“If you agree to my suggestion I will tell you,” answered the black-bearded coward, who, brought to bay, was now ready to betray his friends.
I turned to Usher and Reilly, both of whom were of opinion that, secrecy being necessary, we should make the compact Franklin suggested.
Therefore the fellow took a solemn oath, and there in the dim light beneath those big forest trees, a few yards from where the treasure lay in its cunningly-constructed subterranean chamber, he related to us a very strange story, which we afterwards discovered was the actual truth.
“I am a solicitor, as you perhaps know,” he began. “One day there came to my office in the Minories a sailor named Henry Harding whom I had met some three years before, and who was, I knew, a man of considerable intelligence and education. He had just come home from a round voyage in the Mediterranean, and showed me the translations of certain curious documents which had been found on board a derelict. I recognized that the treasure referred to might still exist, but that to undertake the search we should require the assistance of at least two other adventurous spirits like ourselves. Harding said he knew two men of just the stamp we required, and a couple of days later brought to my office Bennett and Purvis, the first-named a retired sea-captain and the second a bookmaker. All three were eager to set to work at once, therefore after a long consultation we decided upon a plan of action. Purvis was sent down to Caldecott to make inquiries, and, finding a man named Knutton still living there, purchased from him a parchment that had been in his family for generations. Then, recognizing that if the treasure were actually found it would be useless to us unless we knew the rightful heir as stated in the old Italian noble’s will, I at once advertised for information regarding the Wollertons. Within a fortnight I received a reply from a small country solicitor, and we were very soon in communication with the heir to the property, although, of course, we preserved the secret among ourselves.”
“Do you know the identity of the heir at the present moment?” I cried excitedly, for such information was of greatest importance to us, to prevent the Government claiming our find as treasure-trove.
“Yes,” he answered, having grown calmer; “I will tell you everything in due course. Well, having secured the document of the Knuttons, we found it to be in cipher. Whereupon Harding recollected that in a vellum book which you took from the Seahorse was a cipher and key which he had not had time to copy. We were closely watching you, one or other of us, and knew all your movements; hence we were aware that the book in question was in the hands of Mr. Staffurth, the palæographist. There seemed only one way to get possession of the book—namely, to steal it; therefore we employed a man known to Bennett, and the house at Clapham was burglariously entered, but the book was found to be locked in a safe which resisted all attempts upon it. One of the parchments—the one with the seven signatures—was, however, stolen.”
“And found to be useless,” I remarked laughing.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But before long, after we had contrived to examine your own rooms, we saw by your movements that you had become aware that we were trying to forestall you, and that the fight for a fortune would be a hard one. Knowing this, Bennett and Purvis conceived the idea of entrapping you in a house which they took at Blackheath and—well, to put it very plainly—doing away with you. For that purpose the girl Dorothy Drummond was sent one night to the surgery at Walworth with a message regarding the illness of a fictitious brother. She knew nothing of the evil intentions of the men, but, as she afterwards confessed to me, a sudden thought occurred to her while in the cab with you, and she refused to allow you to accompany her back to the house.”
“Ah!” I ejaculated. “She has told me that already.”
“What?” cried the man in surprise. “Has she told you anything else?—I mean the story of the affair at Kilburn?”