Restless

and he had a promising career ahead of him. And yet well, he was just a bit too honest. When an art critic offered to print a favorable review of his work for hefty price, Henry refused. The resulting review destroyed his career before it and even begun. But standing here in the middle of the exhibit crowd, while hundreds of people filed past his work, all of the suffering seemed worth it. Along the way, of course, he had picked up new skills and transformed himself into an entirely

new artist. That's how you learn and grow, after all. But Henry took it one step further. The exhibit you see was for a newly discovered Vermeer painting. There weren't many of the seventeenth century Dutch masters paintings in existence, so finding a new one was guaranteed to draw a crowd. What none of them knew, though, is that Henry, and not Vermir, had been the man to paint it. It

was his sweet moment of revenge. All of those critics and peers that had doubted him and pushed him down were now nothing more than fools, tricked into believing that a painting Henry had created was actually the work of a Dutch master. It was validating that was. Over the next few years, Henry tried his hand at more forgeries. He managed to sell another fake Fremier to the infamous Nazi Herman Guring, one of the most powerful figures in

Hitler's Germany. Guring had been gathering stolen artwork all across Europe, but occasionally purchased pieces he loved. A newly discovered Vermier was just too tempting to pass up, and Henry walked away with half a million dollars. When the war ended and Guring's horde of treasure was recovered, experts began to look through the collection and attempt to identify which Peace came from where the new vermir though proved tricky. After months of chasing leeds, the authorities managed to arrive at

henry store step. At first, they arrested him for collaborating with the Nazi forces, believing he had stolen the painting and given it to Guring personally. Henry insisted, though, that the painting was a fake and that he had actually fooled going into buying it for a long time, though no one would believe him. After all, how could this man, this unknown, washed up artist, ever managed to create paintings that might be confused with the work of the legendary Vermier.

So Henry proved it. Under the supervision of the authorities, Henry gathered the tools, chemicals, and paints necessary to complete another of his knockoff masterpieces, and then got to work. As the story goes, he wasn't even finished with the painting before the experts caved in and accepted defeat. Henry really was that good. In the end, the court convicted him of forging signatures and delivered a short one year

jail sentence. Henry, however, had a heart attack a few days after the trial and passed away before he could serve his time. Oh and the one last thing. After going through everything recovered from Henry's home, the authorities found the bag of cash that Goring had used to purchase the fake former Henry had barely touched it, already wealthy from the sale of other fakes to a handful of European museums. That's when they discovered something absolutely amazing. The

cash was fake. The unlikely fraud, it seems, had become the victim of his own game. Thomas was a plantation owner in Colonial Barbados, an island in the Caribbean. He lived there with his entire family and preferred it to life back in England. But when you live someplace, there's always the risk of dying there as well. In eighteen oh seven, Thomas purchased a large family vault in the local cemetery in Anti, a patient of just that sort

of eventuality. That same year, the family suffered through the loss of Thomas's aunt, and she became the first to occupy the tomb. The following year, Thomas and his wife lost a daughter, Mary Anna, and in July eight twelve, another of their children passed away. It was a lot to work through, for sure, Losing a child is never an easy thing, but each of them had a home in the family tomb. Later that same year, Thomas himself passed away. When they opened the vault, though they were

met with a surprise. All three of the coffins inside were no longer where they had left them, neatly arranged in a row on the stone floor. Instead, they seemed to have been tossed against the wall, and some of them had even been opened. The family suspected grave robbers, but there didn't appear to be anything missing. In the end, they simply replaced all the coffins and added Thomas's to the room, and then made sure to lock up and

seal the vault, and then life moved on. In eighteen sixteen, another of the children passed away, and after a somber funeral, the family took the small casket to the family tomb and unlocked the door inside. Though chaos had visited the original coffins once again, they were beginning to think that something darker was going on, that an unseen force might be at work. Just two months later, the family lost another of their own, and they returned to that all

too familiar vault. Again, the door was still locked, and again the coffins inside had been tossed against the walls and into general disarray. They straightened up things like before, but word began to spread around the island about what was going on in their tomb. When another of the family passed away in eighteen nineteen, news spread fast enough that the Governor of Barbados himself, Field Marshal Stapleton Cotton, traveled to the cemetery on the southwest corner of the

island to watch the burial with his own eyes. Inside they found the same scene of disarray, and the governor personally inspected it before helping with sealing the tomb. This time at his request, they covered the floor of the tomb with a layer of sand, hoping it would reveal footprints if it were ever to happen again. Then they locked the door, sealed it, and even placed secret marks on the door frame to help them know if the

vault had been tampered with. It was less than a year before the authorities were made aware of reports of noises from inside the tomb. Governor Cotton made the journey back to the tomb, and the community and family gathered around to watch him. Inspected, he reportedly found the seal intact, but when he unlocked the door and pushed it inward, it resisted suspiciously. With help, he was able to open it wide enough to look in, which is when he

discovered two very different clues. First, the coffins had all been tossed again the wall, which explained why the door was difficult to move. Some had tipped over and others were standing on end. But to make matters more confusing, the sand on the floor was as smooth as it had been in eighteen nineteen. Not a single footprint could be seen, which, of course reinforced the local belief that the tomb was home to more than just wooden coffins. There was a spirit in there as well, and it

wasn't happy. This was apparently the final straw. In April of that year, the family pulled all of the coffins back out and transported them to new underground graves, and left the old family vault empty and unused. The spirit never gave them trouble again. Over the years, people have offered up their own theories about why the coffins kept moving. Some blame earthquakes, while others think of cemetery has been

plagued by flooding from underground sources. To be honest, no one really knows for sure, leaving this story in the realm of myth rather than fact. When it's all said and done, I suppose there really is only one truth we can glean from this tale. Let's all hope our final resting place is exactly that RESTful. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the

show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.