“In cipher, perhaps,” I remarked. And it then occurred to me what Mr. Staffurth had told me, that at the end of the sixteenth century a great many private documents were so written that only those in possession of a key could decipher them. It might be so in the case of the one in question.
“How big was it?” I inquired.
“Oh, when it wor spread out, it measured about a foot square. It folded up, and there was some scribbling on the back. I remember that my father, just afore he died, called Dick to him and told him to look in the bottom of the old chest—the one I’ve got at home now. He did so, and brought the faded old thing out. I’d never seen it before, but my father told Dick to keep it all his life, and give it to his eldest son. He made Dick promise that.”
“And before your brother Dick died he carried out his father’s wish?”
“Yes, sir. Then young Dick gave it to me. I thought half a sovereign for it was a good bargain.”
“It all depends upon what it contained. It might have been of great importance to your family,” I said; “it might have had to do with the fortune which it is supposed to be yours by right.”
“Ah, sir!” the landlady exclaimed, smiling. “We’ve heard a lot about that great fortune of the Knuttons. I used to hear all about it when I was a girl, how that if they had their own they’d be as rich as the Marquis of Exeter. It’s an old story in Rockingham.”
“It was foolish in the extreme to sell a document of the contents of which he was ignorant,” I declared. “But he’s parted with it, and it’s gone, so, as far as I can see, nothing can be done.”
“Where’s the half-sovereign?” asked the landlady sharply of the old fellow.
“Spent it.”