“Forestalled! How?” he cried, starting and turning to look at me full in the face.
I explained my meeting with the besotted Ben Knutton of Rockingham, and of how, only two days ago, he had sold for half a sovereign the actual document we wanted, and had been drunk for a couple of days afterwards.
“What bad luck!” exclaimed the old man. “What infernal luck! If we had got hold of that the secret would have been ours within an hour or two. But as the thing has passed into other hands—well, as far as I can see at present, we must remain utterly in the dark.”
“Yes. But there’s a great mystery surrounding the identity of the person who has so cleverly forestalled us,” I said. “Who can he be? And how can he be aware of the existence of the treasure?”
The old man shook his head.
“My dear doctor,” he said, “the whole affair is a very romantic and mysterious one. It certainly increases our difficulties a hundredfold, now that the last of the Knuttons has sold the parchment that has been in his family for three centuries or so. Still, we have at least one satisfaction, that of knowing that the person into whose hands it has passed can make nothing out of it without the key contained here.” And he smiled with evident satisfaction.
“We must discover the identity of this man who calls himself Purvis,” I said firmly. “Perhaps we can obtain it from him.”
“We must—by fair means or foul,” remarked Mr. Staffurth calmly, taking off his spectacles and wiping them carefully. “I agree with you entirely. We must recover possession of that parchment.”
CHAPTER XII
JOB SEAL MAKES A PROPOSAL
Can you, my reader, imagine a more tantalizing position than the one in which I now found myself? It took a great deal to arouse enthusiasm in the breast of old Mr. Staffurth, whose interest in the world had seemed to me as dried up as those musty parchments he was so constantly examining. But the mystery of it all had certainly awakened him, and he was as keen as myself to get to the bottom of it—and to the treasure, of which I had promised him a small portion as repayment for his services.