?

It's just sinking in that if the story is true, that Grandison was really Legrand, that the treasure was real and stolen by Moray, then perhaps...

that treasure is real and really somewhere?

The Gold-Bug

Here is the story of my treasure hunt.

It was buried inside a mound of newspaper clippings. An envelope. Opened, I'm sure, by Mabbott. But maybe he'd then lost it? Who knows.

Anyway, it was a letter to Poe himself. Dated 1845. From a Mr Rupert Grandison, of Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. If you know your Poe, you'll recognise that as the setting for The Gold-Bug, the story of codebreaking and treasure-hunting that was a sensation when published.

But this is the real sensation.

It was a true story.

Only the names were changed. Rupert Grandison aka William Legrand found the buried treasure of Captain Kidd, by deciphering that very cipher as published in Poe's story.

So Grandison's letter to Poe was one of accusation. For he wanted to know how Poe had heard of his story and of the very same cipher.

Grandison's friend and accomplice - equivalent to the unnamed narrator in Poe's story - was called Moray. And it turns out Moray stole a considerable portion of this treasure from his friend... and vanished.

Grandison suggested that Poe could only have known the details of this story if he had in fact been in correspondence with Moray. Grandison wanted to know of Moray's whereabouts, and...here I quote...

'as you, sir, have made your fortune on an account of my fortune stolen by a thief, it befits you to make such recompense'

No copy of a reply from Poe, nothing about this anywhere else, this is an academic treasure.

!

I've found a treasure. A bona-fide literary treasure. I am so going to get my Master's.

Hell, this could be a doctorate.

I'll tell all anon.