“If they exist.” Quinn still wasn’t convinced. “Look at those newspaper articles you showed me proving the Bruton Vault didn’t exist.”

“Or maybe it did,” I said. “And someone moved the contents. Again. Just like they were moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg.”

“Move them where?”

“To the White House.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I know,” I said. “But it would explain what Prescott said about Leland’s letter—the Banks letter—giving him an important clue in solving the mystery of where the lost treasure might be.”

“True.” He still sounded dubious, but at least his interest had perked up. “So these documents—if they exist—aren’t in the White House anymore, either.”

“That’s right. They’re not because Hobson Banks removed them on Dolley Madison’s instructions. And Prescott had a pretty good idea where they went.” I paused and added, “Which he was going to reveal, until someone murdered him.”

Fifteen

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what Hobson Banks meant in his letter when he wrote that his “preshus package” was safely hidden away in a place where George Washington and James Madison had met. And that Thomas Jefferson would approve. All three Founding Fathers were Virginians: their estates—Mount Vernon, Montpelier, and Monticello—were now museums. Jefferson and Madison had been neighbors in the Charlottesville area; Washington’s home was south of Alexandria overlooking the Potomac River.

So where had Washington and Madison met? At one of their homes? It was probably simpler to figure out where they hadn’t met. Around here, if you said, “George Washington slept here” it was almost certainly true. Before he began his political and military career, Washington had been a land surveyor in this area and traveled extensively throughout the region.

Quinn had already gone upstairs to bed and I’d promised him I would join him shortly. But I knew I wouldn’t sleep until I did some more internet searching to quiet my racing mind. As a Virginian, my knowledge of those three Founding Fathers was fairly decent—in school we studied Virginia history for a year—but nothing that would make me a Jeopardy champion. I also realized I didn’t know enough about the relationships they had with each other, something that might provide a clue to where Banks could have hidden his White House package.

What I discovered was that James Madison, author of the Constitution and “Father of the Bill of Rights,” had been a close personal advisor to George Washington and that Washington had relied heavily on him because Madison knew more about the Constitution than anyone else. Madison was also close to Thomas Jefferson, helping to get him named as secretary of state during Washington’s presidency and serving as Jefferson’s campaign manager when he ran for, and won, the presidential election of 1800.