We all shrugged. We didn’t know.
“My knowledge is limited to museum fakery and Google,” Josh said, “but it looks to me like a Spanish doubloon.”
“What does Google have to say about it?” Diesel asked.
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “I don’t read the text. I just look at the pictures. You should show it to Quentin Devereaux. He’s a professor at Salem State, and he’s the resident consultant for the Pirate Museum.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Diesel said. “Devereaux was the expert Martin Ammon turned to when he inherited the Palgrave diary. Who’s going with me?”
“I will!” Glo said.
“No, you won’t,” Clara said. “You have to wait on customers.”
“You and you,” Diesel said, pointing to Josh and me.
“Aargh,” Josh said. “I’m due at the museum at noon.”
“And I need to do something with my hair and get something to wear,” I said.
“No problem,” Diesel said. “This won’t take long.”
—
Salem State University has been around, under one name or another, since 1854, when it was called Salem Normal School. I thought the juxtaposition of “Salem” and “Normal” had to be considered ironic, even then. Salem hasn’t been normal for a long, long time.
With all the construction and parking lots and gleaming glass buildings on campus, Salem State looks like any number of colleges that are springing up, like shiny mushrooms, all around the country. The Sullivan Building is the only old structure still standing, its red bricks and turrets lost in the middle of the north campus, as if someone forgot to tear it down and replace it with gleaming chrome.
Professor Devereaux’s office was on the second floor. He was at his desk, bent over a book, when we walked in. His hair was streaked with gray, his frame was lean, and his face was lined and dotted with gray stubble. He was wearing an ancient tweed sports coat over a pale blue button-down shirt.
“Yes?” he said, looking up at us.
“We be lookin’ for some answers,” Josh said.
“Do I know you?”
“I work at the Pirate Museum,” Josh said.
Devereaux nodded. “That explains a lot.”
There were two old buckles, some ancient coins, and a battered copper telescope on Devereaux’s desk. On the wall behind him was a pirate flag. Not the usual skull and crossbones of the movies, but rather a white skeleton plunging an arrow into a red heart dripping fountains of blood.
“So what do you want to know?” Devereaux asked. “You want to know about pirates? I could tell you things that would shock you. Pirates had the first representative government in all of Europe. The captain and the quartermaster were elected periodically by the crew. All the hands got an equal share of the booty. They even had workers’ compensation. Pirates placed a portion of their plunder into a central fund that was used as insurance for any injuries sustained by the crew. On occasion, women were even welcomed as members of the crew. Pirates were quite socially advanced for their time.”
“Except for the raping and pillaging,” Diesel said.
Devereaux nodded. “They did engage in some classic activities.”
Diesel showed Devereaux the piece of coin. “What can you tell me about this?”
Devereaux studied it through a jeweler’s loupe. “It’s Spanish.”
“It’s a doubloon, right?” Josh said.
Devereaux shook his head. “No. It’s a fragment of an eight-reales silver coin, commonly called a ‘bust dollar.’ It’s got a bust of Charles III on it, and was considered legal tender in the U.S. until 1857.”
“Why is it cut like a pizza?” I asked.
“It’s how you made change,” Devereaux said. “Coins were often cut into pie-shaped sections, or ‘bits.’ If you had two of these pieces you’d have two bits. Do you know any of the history associated with this piece of the coin?”