“There,' I said, 'are twenty, one-thousand United States bonds, not registered,' and I put my hand on one of the big manilla envelopes; 'and here,' I said, 'is an accurate description of the place where this treasure lies and a map of the route to it,' and I put my hand on the other.
“'Now,' I went on, 'I believe every word of this thing. Charles Tavor is the best all-round explorer in the world. I've known him a lifetime and what he says goes with me. We'll put up this bunch of stuff with a stakeholder for the term of a year, and if the gold isn't there and if the map showing the route to it isn't correct and if every word I've said about it isn't precisely the truth, you take down my bonds and keep them.'
“Old Nute got up and walked about the room. I knew what he was thinking. 'Here's another one of them—there's all kinds.'
“But it hooked him. We wrote out the terms and put the stuff up with old Commodore Harris—the straightest sport in America. Nute had the right to copy the map, and the text and a year to verify it. And I took the ten thousand back to Charlie Tavor.”
Barclay got up and went over to the window. He drew back the heavy tapestry curtains. It was morning; the blue dawn was beginning to illumine Monaco and the polished arc of the sea. He stood looking down into it, holding the curtain in his hand.
“I give the devil his due for that, Sir Henry,” he said. “Charlie Tavor got his dream at the end; he died like a gentleman in his English country house with the formal garden and the lackeys.”
“And the other man got the treasure?” I said. Barclay replied without moving.
“No, he didn't get it.”
“Then you lost your bonds?”
“No, I didn't lose them; Commodore Harris handed them back to me on the last day of the year.”