Betty clapped her hand over his mouth.
"Do get on, Hugh!" she begged. "The treasure! You're almost as long-winded as Dad."
We all laughed, and yet, indefinably, she had communicated to each of us something of the magic spell which is conveyed by any hint of treasure hidden in the past. We savored the heady wine of danger. I felt my right palm itching for the corrugated rubber butt of an automatic. When Hugh continued his story we all leaned forward, flushed and tense.
"The Crusaders captured the city, and Hugh rescued his father. Then they returned to England. Before James died he passed on the secret of the treasure to Hugh. There are documents in the Charter Chest—"
"What's that?" demanded Betty.
"It's a terribly old oaken box, bound with copper and steel," explained Hugh. "We keep it in a safe deposit vault in the City—London, you know. These documents say that James's idea was to have the treasure used for the rehabilitation of Christendom if any cause arose which would justify such a gift. Failing that, the money was to go to his descendants. But for many generations the Lords of Chesby were too busy to hunt treasure so far from home.
"One Lord tried for it in Harry the Fifth's time, but the Greeks watched him so closely that he thought himself lucky to escape from Constantinople with his life. Then the Turks captured the city, and after that it was too risky—except for one chap in Elizabeth's reign. He was Lord James, the sixteenth baron, a shipmate of Raleigh and Drake and Hawkins, and he feared nothing that lived. He put in at Constantinople and bearded the Grand Turk in his lair. But even he did not venture to make a genuine search in view of the conditions that prevailed. From his time on few of the family bothered with the tradition until Uncle James commenced to mortgage farms to finance his researches."
"Then you have no definite knowledge of the location of the treasure?" asked King. "No chart or—"
Hugh laughed bitterly.
"No, sir, that is just why I feel so peevish over the way Uncle James has devastated the estate. It's a search for a needle in a haystack—and a needle that in all probability never existed, at that."