He threw the dish towel at me. I caught it before it hit its intended target. “I like to think I’m the voice of reason,” he said. “It’s a good thing we’re not telling anyone about this. They’d think we were nuts.”

It was a good thing he didn’t know what I’d learned from Clayton earlier today: that Prescott had fancied himself a real-life Prospero, the magician from The Tempest, believing he had special powers to persuade people to do what he wanted.

I ignored what Quinn had just said about us being nuts and plowed ahead. “Okay, you can look into the letter Hobson Banks wrote Dolley Madison. I think we ought to go on the assumption that the letter in Leland’s safe deposit box was the missing puzzle piece that convinced Prescott there was more to find. He said a letter Leland showed him helped him put the whole thing together.”

“What whole thing?”

“A lost treasure that has to do with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Declaration of Independence. And apparently the Jamestown Settlement and Williamsburg are involved in some way. And maybe Shakespeare.”

“Must be a hell of a treasure.”

He stacked our plates in the dishwasher while I covered what was left of the casserole and put it in the refrigerator.

“Maybe it is,” I said.

“I hope you’re not going to get too wrapped up in this. It could just be a pig in a poke.”

“You still don’t believe me.”

“It’s not you, sweetheart. I’m not sure I believe them. Prescott and Leland.”

“Well, I do.”

He threw up his hands. “Why?”

“Because Leland went to a lot of trouble to hide those documents,” I said. “And he got Seth Hannah to go along with him. Plus I don’t believe Clay that Prescott was as off his rocker as Clay implied. He was pretty sharp, if you ask me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Clay needs to be able to convince his lawyers that Prescott was starting to lose it,” I said. “That he wasn’t competent enough mentally to make financial commitments. And he was spending money recklessly. So he’s got to make anything Prescott said or did sound loony or off the wall. He’s looking at trying to get out of the Caritas Commitment and he doesn’t want to sell the Trib.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “Let’s suppose Prescott’s right and so was Leland. Now what?”

“I’ll see what I can find on Francis Bacon’s Vault and you look into the Banks letter. Also someone named Paul Jennings. Banks mentioned Jennings in his letter and Prescott owned a copy of Jennings’s memoirs. He was a slave who worked at the White House.”

“I suppose you want to do this tonight,” he said.

I smiled. “You suppose right.”