I can," replied Hugh. "The
tradition simply says that Andronicus confided the secret of the
location of the treasure to Lord James. Then Andronicus was
assassinated, and James was thrown into prison by his successor.
Hugh, James's son, went to Constantinople with an army of Latin
Crusaders who had decided that the best way to help the Holy Land was
to establish a friendly base there. They conquered the city--"
"A remarkable venture," corroborated my uncle. "The ease with which
they secured possession of a city of one million inhabitants, not to
speak of an extensive empire, is a clear indication of the
degeneracy--"
Betty clapped her hand over his mouth.
"Do get on, Hugh!" she begged. "The treasure! You're almost as
long-winded as Dad."
We all laughed, and yet, indefinably, she had communicated to each of
us something of the magic spell which is conveyed by any hint of
treasure hidden in the past. We savored the heady wine of danger. I
felt my right palm itching for the corrugated rubber butt of an
automatic. When Hugh continued his story we all leaned forward,
flushed and tense.
"The Crusaders captured the city, and Hugh rescued his father. Then
they returned to England. Before James died he passed on the secret
of the treasure to Hugh. There are documents in the Charter Chest--"
"What's that?" demanded Betty.
"It's a terribly old oaken box, bound with copper and steel,"
explained Hugh. "We keep it in a safe deposit vault in the
City--London, you know. These documents say that James's idea was to
have the treasure used for the rehabilitation of Christendom if any
cause arose which would justify such a gift. Failing that, the money
was to go to his descendants. But for many generations the Lords of
Chesby were too busy to hunt treasure so far from home.
"One Lord tried for it in Harry the Fifth's time, but the Greeks
watched him so closely that he thought himself lucky to escape from
Constantinople with his life. Then the Turks captured the city, and
after that it was too risky--except for one chap in Elizabeth's
reign. He was Lord James, the sixteenth baron, a shipmate of Raleigh
and Drake and Hawkins, and he feared nothing that lived. He put in
at Constantinople and bearded the Grand Turk in his lair. But even
he did not venture to make a genuine search in view of the conditions
that prevailed. From his time on few of the family bothered with the
tradition until Uncle James commenced to mortgage farms to finance
his researches."
"Then you have no definite knowledge of the location of the
treasure?" asked King. "No chart or--"
Hugh laughed bitterly.
"No, sir, that is just why I feel so peevish over the way Uncle James
has devastated the estate. It's a search for a needle in a
haystack--and a needle that in all probability never existed, at
that."
"I fear so," assented King, shaking his head.
"Nonsense!" said Betty. "It's as good a treasure story as I ever
read. Why shouldn't it be true? Could you imagine a more perfect
place for concealing a treasure all these centuries than
Constantinople?"
"Your father will tell you," retorted Hugh scornfully, "that there is
not a famous ruin in the Near East but is declared to contain a
treasure of one kind or another."
"True--only too true!" agreed King.
"The sole use of the legend so far," continued Hugh unhappily, "has
been to give Uncle James something to do. It must be a godsend to
Curzon in managing the House, for during the war while Uncle James
was shut up in England he was continually moving for the appointment
of committees to preserve the monumental brasses of country churches
and appealing to the government to recognize that England owed a duty
to civilization in retaining and Christianizing Constantinople--so he
could dig to his heart's content for the treasure."
"Well, I for one intend to believe in it," stated Betty, "and if your
uncle wants any help in hunting for it, he can count on me."
"We'll all help him, if it comes to that," I said. "Nikka Zaranko
would never forgive us if we left him out of such a party."
"Uncle James will have nothing tangible to go on," said Hugh. "You
can stake your last shilling on that. He's never had a sane idea
yet."
"I take it, then," remarked Betty, rising with a detached air, "that
you have no desire to go to Constantinople."
Betty is slim, with brown hair and eyes and a face that you have to
look at and when she sets her head back-- But of course I am only
her cousin. Hugh jumped up, nervously crunching the cable in his
hand.
"If I only do get a decent excuse to go to Constantinople!" he
exclaimed. "But there's no use. I won't, Bet. I couldn't honestly
encourage Uncle James in any more foolishness."
"Perhaps," suggested King, "his visit has nothing to do with the
treasure."
Hugh chuckled, his merry self again.
"Cross the Atlantic just to look me up? Not a chance, sir. His
ruling passion is driving him on. Confound it, though! I wish this
hadn't come up. And I wish I didn't crave adventure again. And I
wish you weren't going to Constantinople. All right! Laugh, Jack,
curse you! Laugh! Here, I'll scrag you with a couch-pillow!"
"Easy! Easy!" I pleaded. "For the furniture's sake! How about
giving the Kings a line to Nikka in Paris or wherever he is?"
"Thanks," said Betty, "but we're going via the Mediterranean. The
best thing for you boys to do is to pack up with Hugh's uncle,
collect your friend Nikka en route and follow on."
"No go," answered Hugh dismally. "All I am scheduled for is a fat
family row."