“We hope that ours is equally precise,” I laughed. “That is why we intend to go north and take preliminary observations. We can only make our investigation at a certain hour on a certain day, the sixth of September.”
I was not more definite as I did not intend, at present, to give the secret away. In a hunt for treasure success depends to a very great extent upon strict secrecy. To arouse undue interest is always to be avoided. The Crowland treasure concerned the rector to a great degree, but the Borgia jewels would, if we discovered them, surely be our own.
At half-past seven we returned to “The George,” which had already been open an hour or so, and we went in as though we had returned from a morning walk. Neither servants nor landlord suspected anything until the villagers discovered the big hole near the abbey, and then, I believe, we were viewed with considerable suspicion. Indeed, I was much relieved when, at eleven o’clock, we drove out along Kennulph’s Way and through the village of Eye back to “The Angel,” at Peterborough.
Chapter Twenty Six.
A Discovery in Harpur Street.
At two o’clock that afternoon we were back in Dover Street, utterly fagged out by our long night watch among the rank grass and nettles of the damp fenland.
It seemed certain that the quartette had returned to London by the early train from Thorney or from Peterborough, and had carried back with them the manuscripts they had found; therefore, curiosity prompted Wyman to go forth about four o’clock, in order to try and discover something regarding Lord Glenelg’s movements.
When we parted in Piccadilly I went on to the British Museum, for I had been wondering if anything might be preserved there that would give me an accurate ground plan of Crowland Abbey before its dissolution. If only I could get that I should be able to fix the exact spot where the carp ponds once existed.