Peter tucked a clean handkerchief into the breastpocket of his dinner jacket. "But the whole thing seems so utterly fantastic," he complained. "I daresay Duval is in someone's power: I always said he looked a wrong 'un. But what the hell has it got to do with the Priory?"
"That;' said Charles, "is what we've got to find out."
"Thanks very much. And just where do we start? The most likely explanation advanced so far is hidden treasure. Well, if you want to spend the rest of our stay prising up solid stone slabs in the cellar, you've more energy than I've ever yet seen you display."
Charles threw the end of his cigarette out of the open window. "If it's buried treasure the field isn't as narrow as that. Fripp, to my mind, wanted a chance to explore the rest of the house:'
"Well, that settles it. You can't take up the floorboards in every room, and go twisting every bit of moulding in the panelling in the hope of discovering another priest's hole. If we'd a history of the place no doubt we should find out all about it. But we haven't."
"No," said Charles. "We haven't. And, do you know, I find that rather surprising."
Peter stared. "Do you mean someone may have pinched it?"
"Hasn't that occurred to you? This place obviously has a history - must have had. You'd expect to find some record in the library."
"Well, yes, you might, but on the other hand the house. has changed hands a lot since the place was a monastery. It may have got lost, or bought by a collector or something like that."
"Quite so. But there's something more to it than that. When the point was first raised it struck me as being curious. I thought it worth while to drop a line to Tim Baker, and ask him to see whether a history of this place existed in the British Museum library. To-night I had his answer." He drew a letter from his pocket, and opened it. "There is a history, and a copy of it is in the Museum.