“What?” demanded Chirk, so sharply that his voice seemed to echo round the cavern. He too dropped on his knee, staring at the red seal over the knot of the cord. Then he rose, and ran his eyes over the other chests. “Six of ’em, and all alike!” he said softly, and whistled. “Small—” he bent and with an effort lifted the end of one—”but remarkable heavy!”
“The seal’s been broken on this one, and—yes, the lock’s been forced!” John said, pausing beside a chest which had been set down upon another. “Well!—let us see what’s inside it!”
He put his lantern down on another of the chests, and set to work to untie the knot. The cord fell away, and he lifted the lid. The chest was packed with neat little bags, and the chink of metal as John picked one up was not needed to tell him what these must contain. He untied the string about its neck, plunged in his hand, and drew out a fistful of yellow coins, and held them in the lantern-light, staring down at them.
“Wansbeck ford!” Chirk cried, after a stunned minute. “That’s why I know the name! Lord, what a clunch, what a totty-headed dummy! How could I have been such a beetlehead as to have forgot it?”
John looked up at him. “What has Wansbeck ford to do with this?”
Chirk was breathing rather rapidly. “Don’t you never read the newspapers, Soldier?”
“I do, yes, but not with any particular attention in these peaceful times. Tell me what I should have read and did not!”
“A couple o’ sennights back—a Government coach, bound for Manchester!” uttered Chirk jerkily. “Took the wrong fork somewhere short of a place called Ashbourne—matter of twenty-five to thirty miles south-west of here. It was after dark, and seemingly a lonesome stretch o’ country. By what I read, it was as clever a hold-up as I ever heard of! ’Cos what did they do? They—”
“Changed the two arms of the signpost!”
“You did read about it!”