"As if I can't help liking you--sometimes when you're nice."
"I'll be good and nice. Well, what he meant was that when you wanted to get at his hiding-place by the sea, in a boat pulling sculls, you came and did certain things; and that when you wanted to get there by jumping down the Puffing Hole, you did other things.
"When we came back to the foot of the shaft the sun had gone off it, and it was comparatively dark. We tried the passage leading inward, and here we found Fahey's hiding-place. It was a small low cave, with a rocky ledge about as wide as the footway we are walking on.... Madge, are those new boots? They look new. I wonder did I ever tell you I think you have awfully pretty feet."
"I give you up. You are incorrigible."
"As I was saying, we found a ledge of rock about as broad as your foot. This was Fahey's retreat, and here were all the materials used by the forgers of bank-notes. How Fahey got them there unobserved is the puzzle. He must have brought them piecemeal Here, beyond all doubt, were printed the notes forged upon the bank of Bordelon and Company, of Paris, by means of which Mr. Davenport stole a colossal fortune.
"Here we found an explanation of how Fahey's suit of clothes lasted ten or twelve years. We found two suits precisely similar. He kept one to wear, no doubt, while the other was drying. There was a place which had evidently been used as a fireplace, and although there was water so close to this ledge, it was above the highest reach of the highest tide, and dry as tinder. The dryness of the place and the salt of the sea-water had preserved these clothes from decay, while most of the metal things had crumbled into dust.
"He must have discovered this place in his boat, and after that found out the shaft of the mine communicated with the whole cavernous system, which is so vast as to stagger the mind. Thus he had two means of gaining his retreat; and when he said he had lost his boat, she was safely moored in the cave in case of emergency--for we found the painter-chain hanging from a bolt."
"But what of that light you saw that turned out to be water? And did the miners work in the sea?"
"Attentive and intelligent darling, I thank thee. The theory is that Fahey, in falling or sliding down the shaft, struck the western wall of the pool in which we found him, and brought down a huge mass of clay which was ripe for falling, or that it had fallen recently, or that our gunshot had brought it down. The curtain of water was formed by a spring of fresh water. There are always dozens of such springs in cliffs. As to the foot of the shaft, the explanation is that at the time the miners were at work the sea had not eaten so far inward. In fact, that whole district is and has been gradually so enormously undermined, that soon a mighty subsidence must take place."
"But you say that the hole down to the mine slanted. How did he get up and down? It would have been barely possible, but dangerous, to crawl up."