The Rose Conspiracy (38 page)

“I can only use one of you two gentlemen in this case,” he said. “There isn't room in my criminal defense strategy for two different theories what the Langley note really means. And so, keeping that in mind, gentlemen…I am now ready to decide.”

CHAPTER 48

W
ith that, J.D. Blackstone turned toward the speakerphone that was resting on the middle of the conference table.

“Dr. Cutsworth,” Blackstone announced, “welcome to the defense team. I will be using you as our expert witness.”

“Wonderful,” Cutsworth said energetically. “Do you want me, Professor Blackstone, to reduce my opinions to a written report?”

“Not yet,” Blackstone said. “Hold off on that until I give you the green light. Thanks for your time and your expertise.”

Then they could hear the click as the Harvard professor hung up.

Blackstone turned to Reverend Lamb.

“Sorry that we had to vote you off the island, Uncle,” Blackstone said. “Interesting theory. But I am looking for something that explains the Smithsonian crime, and my client's innocence. Dr. Cutsworth's conclusions accomplish that. Yours don't. Sorry.”

“I don't take it personally,” Reverend Lamb said. Then he glanced at his watch. “I have a summer school class coming up. Have to rush.”

He reached out his hand and shook Julia's hand warmly, then collected his books and papers and headed to the door.

As he passed by Blackstone, who was standing, he said, “J.D., let's be sure and stay in touch. I know this criminal case is taking up all your time. But when the dust settles a little, stop by and see me some time, won't you?”

After Reverend Lamb left the conference room, Blackstone sat back
down and looked over the conference table at Julia, who was still in her chair.

“Do you think I made the right call?” he said to Julia. “Going with Cutsworth, I mean?”

She knew it was merely a rhetorical question. Blackstone was already convinced he was right. But the question was meant to be a peace offering. A goodwill gesture.

“If you had to choose,” Julia said. “Then sure, I think it makes sense. It's a theory that a jury is going to understand. I'm just not sure how his theory is going to exonerate Vinnie Archmont, though. If the Langley note is all about gold or money, then wouldn't Vinnie be just as likely to want to find the hidden Confederate gold as anyone else?”

“That's our job,” Blackstone replied. “To prove that she wasn't after money. And that she wasn't part of a plan to kill for it. At the same time we also have to prove that someone else was.”

“It would have to have been someone who knew something about the contents of the Booth diary already,” Julia said. “Someone versed in Civil War history—who knew that the Confederates had hidden some gold and that Booth might have known where it could be located.”

“Horace Langley was a scholar in seventeenth-century English history, that was what he was known for,” Blackstone said, fishing out Langley's biography amidst the files on the Smithsonian case in front of him. “But I think he was also an avid student of American Civil War history.”

“Didn't he do some writing on Civil War subjects?” Julia asked.

“Yes,” Blackstone said, looking at the bio in front of him, “his curriculum vitae included one article he authored in
American History
magazine about the assassination of Lincoln.”

Blackstone buzzed Jason to come into the conference room.

When their paralegal arrived, Blackstone had an assignment for him.

“Contact Tully,” he said. “Have him do an in-depth investigation on Horace Langley's background.”

“Professor,” Jason said with a perplexed look, “he already did. Remember? At the very beginning of the case. He said he didn't come up with anything useful on Langley.”

“Tell him to go deeper,” Blackstone said. “I want to know everything about Langley's personal life. There's got to be something there.”

Then Blackstone added, “Have a seat, Jason. I may have a few more tasks for you.”

Jason dutifully sat down with his notepad at the conference table. For a few moments, Blackstone was silent. But Julia and Jason could see the wheels turning in his mind.

“Alright,” Blackstone announced, breaking the quiet. “Here's the scenario thus far—going with Cutsworth's conclusions, the motive for the crime may have been filthy lucre. That always plays well in Peoria. Most common folk on a jury can understand crimes seeking money, treasure, gold…But then the prosecution is simply going to counter with this: ‘That's right, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Money was the motive here. And little Miss Vinnie Archmont, struggling artist, loved the idea of getting her hands on forty million dollars worth of gold as much as anyone else.' So, how do we rebut that?”

“Simple,” Julia replied. “The money-as-motive argument doesn't correspond to the theory of the prosecution's case.”

“You mean the indictment which alleges her involvement with a ‘cult'? That one?”

“Right,” Julia answered. “Cults are generally driven by twisted ideology, not money. So, when did this one particular group that is vaguely mentioned in the indictment suddenly become so materialistic?”

“Fair enough. Although cults need money to continue their convoluted activities,” Blackstone said. “But some of them have other ways besides murder and theft to obtain funding. Bilking their members, to name one. But there's something else. You're forgetting—the grand jury testimony of Detective Victor Cheski. He testified that his investigation indicated that Vinnie was at a conference in Scotland populated by leading European Theosophists. While one speaker did talk ambiguously about using ‘force' to put the Gnostic ‘elite' into power—none of those conference speakers, including Magister Dee, expressed any belief that the Booth diary had anything to do with Confederate gold. To the contrary, they seemed to have believed, from what I read of Cheski's testimony, that the Booth diary pages might contain some great spiritual secret, hidden through the ages but now revealed.”

“Which sounds, now that you mention it,” Julia said, thinking on the matter further, “strangely similar to Reverend Lamb's hypothesis rather than Dr. Cutsworth's theory. Wouldn't you agree?”

“Absolutely,” Blackstone said. “Which is why we can't go with dear old Uncle John's idea.”

Julia was thinking that one through. Before she could connect the dots, her former law professor finished it for her.

“The government's case,” Blackstone explained, “is wedded to the testimony of Detective Cheski, based on the transcript of the grand jury. And all that his testimony established was that Vinnie might be involved in a group of esoteric crazies, only one of whom mentioned offhandedly the use of ‘force.' When you look at the conference speakers as a whole, they look more like a bunch of kooky librarians or palm readers than revolutionaries or assassins. With this ‘European Theosophical Society' you're not exactly dealing with Hamas or the Aryan Brotherhood.”

“Okay,” Julia said. “So you want to use Cutsworth to show that the government's case, which is trying to prove that the motive for the crime was ideological, was all wrong. That the actual motive was greed. Thus, the basis for the prosecution's case is entirely misguided.”

“Bingo,” Blackstone said. “Now, the question is this—will the Confederate gold theory exonerate—or incriminate—our client, Vinnie Archmont?”

“That gets back to your point just a minute ago,” Julia said. “About Vinnie being just as likely to want to get rich as anyone else. Of course she has a wealthy benefactor, Magister Dee. That tends to diminish the motive somewhat.”

“It does indeed,” Blackstone added. “And there's another element too. It's a subtle one. Easy to miss. But important. How would Vinnie have known that the Booth diary may have contained some reference to millions in gold being hidden somewhere in Canada? She had no direct access to the Booth diary pages. And she had no scholarly expertise on matters of Civil War history, did she?”

“No, but she had regular contact with someone who probably did,” Julia shot back. “Namely, Horace Langley.”

“Which is why we need to do some more spadework on Secretary Langley,” Blackstone said, turning to Jason and smiling.

Jason smiled back.

Then Blackstone turned to Julia with a surprising question, one that suddenly seemed to change the subject.

“So, honestly,” he said. “What did you really think of Reverend Lamb's theory?”

Julia's face broke into a look that seemed to be teetering on the line between a smile and a stunned smirk.

“Is that a serious question?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

“Well,” Julia continued, “as a woman who was raised Catholic as a kid—to me it had a certain religious appeal. A kind of spiritual bent that strikes a chord. The Genesis tree. The thirst for immortality and all of that. Is that what you're after?”

“Let's get more specific,” Blackstone said. “And more scientific. What was your reaction to the ‘rose of 6' business? Let's start with the reference to ‘rose' in Reverend Lamb's concept being a reference to a botanical substance—a plant, or flower, of ancient origin, capable of prolonging human life. Something that could extend life expectancy almost indefinitely. Let's talk about that. You have a master's degree in chemistry. What do you think—is it totally nutty?”

Jason, who had been sitting idly by at the conference table, was now leaning in, his eyes as wide as silver dollars.

Julia was laughing and shrugging. But she was also nodding her head in a strange acknowledgment.

“Well,” she said, “we did read about some studies done at Harvard. I think at the medical school. Experiments on a botanical extract called
resveritrol.
You can find it in the skins of grapes and, oh, I don't know, maybe sixty or seventy other different kinds of plants. They found it had the potential of radically extending human life. Presumably, the presence of resveritrol in plants tells us something about it being present in more ancient plants, probably in greater concentrations. But there was only one problem.”

“And what was that?” Jason blurted out.

“It seems that under current atmospheric conditions,” Julia explained, “particularly the oxygen in the air, when coupled with light…the O
₂
would massively start to limit the effectiveness of the resveritrol.”

“What would happen if an ancient plant,” Blackstone suggested, “that had high concentrations of resveritrol were placed in a vacuum?”

“You mean dug up in some kind of archaeological dig? There wouldn't be anything left,” Julia said. “And if it were found in some kind of molten petrified rock or something like that, the chemical integrity of the resveritrol would not have been preserved.”

“I wasn't thinking about that kind of scenario,” Blackstone said. “More like this—what if the ancient flower or plant from an ancient tree was frozen in time in some kind of natural vacuum?”

“What are you thinking of?” Julia asked.

At the other end of the table, Jason, wide-eyed, was immobile.

“Actually,” Blackstone said, “I was reflecting on what my uncle said about the ‘philosopher's stone.' Remember?”

“Yes,” Julia said. “I noticed that in Reverend Lamb's little lecture. Haven't heard any reference to that since my graduate school days.”

“Yeah. The philosopher's stone!” Jason cried out. “Like I told you guys before, you know, like in the Harry Potter books? The magic stone of the alchemist.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Blackstone said with smile. “But did you ever wonder why the key to the ultimate pursuit of all alchemy—which Reverend Lamb says is the discovery of a botanical substance that could grant endless human life…Why would that key be symbolized by a ‘stone'? That seems odd, doesn't it?”

Jason was now nodding his head. But Julia's eyes were fixed on the law professor.