“The original coin was minted both in silver and gold. In silver, there are maybe a hundred such coins. But in gold, only three are known to exist. It’s called the Ides of March coin. You see the letters E.I.D. M.A.R.” The old man placed the pendant in the palm of his hand and pointed to the letters. The same letters I had seen on the coin hidden in Dede’s bag. “This coin was issued by Marcus Junius Brutus in 43… 42 BC. It’s called the Brutus Coin. On the reverse side are two daggers, and beneath them is what the Romans called a liberty cap, a hat Roman slaves wore to announce their freedom.” With his fingers shaking, he turned the coin over. “It commemorates the assassination of Caesar.”
The old man had my attention. If the gold coin hidden in Dede’s bag was real, it might explain why she had disappeared. I could ill-afford such a piece of costume jewelry, but I wanted to know more about the Ides of March Coin, and I wasn’t going to leave until I did.
“So, what might a gold EID MAR coin be worth if you were to find one?”
“I doubt there are any more. But if you were to find one, you’d be a fortunate lady.” The old man closed the box and hugged it to his chest. “Earlier this year, a gold EID MAR coin was sold at a London auction for more than four million dollars.”
Chapter Seven
Four-million dollars! I bid the shopkeeper goodbye and took the narrow stone steps outside the old fortress wall two at a time, following the view down the hill to the small fishing village of Marina di Corricella. After talking with the old shopkeeper, I couldn’t shake the thought of Dede or the gold coin I had found in her bag.
What woman in her right mind would hide a 4-million-dollar gold coin in her purse and leave it behind? And if Dede hadn’t been aware of the coin inside her bag or its value, then whoever had hidden the coin had to be looking for it—particularly if Dede hadn’t arrived in Naples. And if she wasn’t in Naples, then where was she? The bottom of the bay?
I paused when I got down the hill to catch my breath and take in the view. How could I be harboring such dark thoughts on such a beautiful day? I had no proof Dede had come to an uncertain end or if the coin I had found hidden in her bag was even real. Perhaps it was, as I initially thought, a lucky charm, a copy of the coin I had seen in the shop that Dede had hidden in her purse for good luck. My grandmother carried a silver dollar she had won at a bingo game in Las Vegas. The coin had been minted in 1902, the year of her birth, and although it wasn’t worth a lot, she believed it brought her good fortune. I didn’t know Dede. For all I knew, she might have done something similar.
“Ms. Lawson? Over here.”
I scanned the cove until I saw a short, thickset, balding man standing next to a blue umbrella table in front of a small seaside café. Seated at the table next to him was an equally round, very pale-skinned older woman wearing a large sun visor, her shocking white hair sticking out from the top like a bird’s nest. I recognized both as residents I had seen Byard helping to board the tender earlier that morning. With his hat in his hand, the man waved to me.
“Over here. Come, please.”
As I approached the table, the man extended his hand.
“Ms. Lawson, allow me to introduce myself. I am Herr Professor Braun, and this is my wife, Greta. We recognize you from the ship. “Please…” The professor gestured to an empty seat at the table. I noticed a gold signet ring on his pinky finger. “Join us. We’ve ordered a bottle of limoncello. It’s refreshing for a hot day.”
I dropped my backpack beside the empty chair and sat down. The Professor signaled the waiter to bring an additional glass while Greta, in a heavy German accent, explained that she and her husband Horst had the cabin across the hall from me on the ship.
“We are neighbors. I saw you at tea yesterday. I hope you are settled. Ja?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you are an American journalist?”
“I am. I’m doing a story about Athena’s Seniors at Sea.”
The waiter arrived, placed an ice-chilled limoncello bottle on the table, and then filled our glasses.
The Professor waited until the glasses were full, then picked his up. “Prost.”
I tipped my glass to the Professor and his wife, then sipped sweet slivers of icy-cold, frozen lemon liqueur down my throat. Maybe it was the heat or the alcohol, but I don’t recall tasting anything so ice-chilling delicious on a hot day. And potent. I could feel the buzz before I put my drink down.
“Good, no?” Greta placed her hand to her throat, her meaty fingers gently massaging a gold pendant necklace around her neck.
“Umm…yes. Very.” However, it wasn’t the drink alone that had my attention, but the gold pendant around Greta’s neck. “That’s a beautiful necklace. May I ask where you got it?”
“My Horst, he buys for me for our anniversary. Here. Up by the Abbey.” Greta lifted the pendant from her neck with her thumb and index finger so I could see it better. “Twenty-five years today.”
“Congratulations.” The necklace was stunning and looked exactly like the silver pendant the shopkeeper had shown me earlier, only in gold.
Greta patted her husband’s wrist. “He is a good man. I think I keep him, maybe for another twenty-five.”
We all laughed.
The Professor smiled and wiped his lips with a napkin. “And if it were real, Meine Liebe, you would keep me another twenty-five lifetimes.” Then, kissing his wife’s hand, he added. “Ms. Lawson, are you familiar with Roman coins?”
“No, not at all,” I wasn’t about to tell the professor I had a pretty good idea where the necklace had come from or that less than ten minutes ago, I had met with the same shopkeeper who had told me he had sold the gold pendant necklace to a collector who had bought the shopkeeper’s remaining inventory of old coins. I was more curious about what the professor might say and feigned ignorance.
“This necklace, while very nice, is nothing more than a high-priced piece of costume jewelry. A copy of the EID MAR or The Ides of March Coin, also known as The Brutus Coin. It’s very rare and impossibly expensive. But…if it makes my wife happy, why not? Once she knew about the coin, she had to have it.”
Professor Braun explained he was a retired history professor from the University of Munich. “My specialty was the ancient world. When I retired, Greta and I bought a suite aboard the Athena, and I’ve made it our business to visit this area as often as possible. I find it fascinating. My favorite part of the world. In fact, we’re here now because I’ve convinced our board of directors to retrace the old Silk Road from Western Europe to North Africa across the Mediterranean.”
“You’re the reason Athena’s doing an Amalfi Coast Tour?”
“I am. Our board meets every year, and we decide where we’d like to sail. It’s all mapped out in advance. Unfortunately, we’ve had to change our itinerary slightly since we got a late start out of Naples, and we’ll be spending an extra day here in the Poet Islands, but they’re all so rich with history, it really doesn’t matter. If you’re interested, I’m lecturing tonight in the theater. Come by, and I can explain more about the area and share our findings. Eight p.m.”
We visited for another half hour before the Professor said he had to excuse himself and snapped his fingers for the waiter to return with the bill. Then, reaching beneath the table, he picked up a black backpack, like my own, but with a yellow tag attached. “Would you like a ride back to the ship?”
“No thanks, I have more sightseeing to do. But thank you for the invitation to tonight’s lecture. I’ll be there.”
I waited at the table while Professor Braun paid the bill, then hailed a taxi. The arriving car, if one could even call it that, was impossibly small, nothing more than an open-topped, motorized tricycle. Big enough to whiz through Procida’s narrow streets with a driver and a single passenger with ease, but with two people the size of the Professor and his wife and their overstuffed backpack, I feared one bump, and they’d pop out like Pillsbury Doughboys.
But the Professor and his wife appeared not to be concerned and stuffed themselves onto the small trike-like backseat with the Professor holding tight to the outside seat rail and Greta on him. I waved goodbye and watched as the trike-bike turned on two wheels and sped away.
I had a lot to think about as I returned to the ship. Was the gold coin I had found hidden inside Dede’s bag a copy, like that around Greta’s neck? Or was it real? And if it were, just what was I supposed to do with it? And on top of that, just how could a retired history professor and his wife afford a luxury cabin aboard Athena? There had to be a logical explanation. Greta may have come from money. She had a very old-world, aristocratic look to her. But the idea that the Professor had visited the same small shop where I had been early that morning and bought the old shopkeeper’s remaining coins had me wondering if Professor Braun was somehow tied to the Brutus coin I had seen in Dede’s bag?
I hurried back to the dock. I wanted to return to my room as quickly as possible, take the coin I had put back inside Dede’s bag, and hide it inside my room safe. Any other time, I would have called Sophie, my editor and FBI handler. I wanted to tell her about the four-million-dollar Brutus coin, Dede’s disappearance, the drowning of Athena’s previous Captain, and my suspicion regarding the Professor and his backpack full of antique coins. But this was to be a pleasure cruise, a reward for my earlier assignments, and like me, Sophie was on vacation. I was on my own. I couldn’t go to the police. I had no proof Dede might have drowned or if the coin I had found hidden in her bag was authentic. All I knew was that I had stumbled into a situation and feared I was beginning to know things I shouldn’t and didn’t dare tell anyone.
Chapter Eight
