"All right, you can come in," Ellsworth announces. "But don't touch anything. I have many valuable and delicate artifacts on display."
Ellsworth leads us down the entryway, but he veers away from the living room to head down a long, gloomy hallway. All the doors down this hall are closed. At the second to last door, Ellsworth pulls a key out of his pocket and inserts it into the lock. Then he swings the door inward.
"You may enter," he says. "But do not touch anything without my express permission."
This gentleman might not be as barmy as Mungo Gunn, but he does seem to be a wee bit paranoid.
Ellsworth leads us into what looks like an office, with a large mahogany desk and a globe on a stand in the corner. I also notice a massive unabridged dictionary on another stand, as well as an entire encyclopedia sitting upright on a long table in the corner.
"Where's the map?" I ask.
Our host waves for us to follow him to the desk, then gestures for us to sit down. He rolls the leather chair behind the desk backward to make room and settles onto the seat, leaning forward to unlock a drawer and pull it open. Gingerly, Ellsworth slides out a rectangular sheet of paper protected by a clear plastic cover. He lays it down flat on the desk.
"This map was discovered by my great grandfather, Aldis Ellsworth, in nineteen hundred and twenty-three." He spreads his palms over the plastic-shielded treasure. "He was hiking in the Grand Canyon, hoping to retrace the steps of John Wesley Powell's expedition. He befriended the Havasupai tribe that lives deep inside the canyon, and they shared a story with him about ancient oriental treasures found some distance away from the Havasupai encampment. They provided him with this map, as a gift, since they had no use for a treasure."
"And it's been in your family for all this time?" Ashley asks.
"Yes. We've kept it as a family heirloom, and we assumed it was a hoax. No one has ever found oriental treasures from the distant past in Arizona."
"Are you familiar with the newspaper story from nineteen oh nine? The one that claims to relate the story of an expedition mounted by the Smithsonian."
"I have heard of that. Honestly, I don't care about the myths that surround the map. I care only for its intrinsic value as an artifact."
Ashley is wriggling in her chair and wringing her hands while she stares at the map on Ellsworth's desk. Aye, the lass is a wee bit excited. I am too, but not visibly. Her impatience makes me want to kiss her again, but then, essentially everything she does makes me want to do that.
The lass shimmies forward in her chair. "May we examine the map? I brought white gloves. We won't damage the artifact in any way."
White gloves? Not sure what that's about, but then, I'm not a museum archivist like Piper. Ashley isn't an archivist either, as far as I know, but she seems to have studied up on how to handle precious artifacts. Why else would she mention white gloves?
Ellsworth rises from his chair. "You may examine it for thirty minutes at most. Keep the map inside its plastic sheath as much as possible. If you need to remove the sheath, please wear your gloves and handle it with care. I will be in the solarium. Come find me when you are finished."
Well, maybe he's not as paranoid as I thought after all. The bloke means to leave us alone with his priceless artifact.
Ashley looks and sounds quite serious and sincere when she says, "We will treat this like the treasure it is."
Ellsworth nods and leaves the room.
And at last, we get to examine the map.
Chapter Fourteen
Ashley
I approach the desk while tiptoeing, which seems like a silly thing to do, but I've never handled an antique document before. When I'd learned this map existed, I read several books on how to preserve and handle old documents, so I'd be prepared if I ever got the chance to view the Ellsworth map. I should probably call it the Havasupai map, though. They created it, after all.
Leaning forward, I peer at the upside-down illustration.
Errol comes up behind me, leans around my body, and sets his hand on the plastic-shielded map. Then he twists his hand to spin the thing so it faces us. "Easier to read this way, eh?"
"But you said the map is upside down."
"Aye, and this is the right way. Ellsworth had it flipped the wrong way in the drawer."
"I see. Well, let's take a good hard look at this."
Errol and I pull our chairs up to the desk. I bring out my magnifying glass, but he insists we'll get better, clearer magnification by using his phone's camera to zoom in on the images. He's right. That method provides clearer images than if we used the magnifying glass. I can see details that weren't visible in the photographs I'd taken the first time Ellsworth let me view the map. Then, he wouldn't let me remove it from the plastic cover, but today, he did. I wonder what changed. Finding out will have to wait.
I bring out two sets of white gloves and hand one pair to Errol. "We need to wear these."