Chapter 29

Three days before de Soto was to leave for San Diego, it was lunchtime when Diego strolled into the tavern. He sat down at the table, where his father was talking to Francisco and Esteban.
Victoria had stayed in the hacienda. Apparently, tiredness was also a pregnancy discomfort.
After he had ordered a cup of coffee and a portion of tamales, Mendoza came into the tavern casually.

Diego suspected that the sergeant had noticed that he was in the pueblo and had been on the lookout to see if he would enter the tavern. To try and score a free lunch that way.
The conversation between his father and Carvajal brothers interested him more at the moment.

"And so, that's the problem." Sighed Esteban Carvajal to don Alejandro.
"We have strong suspicions that de Soto has been withholding money in the past years. We only can't prove anything. It was the main reason our father sent us here."

"How are you so sure it's de Soto?" Diego wanted to know. He saw from of the corner of his eye how the sergeant was licking at the sight of his plate of tamales.

Estaban, saying. "Los Angeles is the only pueblo where the amount of taxes paid in the last three years did not match to the records kept in Madrid.
De Soto insists it could also be from unreliable tax collectors or corrupt captains, and he has a point."

Francisco uttered. "However, it is quite a coincidence every time it is with your tax payment. All the others are correct.
Coincidentally, every time it was at the Los Angeles tax chest, that didn't add up."

Diego looked thoughtfully at Francisco Carvajal. "Is that also why you waited so long to reveal who you are?"

Estaban nodded as Francisco answered the don's question. "We got instructed to wait until the tax collector came to collect the money and when was to be counted. If the suspicion is correct, there are missing thousands of pesos. De Soto must have hidden them somewhere."

Francisco rubbed the back of his neck. "I never expected to have to pay almost with my life for being patient. I hope I will be able to thank Zorro personally some day."

Alejandro had taken in the information the brothers had told. He was trying to think of what de Soto could have done with the money. "He must have hidden it somewhere. Did you look under the floorboards in his office? The previous alcalde hid his valuables there."

"The whole office has been searched several times. We have indeed found some hidden space under the floor. His private quarters were also literally turned upside down, but nothing." Estaban sighed.

Francisco was the one to continue explaining the brother's problem. "We must take into account he could have exchanged it for gold or something as valuable. The number of pesos missing cannot get transported by a single man unnoticed."

"Perhaps he buried it somewhere?" Diego suggested, thinking what options de Soto could have come up by.

Estaban took some food off his plate, and before he took a bite, he said, "We thought of that as well. That is why the sergeant Mendoza over here and his lancers making sure he gets observed twenty-four hours a day."

Mendoza had come to stand beside the table to ensure that the men did notice his presence.

"Come sit with us, Sergeant." Diego invited him meekly.

Mendoza had listened carefully to the conversation between the four men. He took a seat on the bench and said.
"Perhaps the alcalde has written in one of his diaries where he has hidden gold." Suggested Mendoza, who was eager to make a meaningful contribution to the conversation.

"Diaries?" Diego asked thoughtfully, wondering whether Soto could have written such a thing down.

"Si, the alcalde, eh, mi excusi, señor de Soto, just writes and writes. I think he is working on his memoirs or something.
You'd think with a sea voyage half across the earth ahead of him, he'd have plenty of time for that, wouldn't you think."
Mendoza jokingly nudged Diego.

The don happened to be holding a glass of juice the nudge caused a splash to spill over his hand.
Diego pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to dry his hand and the table. "Really?"

"Oh si, he's been keeping a diary for years. At times one of us would be sent out every month to buy new ink. In his quarters, he has a whole bookshelf full." Mendoza remarked, trying to get the attention of Pilar to make an order.

"What do you think?" Francisco asked no one particularly.

"I think we should subject those diaries to closer inspection."
Suggested Estaban and the rest fully agreed.

.

Diego was surprised when de Soto didn't give the slightest attempt to protest when he got informed all his diaries would get inspected.
He merely asked for the guarantee of their return. Insisting he wanted them back before his departure for Spain.
As soon as Diego opened one of the books, he understood why. Every word was complete gibberish.
It was probably a secret language that de Soto thought could not get cracked.
De Soto clarified he had nothing to hide but that there were personal thoughts in the books. So he refused to be of any further service.

Diego asked the sergeant if he could take some diaries with him to the hacienda, where he could try to find the correct code for the writing.
Mendoza did not know how quickly he should accept the offered help.
The brothers, too, promised to do their best to make the information from the books legible.

.

"Have you found anything yet?"

Victoria had come walking into the garden, where Diego sat at a table writing. Several books laid open, as did countless wads on the floor and the wooden surface. She had a tray with a jug of juice and some glasses, in case Alejandro or Felipe were also in the garden.
His father was with a cow that had difficulty calving. The man had helped hundreds of times with deliveries and had turned Diego's offer to help down.
Felipe, Diego had sent to the Estaban brothers,

"That man is writing nothing but pure nonsense.
Here, let me read you a piece of what I have just translated.
This morning, I woke up at half-past six in the morning. Today is the thirteenth of May in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixteen.
It promises to be a sunny day. Only in the distance are a few small slumbering clouds visible in an otherwise clear blue sky. The wind comes from the northeast and can hardly be called more than a friendly breeze.
After I got dressed and enjoyed my breakfast, which consisted of two cups of coffee, some bread topped with two fried eggs..., and so on I went to my office.
In the other book, he copied that poetry, which he wrote. Four times!
It just doesn't make sense!"
Frustrated, Diego threw his pencil on the table. In one big gulp, he emptied the glass Victoria offered him, after which she sat down on the chair opposite him.

"So you've deciphered the code?" She asked hopefully, seeing it as a good sign had Diego succeeded that part.

"That one was actually surprisingly simple.
Look, I wrote it down here." He slid the sheet to her, where he had written down the decipherment.
"He divided the alphabet by two. Then the first half is the last part of the alphabet backwards. The second part is the letters A to M in order. So the A becomes the Z, the N becomes an A, and the Z becomes an M."

"Mmm, yes." Victoria had to study the note before she understood what Diego was trying to tell her.

Angrily, Diego began sharpening his pencil with a sharp knife.
"But even then, it's pure nonsense what he writes.
Of the five dates I've managed to find, every time he starts as I just read to you. He had something like three dozen books in his chest. What the hell is he doing with them?"

"Maybe each book has some part of the mystery?" Suggested Victoria, silently feeling admiration at how quickly Diego had managed to extract from the gibberish, seemingly, after all, a pattern by which the letters had fallen into their proper places."

Diego put the knife beside him and took a bite of a cookie Victoria had also brought with her.
"Or there's only one with the right clues.
In either case, we have to translate each book, letter by letter, unless he decides to open his mouth.
One thing is certain De Soto is hiding something and is going to ridiculous lengths to do so. The answer must be in here, somewhere. Or he wouldn't have insisted on getting the books back."

Victoria picked up a book and looked at it carefully. She couldn't find anything special in it either.

Diego sighed, started writing again. "I don't think he has buried whatever he is hiding. He wouldn't need the books to find it. For now, I'll continue to decipher this nonsense. See, whether I can come across anything that seems useful."

"Can I help?" Victoria offered, willing to help.

He slid her a book and some paper. "Grab a pencil and start writing over."

.

Diego looked up from the dining table at which he, Victoria, Alejandro and Felipe had wasted the whole evening searching for a clue.
By now, he had quite a grasp of which letter replaced which. The others did their best, but their pace was much slower.
Especially his father. Diego saw regularly reaching him frantically for the piece of rubber to correct a mistake.
So far, they had come across a few quotations from Machiavelli, several times one of his poems and an endless amount of meaningless gibberish.
Felipe had taken the code for decryption to the Carvajal brothers. Both men had also promised to do their best to decipher as much text as possible, accurately as possible. Diego suspected that the brothers' efforts were as futile as theirs.

"I quit!" Alejandro cried out, frustrated. "I am sorry, but this is a waste of time." It was well past midnight. All four of them were tired.
His father closed the book on which he had been working.
"It has given me a headache. Every word de Soto writes is a waste of good ink and paper!"
Alejandro also shut the notebook in which he had written the decipherment in pencil.

"I can't blame you." Victoria pushed back the chair she was sitting on slightly, stretched her arms and straightened her stiff back.

"Yes, we'll continue tomorrow. I'm tired of it, as well." Diego was relieved his helpers wanted to stop. He hadn't wanted to be the one to give up first. "If I read one more time on how de Soto has been hardened and polished for leadership by rain, wind and troth. There isn't even a rhyme scheme in it." He closed the book he had been working at.
Diego looked thoughtfully ahead for a moment, suddenly mumbling. "Ink." Jumping up and quickly walked over to the library.

"What is he going to do?" Alejandro asked expecting Felipe to answer who shrugged his shoulders.

Diego came back with a book of the same size as the diaries.
"Father, can you close your book again? Just like you just did."

"Son, what?" Still, Alejandro did as he got asked.

Diego flipped open the book he had brought, somewhere halfway down the book, and folded it shut.
"Again."

Alejandro closed the journal shut again.

"And now, your notebook."

"Diego, what is the meaning of this?"

"Listen." Diego made his father close the diary a few times. He also opened and shut the diary he had been working on and the book he brought a few times.

Felipe was the first to hear. "The sound of the diaries is different, duller, heavier."

The others now heard the difference too.

"Exactly." Diego uttered.

"Diego, what does this mean?" Felipe asked, knowing that his mentor had again succeeded in unravelling a mystery that would have escaped anyone else.

"Archimedes." Triumphally, Diego said.

Victoria and Felipe looked at Diego in amazement.

Alejandro was the only one who did seem to realize about what Diego was talking. "You mean, like his bathtub?"

Diego nodded.

Alejandro looked at the book with new interest, got up and said.
"I'm going to get an ashtray and a candle."

"What, who is Archimedes, and why does he need a bath?" Asked Felipe stunned.

"And why does he needs a ashtray when he is having a bath?" Asked Victoria, even more puzzled.

Diego had a faint smile on his face. "I'll try to explain it to you. Archimedes was a brilliant physicist and mathematician in Ancient Greece.
One day, the king ordered a crown made out of pure, solid gold to please the Gods. The crown was beautiful, but the king doubted that it was of pure gold.
So he asked Archimedes for his help. And demanded him to devise a way to find out whether the crown was made entirely of gold without damaging the crown."
Diego tore three pages from the book. His father set a heavy marble ashtray on the table.

"Something that was considered impossible by many." Replied Alejandro to his son.

"Indeed. And Archimedes also had a hard time finding an answer to the problem. Until he had a bath and realized that the water level was rising, and what this meant."
Diego held a flame to the pages.

"What did it mean?" Victoria wanted to know.

"I'll come to that. Archimedes jumped out of the bath, ran naked into the street and shouted...,"

As the flames licked at it, something shimmering became visible.

Alejandro whispered, a broad grin on his face. "Eureka."

Victoria bent closer to the ashtray, squeezed her eyes together. She some something glitter, and uttered, "Is that what I think it is?"

"Gold," Diego confirmed her suspicion.

All four looked at the tiny bit of gold in the ashtray. One was a little more surprised than the other. "Diego, how did you know this?" Victoria asked.

"The book was too heavy." He answered.

Felipe and Victoria were still looking glassy-eyed.

Diego continued explaining the story of Archimedes and why he had linked it to de Soto's books.
"The maker of the crown had indeed not made a crown of pure gold. He had the gold mixed with another metal. Which one that was, history does not tell. But it will probably have been lead or iron. De Soto hid gold in a book. By mixing melted gold with ink, the gold became invisible. The weight of the gold makes the books heavier. Because the density of the metal is different from that of ink."

It dizzied Victoria. "I still don't get it."

Diego continued his explanation patiently. "Take, for example, a pound of lead and a pound of feathers both have the same weight.
Of the one, you need only a little bit. Of the other, you need a lot to make a pound.
Gold is a relatively heavy metal. Heavier than, for instance, iron or lead. Imagine that this book was made of gold. It would be heavier than where it was made out of iron.
If you put both in a bucket of water, the gold book would make the water level rise further than the iron book would. By taking a lump of gold weighing the same as the crown, Archimedes could tell from the displacement of the water whether the crown was made of pure gold or not, due to it's density.
In case you're wondering. According to history, this was not the case.
A book of approximately the same size should make the same sound when you close it.
Father's notebook is over twice as big as de Soto's diary. And yet it sounded lighter.
When you take a book of the same size, you can hear the difference quite well."

"And then you figured out that the book was too heavy. And so the gold had to be hidden inside the books?" Replied Alejandro, impressed by his son's way of thinking.

Felipe said. "And that's why no one could find anything."

Diego went on to say. "Correct, de Soto literally hid the gold in his books. It didn't matter what he wrote, as long as he used up his ink mixed with melted gold as quickly as possible every time. The fact de Soto wrote in code was probably a precaution. If he was to get suspected of stealing money out of the taxes, he could let everyone read the books without the need to worry. Just as we did for half the day, the person would concentrate on deciphering."

"And we almost fell for it." Mumbled Felipe.

Diego looked at his three supporters and said. "Should he ever have to leave for whatever reason, all he had to do was insist on being allowed to take his personal belongings with him. Once in safety, he would burn his books, and the gold would be left behind."

Victoria had to admit that she was impressed after all and had never expected de Soto to be able to come up with such a plan. "You can say what you want about de Soto. But this is something he has thought up quite cleverly."

"Victoria, I couldn't agree more. I'd say it is almost foxlike." Diego gave her a wink.

.

.

I thought the story of Archimedes and him having a bath is pretty well known.
Someone reminded me that it is not necessarily so.
That's why I had Diego explain it, at length, to Victoria and Felipe.
Alejandro seems to me to be sufficiently versed in Greek and Roman antiquity. He must have at least heard the story.

Eureka, according to history, was what Archimedes cried out when he found the solution to his mathematical problem.
Eureka means 'I have got it.' As in, I found the answer.

That he then ran naked into the street sounds very amusing now.
In Ancient Greece, nudism was more common than it is nowadays. (Or in the first half of the 19th century, as that is the period in which Zorro set.)

In case anyone thinks that this way of hiding gold is not possible, I don't know.
The idea is not my own. I saw it in a crime series once. Don't ask me which one.
Maybe gold dust was used, and he kept stirring it. Which seems more logical to me. Otherwise, you either have very hot ink that is immediately dry. Or lumps of gold in your ink.
This is fanfiction and a writer before me thought it could be done. The only thing I could find about dissolving gold was that you can dissolve it in something called koningswater. This is the Dutch term, literal translation Kingswater. However, I could not find out whether you can get the gold back again after this, or whether it just dissolves into nothing.