'Such an offer has never been made to me, and I may say at once that I
should be compelled to decline it were I favoured with the
opportunity. In the cases submitted to me, I devote my time and
attention to their solution. I try to deserve success, but I cannot
command it, and as in the interim I must live, I am reluctantly
compelled to make a charge for my time, at least. I believe the doctor
sends in his bill, though the patient dies.'
The young man laughed uneasily, and seemed almost too embarrassed to
proceed, but finally he said:--
'Your illustration strikes home with greater accuracy than probably
you imagined when you uttered it. I have just paid my last penny to
the physician who attended my late uncle, Lord Chizelrigg, who died
six months ago. I am fully aware that the suggestion I made may seem
like a reflection upon your skill, or rather, as implying a doubt
regarding it. But I should be grieved, monsieur, if you fell into such
an error. I could have come here and commissioned you to undertake
some elucidation of the strange situation in which I find myself, and
I make no doubt you would have accepted the task if your numerous
engagements had permitted. Then, if you failed, I should have been
unable to pay you, for I am practically bankrupt. My whole desire,
therefore, was to make an honest beginning, and to let you know
exactly how I stand. If you succeed, I shall be a rich man; if you do
not succeed, I shall be what I am now, penniless. Have I made it plain
now why I began with a question which you had every right to resent?'
'Perfectly plain, my lord, and your candour does you credit.'
I was very much taken with the unassuming manners of the young man,
and his evident desire to accept no service under false pretences.
When I had finished my sentence the pauper nobleman rose to his feet,
and bowed.
'I am very much your debtor, monsieur, for your courtesy in receiving
me, and can only beg pardon for occupying your time on a futile quest.
I wish you good-morning, monsieur.'
'One moment, my lord,' I rejoined, waving him to his chair again.
'Although I am unprepared to accept a commission on the terms you
suggest, I may, nevertheless, be able to offer a hint or two that will
prove of service to you. I think I remember the announcement of Lord
Chizelrigg's death. He was somewhat eccentric, was he not?'
'Eccentric?' said the young man, with a slight laugh, seating himself
again--'well, _rather_!'
'I vaguely remember that he was accredited with the possession of
something like twenty thousand acres of land?'
'Twenty-seven thousand, as a matter of fact,' replied my visitor.
'Have you fallen heir to the lands as well as to the title?'
'Oh, yes; the estate was entailed. The old gentleman could not divert
it from me if he would, and I rather suspect that fact must have been
the cause of some worry to him.'
'But surely, my lord, a man who owns, as one might say, a principality
in this wealthy realm of England, cannot be penniless?'
Again the young man laughed.
'Well, no,' he replied, thrusting his hand in his pocket and bringing
to light a few brown coppers, and a white silver piece. 'I possess
enough money to buy some food tonight, but not enough to dine at the
Hotel Cecil. You see, it is like this. I belong to a somewhat ancient
family, various members of whom went the pace, and mortgaged their
acres up to the hilt. I could not raise a further penny on my estates
were I to try my hardest, because at the time the money was lent, land
was much more valuable than it is today. Agricultural depression, and
all that sort of thing, have, if I may put it so, left me a good many
thousands worse off than if I had no land at all. Besides this, during
my late uncle's life, Parliament, on his behalf, intervened once or
twice, allowing him in the first place to cut valuable timber, and in
the second place to sell the pictures of Chizelrigg Chase at
Christie's for figures which make one's mouth water.'
'And what became of the money?' I asked, whereupon once more this
genial nobleman laughed. 'That is exactly what I came up in the lift
to learn if Monsieur Valmont could discover.'
'My lord, you interest me,' I said, quite truly, with an uneasy
apprehension that I should take up his case after all, for I liked the
young man already. His lack of pretence appealed to me, and that
sympathy which is so universal among my countrymen enveloped him, as I
may say, quite independent of my own will.
'My uncle,' went on Lord Chizelrigg, 'was somewhat of an anomaly in
our family. He must have been a reversal to a very, very ancient type;
a type of which we have no record. He was as miserly as his
forefathers were prodigal. When he came into the title and estate some
twenty years ago, he dismissed the whole retinue of servants, and,
indeed, was defendant in several cases at law where retainers of our
family brought suit against him for wrongful dismissal, or dismissal
without a penny compensation in lieu of notice. I am pleased to say he
lost all his cases, and when he pleaded poverty, got permission to
sell a certain number of heirlooms, enabling him to make compensation,
and giving him something on which to live. These heirlooms at auction
sold so unexpectedly well, that my uncle acquired a taste, as it were,
of what might be done. He could always prove that the rents went to
the mortgagees, and that he had nothing on which to exist, so on
several occasions he obtained permission from the courts to cut timber
and sell pictures, until he denuded the estate and made an empty barn
of the old manor house. He lived like any labourer, occupying himself
sometimes as a carpenter, sometimes as a blacksmith; indeed, he made a
blacksmith's shop of the library, one of the most noble rooms in
Britain, containing thousands of valuable books which again and again
he applied for permission to sell, but this privilege was never
granted to him. I find on coming into the property that my uncle quite
persistently evaded the law, and depleted this superb collection, book
by book, surreptitiously through dealers in London. This, of course,
would have got him into deep trouble if it had been discovered before
his death, but now the valuable volumes are gone, and there is no
redress. Many of them are doubtless in America, or in museums and
collections of Europe.'
'You wish me to trace them, perhaps?' I interpolated.
'Oh, no; they are past praying for. The old man made tens of thousands
by the sale of the timber, and other thousands by disposing of the
pictures. The house is denuded of its fine old furniture, which was
immensely valuable, and then the books, as I have said, must have
brought in the revenue of a prince, if he got anything like their
value, and you may be sure he was shrewd enough to know their worth.
Since the last refusal of the courts to allow him further relief, as
he termed it, which was some seven years ago, he had quite evidently
been disposing of books and furniture by a private sale, in defiance
of the law. At that time I was under age, but my guardians opposed his
application to the courts, and demanded an account of the moneys
already in his hands. The judges upheld the opposition of my
guardians, and refused to allow a further spoliation of the estate,
but they did not grant the accounting my guardians asked, because the
proceeds of the former sales were entirely at the disposal of my
uncle, and were sanctioned by the law to permit him to live as
befitted his station. If he lived meagrely instead of lavishly, as my
guardians contended, that, the judges said, was his affair, and there
the matter ended.
'My uncle took a violent dislike to me on account of this opposition
to his last application, although, of course, I had nothing whatever
to do with the matter. He lived like a hermit, mostly in the library,
and was waited upon by an old man and his wife, and these three were
the only inhabitants of a mansion that could comfortably house a
hundred. He visited nobody, and would allow no one to approach
Chizelrigg Chase. In order that all who had the misfortune to have
dealing with him should continue to endure trouble after his death, he
left what might be called a will, but which rather may be termed a
letter to me. Here is a copy of it.
'"MY DEAR TOM,--You will find your fortune between a couple
of sheets of paper in the library.
'"Your affectionate uncle,
'"REGINALD MORAN, EARL OF CHIZELRIGG."'
'I should doubt if that were a legal will,' said I.
'It doesn't need to be,' replied the young man with a smile. 'I am
next-of-kin, and heir to everything he possessed, although, of course,
he might have given his money elsewhere if he had chosen to do so. Why
he did not bequeath it to some institution, I do not know. He knew no
man personally except his own servants, whom he misused and starved,
but, as he told them, he misused and starved himself, so they had no
cause to grumble. He said he was treating them like one of the family.
I suppose he thought it would cause me more worry and anxiety if he
concealed the money, and put me on the wrong scent, which I am
convinced he has done, than to leave it openly to any person or
charity.'
'I need not ask if you have searched the library?'
'Searched it? Why, there never was such a search since the world
began!'
'Possibly you put the task into incompetent hands?'
'You are hinting, Monsieur Valmont, that I engaged others until my
money was gone, then came to you with a speculative proposal. Let me
assure you such is not the case. Incompetent hands, I grant you, but
the hands were my own. For the past six months I have lived
practically as my uncle lived. I have rummaged that library from floor
to ceiling. It was left in a frightful state, littered with old
newspapers, accounts, and what-not. Then, of course, there were the
books remaining in the library, still a formidable collection.'
'Was your uncle a religious man?'
'I could not say. I surmise not. You see, I was unacquainted with him,
and never saw him until after his death. I fancy he was not religious,
otherwise he could not have acted as he did. Still, he proved himself
a man of such twisted mentality that anything is possible.'
'I knew a case once where an heir who expected a large sum of money
was bequeathed a family Bible, which he threw into the fire, learning
afterwards, to his dismay, that it contained many thousands of pounds
in Bank of England notes, the object of the devisor being to induce
the legatee to read the good Book or suffer through the neglect of
it.'
'I have searched the Scriptures,' said the youthful Earl with a laugh,
'but the benefit has been moral rather than material.'
'Is there any chance that your uncle has deposited his wealth in a
bank, and has written a cheque for the amount, leaving it between two
leaves of a book?'
'Anything is possible, monsieur, but I think that highly improbable. I
have gone through every tome, page by page, and I suspect very few of
the volumes have been opened for the last twenty years.'
'How much money do you estimate he accumulated?'
'He must have cleared more than a hundred thousand pounds, but
speaking of banking it, I would like to say that my uncle evinced a
deep distrust of banks, and never drew a cheque in his life so far as
I am aware. All accounts were paid in gold by this old steward, who
first brought the receipted bill in to my uncle, and then received the
exact amount, after having left the room, and waited until he was rung
for, so that he might not learn the repository from which my uncle
drew his store. I believe if the money is ever found it will be in
gold, and I am very sure that this will was written, if we may call it
a will, to put us on the wrong scent.'
'Have you had the library cleared out?'
'Oh, no, it is practically as my uncle left it. I realised that if I
were to call in help, it would be well that the newcomer found it
undisturbed.'
'You were quite right, my lord. You say you examined all the papers?'
'Yes; so far as that is concerned, the room has been very fairly gone
over, but nothing that was in it the day my uncle died has been
removed, not even his anvil.'
'His anvil?'
'Yes; I told you he made a blacksmith's shop, as well as bedroom, of
the library. It is a huge room, with a great fireplace at one end
which formed an excellent forge. He and the steward built the forge in
the eastern fireplace of brick and clay, with their own hands, and
erected there a second-hand blacksmith's bellows.'
'What work did he do at his forge?'
'Oh, anything that was required about the place. He seems to have been
a very expert ironworker. He would never buy a new implement for the
garden or the house so long as he could get one second-hand, and he
never bought anything second-hand while at his forge he might repair
what was already in use. He kept an old cob, on which he used to ride
through the park, and he always put the shoes on this cob himself, the
steward informs me, so he must have understood the use of blacksmith's
tools. He made a carpenter's shop of the chief drawing-room and
erected a bench there. I think a very useful mechanic was spoiled when
my uncle became an earl.'
'You have been living at the Chase since your uncle died?'
'If you call it living, yes. The old steward and his wife have been
looking after me, as they looked after my uncle, and, seeing me day
after day, coatless, and covered with dust, I imagine they think me a
second edition of the old man.'
'Does the steward know the money is missing?'
'No; no one knows it but myself. This will was left on the anvil, in
an envelope addressed to me.'
'Your statement is exceedingly clear, Lord Chizelrigg, but I confess I
don't see much daylight through it. Is there a pleasant country around
Chizelrigg Chase?'
'Very; especially at this season of the year. In autumn and winter the
house is a little draughty. It needs several thousand pounds to put it
in repair.'
'Draughts do not matter in the summer. I have been long enough in
England not to share the fear of my countrymen for a _courant d'air._
Is there a spare bed in the manor house, or shall I take down a cot
with me, or let us say a hammock?'
'Really,' stammered the earl, blushing again, 'you must not think I
detailed all these circumstances in order to influence you to take up
what may be a hopeless case. I, of course, am deeply interested, and,
therefore, somewhat prone to be carried away when I begin a recital of
my uncle's eccentricities. If I receive your permission, I will call
on you again in a month or two. To tell you the truth, I borrowed a
little money from the old steward, and visited London to see my legal
advisers, hoping that in the circumstances I may get permission to
sell something that will keep me from starvation. When I spoke of the
house being denuded, I meant relatively, of course. There are still a
good many antiquities which would doubtless bring me in a comfortable
sum of money. I have been borne up by the belief that I should find my
uncle's gold. Lately, I have been beset by a suspicion that the old
gentleman thought the library the only valuable asset left, and for
this reason wrote his note, thinking I would be afraid to sell
anything from that room. The old rascal must have made a pot of money
out of those shelves. The catalogue shows that there was a copy of the
first book printed in England by Caxton, and several priceless
Shakespeares, as well as many other volumes that a collector would
give a small fortune for. All these are gone. I think when I show this
to be the case, the authorities cannot refuse me the right to sell
something, and, if I get this permission, I shall at once call upon
you.'
'Nonsense, Lord Chizelrigg. Put your application in motion, if you
like. Meanwhile I beg of you to look upon me as a more substantial
banker than your old steward. Let us enjoy a good dinner together at
the Cecil tonight, if you will do me the honour to be my guest.
Tomorrow we can leave for Chizelrigg Chase. How far is it?'
'About three hours,' replied the young man, becoming as red as a new
Queen Anne villa. 'Really, Monsieur Valmont, you overwhelm me with
your kindness, but nevertheless I accept your generous offer.'
'Then that's settled. What's the name of the old steward?'
'Higgins.'
'You are certain he has no knowledge of the hiding-place of this
treasure?'
'Oh, quite sure. My uncle was not a man to make a confidant of anyone,
least of all an old babbler like Higgins.'
'Well, I should like to be introduced to Higgins as a benighted
foreigner. That will make him despise me and treat me like a child.'
'Oh, I say,' protested the earl, 'I should have thought you'd lived
long enough in England to have got out of the notion that we do not
appreciate the foreigner. Indeed, we are the only nation in the world
that extends a cordial welcome to him, rich or poor.'
'_Certainement_, my lord, I should be deeply disappointed did you not
take me at my proper valuation, but I cherish no delusions regarding
the contempt with which Higgins will regard me. He will look upon me
as a sort of simpleton to whom the Lord had been unkind by not making
England my native land. Now, Higgins must be led to believe that I am
in his own class; that is, a servant of yours. Higgins and I will
gossip over the fire together, should these spring evenings prove
chilly, and before two or three weeks are past I shall have learned a
great deal about your uncle that you never dreamed of. Higgins will
talk more freely with a fellow-servant than with his master, however
much he may respect that master, and then, as I am a foreigner, he
will babble down to my comprehension, and I shall get details that he
never would think of giving to a fellow-countryman.'
* * * * *
The young earl's modesty in such description of his home as he had
given me, left me totally unprepared for the grandeur of the mansion,
one corner of which he inhabited. It is such a place as you read of in
romances of the Middle Ages; not a pinnacled or turreted French
château of that period, but a beautiful and substantial stone manor
house of a ruddy colour, whose warm hue seemed to add a softness to
the severity of its architecture. It is built round an outer and an
inner courtyard and could house a thousand, rather than the hundred
with which its owner had accredited it. There are many stone-mullioned
windows, and one at the end of the library might well have graced a
cathedral. This superb residence occupies the centre of a heavily
timbered park, and from the lodge at the gates we drove at least a
mile and a half under the grandest avenue of old oaks I have ever
seen. It seemed incredible that the owner of all this should actually
lack the ready money to pay his fare to town!
Old Higgins met us at the station with a somewhat rickety cart, to
which was attached the ancient cob that the late earl used to shoe. We
entered a noble hall, which probably looked the larger because of the
entire absence of any kind of furniture, unless two complete suits of
venerable armour which stood on either hand might be considered as
furnishing. I laughed aloud when the door was shut, and the sound
echoed like the merriment of ghosts from the dim timbered roof above
me.
'What are you laughing at?' asked the earl.
'I am laughing to see you put your modern tall hat on that mediaeval
helmet.'
'Oh, that's it! Well, put yours on the other. I mean no disrespect to
the ancestor who wore this suit, but we are short of the harmless,
necessary hat-rack, so I put my topper on the antique helmet, and
thrust the umbrella (if I have one) in behind here, and down one of
his legs. Since I came in possession, a very crafty-looking dealer
from London visited me, and attempted to sound me regarding the sale
of these suits of armour. I gathered he would give enough money to
keep me in new suits, London made, for the rest of my life, but when I
endeavoured to find out if he had had commercial dealings with my
prophetic uncle, he became frightened and bolted. I imagine that if I
had possessed presence of mind enough to have lured him into one of
our most uncomfortable dungeons, I might have learned where some of
the family treasures went to. Come up these stairs, Monsieur Valmont,
and I will show you your room.'
We had lunched on the train coming down, so after a wash in my own
room I proceeded at once to inspect the library. It proved, indeed, a
most noble apartment, and it had been scandalously used by the old
reprobate, its late tenant. There were two huge fireplaces, one in the
middle of the north wall and the other at the eastern end. In the
latter had been erected a rude brick forge, and beside the forge hung
a great black bellows, smoky with usage. On a wooden block lay the
anvil, and around it rested and rusted several hammers, large and
small. At the western end was a glorious window filled with ancient
stained glass, which, as I have said, might have adorned a cathedral.
Extensive as the collection of books was, the great size of this
chamber made it necessary that only the outside wall should be covered
with book cases, and even these were divided by tall windows. The
opposite wall was blank, with the exception of a picture here and
there, and these pictures offered a further insult to the room, for
they were cheap prints, mostly coloured lithographs that had appeared
in Christmas numbers of London weekly journals, encased in
poverty-stricken frames, hanging from nails ruthlessly driven in above
them. The floor was covered with a litter of papers, in some places
knee-deep, and in the corner farthest from the forge still stood the
bed on which the ancient miser had died.
'Looks like a stable, doesn't it?' commented the earl, when I had
finished my inspection. 'I am sure the old boy simply filled it up
with this rubbish to give me the trouble of examining it. Higgins
tells me that up to within a month before he died the room was
reasonably clear of all this muck. Of course it had to be, or the
place would have caught fire from the sparks of the forge. The old man
made Higgins gather all the papers he could find anywhere about the
place, ancient accounts, newspapers, and what not, even to the brown
wrapping paper you see, in which parcels came, and commanded him to
strew the floor with this litter, because, as he complained, Higgins's
boots on the boards made too much noise, and Higgins, who is not in
the least of an inquiring mind, accepted this explanation as entirely
meeting the case.'
Higgins proved to be a garrulous old fellow, who needed no urging to
talk about the late earl; indeed, it was almost impossible to deflect
his conversation into any other channel. Twenty years' intimacy with
the eccentric nobleman had largely obliterated that sense of deference
with which an English servant usually approaches his master. An
English underling's idea of nobility is the man who never by any
possibility works with his hands. The fact that Lord Chizelrigg had
toiled at the carpenter's bench; had mixed cement in the drawing-room;
had caused the anvil to ring out till midnight, aroused no admiration
in Higgins's mind. In addition to this, the ancient nobleman had been
penuriously strict in his examination of accounts, exacting the
uttermost farthing, so the humble servitor regarded his memory with
supreme contempt. I realised before the drive was finished from the
station to Chizelrigg Chase that there was little use of introducing
me to Higgins as a foreigner and a fellow-servant. I found myself
completely unable to understand what the old fellow said. His dialect,
was as unknown to me as the Choctaw language would have been, and the
young earl was compelled to act as interpreter on the occasions when
we set this garrulous talking-machine going.
The new Earl of Chizelrigg, with the enthusiasm of a boy, proclaimed
himself my pupil and assistant, and said he would do whatever he was
told. His thorough and fruitless search of the library had convinced
him that the old man was merely chaffing him, as he put it, by leaving
such a letter as he had written. His lordship was certain that the
money had been hidden somewhere else; probably buried under one of the
trees in the park. Of course this was possible, and represented the
usual method by which a stupid person conceals treasure, yet I did not
think it probable. All conversations with Higgins showed the earl to
have been an extremely suspicious man; suspicious of banks, suspicious
even of Bank of England notes, suspicious of every person on earth,
not omitting Higgins himself. Therefore, as I told his nephew, the
miser would never allow the fortune out of his sight and immediate
reach.
From the first the oddity of the forge and anvil being placed in his
bedroom struck me as peculiar, and I said to the young man,--
'I'll stake my reputation that forge or anvil, or both, contain the
secret. You see, the old gentleman worked sometimes till midnight, for
Higgins could hear his hammering. If he used hard coal on the forge
the fire would last through the night, and being in continual terror
of thieves, as Higgins says, barricading the castle every evening
before dark as if it were a fortress, he was bound to place the
treasure in the most unlikely spot for a thief to get at it. Now, the
coal fire smouldered all night long, and if the gold was in the forge
underneath the embers, it would be extremely difficult to get at. A
robber rummaging in the dark would burn his fingers in more senses
than one. Then, as his lordship kept no less than four loaded
revolvers under his pillow, all he had to do, if a thief entered his
room was to allow the search to go on until the thief started at the
forge, then doubtless, as he had the range with reasonable accuracy
night or day, he might sit up in bed and blaze away with revolver
after revolver. There were twenty-eight shots that could be fired in
about double as many seconds, so you see the robber stood little
chance in the face of such a fusillade. I propose that we dismantle
the forge.'
Lord Chizelrigg was much taken by my reasoning, and one morning early
we cut down the big bellows, tore it open, found it empty, then took
brick after brick from the forge with a crowbar, for the old man had
builded better than he knew with Portland cement. In fact, when we
cleared away the rubbish between the bricks and the core of the
furnace we came upon one cube of cement which was as hard as granite.
With the aid of Higgins, and a set of rollers and levers, we managed
to get this block out into the park, and attempted to crush it with
the sledge-hammers belonging to the forge, in which we were entirely
unsuccessful. The more it resisted our efforts, the more certain we
became that the coins would be found within it. As this would not be
treasure-trove in the sense that the Government might make a claim
upon it, there was no particular necessity for secrecy, so we had up a
man from the mines near by with drills and dynamite, who speedily
shattered the block into a million pieces, more or less. Alas! there
was no trace in its debris of 'pay dirt,' as the western miner puts
it. While the dynamite expert was on the spot, we induced him to
shatter the anvil as well as the block of cement, and then the
workman, doubtless thinking the new earl was as insane as the old one
had been, shouldered his tools, and went back to his mine.
The earl reverted to his former opinion that the gold was concealed in
the park, while I held even more firmly to my own belief that the
fortune rested in the library.
'It is obvious,' I said to him, 'that if the treasure is buried
outside, someone must have dug the hole. A man so timorous and so
reticent as your uncle would allow no one to do this but himself.
Higgins maintained the other evening that all picks and spades were
safely locked up by himself each night in the tool-house. The mansion
itself was barricaded with such exceeding care that it would have been
difficult for your uncle to get outside even if he wished to do so.
Then such a man as your uncle is described to have been would
continually desire ocular demonstration that his savings were intact,
which would be practically impossible if the gold had found a grave in
the park. I propose now that we abandon violence and dynamite, and
proceed to an intellectual search of the library.'
'Very well,' replied the young earl, 'but as I have already searched
the library very thoroughly, your use of the word "intellectual",
Monsieur Valmont, is not in accord with your customary politeness.
However, I am with you. 'Tis for you to command, and me to obey.'
'Pardon me, my lord,' I said, 'I used the word "intellectual" in
contradistinction to the word "dynamite". It had no reference to your
former search. I merely propose that we now abandon the use of
chemical reaction, and employ the much greater force of mental
activity. Did you notice any writing on the margins of the newspapers
you examined?'
'No, I did not.'
'Is it possible that there may have been some communication on the
white border of a newspaper?'
'It is, of course, possible.'
'Then will you set yourself to the task of glancing over the margin of
every newspaper, piling them away in another room when your scrutiny
of each is complete? Do not destroy anything, but we must clear out
the library completely. I am interested in the accounts, and will
examine them.'
It was exasperatingly tedious work, but after several days my
assistant reported every margin scanned without result, while I had
collected each bill and memorandum, classifying them according to
date. I could not get rid of a suspicion that the contrary old beast
had written instructions for the finding of the treasure on the back
of some account, or on the fly-leaf of a book, and as I looked at the
thousands of volumes still left in the library, the prospect of such a
patient and minute search appalled me. But I remembered Edison's words
to the effect that if a thing exist, search, exhaustive enough, will
find it. From the mass of accounts I selected several; the rest I
placed in another room, alongside the heap of the earl's newspapers.
'Now,' said I to my helper, 'if it please you, we will have Higgins
in, as I wish some explanation of these accounts.'
'Perhaps I can assist you,' suggested his lordship drawing up a chair
opposite the table on which I had spread the statements. 'I have lived
here for six months, and know as much about things as Higgins does. He
is so difficult to stop when once he begins to talk. What is the first
account you wish further light upon?'
'To go back thirteen years I find that your uncle bought a second-hand
safe in Sheffield. Here is the bill. I consider it necessary to find
that safe.'
'Pray forgive me, Monsieur Valmont,' cried the young man, springing to
his feet and laughing; 'so heavy an article as a safe should not slip
readily from a man's memory, but it did from mine. The safe is empty,
and I gave no more thought to it.'
Saying this the earl went to one of the bookcases that stood against
the wall, pulled it round as if it were a door, books and all, and
displayed the front of an iron safe, the door of which he also drew
open, exhibiting the usual empty interior of such a receptacle.
'I came on this,' he said, 'when I took down all these volumes. It
appears that there was once a secret door leading from the library
into an outside room, which has long since disappeared; the walls are
very thick. My uncle doubtless caused this door to be taken off its
hinges, and the safe placed in the aperture, the rest of which he then
bricked up.'
'Quite so,' said I, endeavouring to conceal my disappointment. 'As
this strong box was bought second-hand and not made to order, I
suppose there can be no secret crannies in it?'
'It looks like a common or garden safe,' reported my assistant, 'but
we'll have it out if you say so.'
'Not just now,' I replied; 'we've had enough of dynamiting to make us
feel like housebreakers already.'
'I agree with you. What's the next item on the programme?'
'Your uncle's mania for buying things at second-hand was broken in
three instances so far as I have been able to learn from a scrutiny of
these accounts. About four years ago he purchased a new book from
Denny and Co., the well-known booksellers of the Strand. Denny and Co.
deal only in new books. Is there any comparatively new volume in the
library?'
'Not one.'
'Are you sure of that?'
'Oh, quite; I searched all the literature in the house. What is the
name of the volume he bought?'
'That I cannot decipher. The initial letter looks like "M", but the rest
is a mere wavy line. I see, however, that it cost twelve-and-sixpence,
while the cost of carriage by parcel post was sixpence, which shows it
weighed something under four pounds. This, with the price of the book,
induces me to think that it was a scientific work, printed on heavy
paper and illustrated.'
'I know nothing of it,' said the earl.
'The third account is for wallpaper; twenty-seven rolls of an
expensive wallpaper, and twenty-seven rolls of a cheap paper, the
latter being just half the price of the former. This wallpaper seems
to have been supplied by a tradesman in the station road in the
village of Chizelrigg.'
'There's your wallpaper,' cried the youth, waving his hand; 'he was
going to paper the whole house, Higgins told me, but got tired after
he had finished the library, which took him nearly a year to
accomplish, for he worked at it very intermittently, mixing the paste
in the boudoir, a pailful at a time as he needed it. It was a
scandalous thing to do, for underneath the paper is the most exquisite
oak panelling, very plain, but very rich in colour.'
I rose and examined the paper on the wall. It was dark brown, and
answered the description of the expensive paper on the bill.
'What became of the cheap paper?' I asked.
'I don't know.'
'I think,' said I, 'we are on the track of the mystery. I believe that
paper covers a sliding panel or concealed door.'
'It is very likely,' replied the earl. 'I intended to have the paper
off, but I had no money to pay a workman, and I am not so industrious
as was my uncle. What is your remaining account?'
'The last also pertains to paper, but comes from a firm in Budge Row,
London, E.C. He has had, it seems, a thousand sheets of it, and it
appears to have been frightfully expensive. This bill is also
illegible, but I take it a thousand sheets were supplied, although of
course it may have been a thousand quires, which would be a little
more reasonable for the price charged, or a thousand reams, which
would be exceedingly cheap.'
'I don't know anything about that. Let's turn on Higgins.'
Higgins knew nothing of this last order of paper either. The wallpaper
mystery he at once cleared up. Apparently the old earl had discovered
by experiment that the heavy, expensive wallpaper would not stick to
the glossy panelling, so he had purchased a cheaper paper, and had
pasted that on first. Higgins said he had gone all over the panelling
with a yellowish-white paper, and after that was dry, he pasted over
it the more expensive rolls.
'But,' I objected, 'the two papers were bought and delivered at the
same time; therefore, he could not have found by experiment that the
heavy paper would not stick.'
'I don't think there is much in that,' commented the earl; 'the heavy
paper may have been bought first, and found to be unsuitable, and then
the coarse, cheap paper bought afterwards. The bill merely shows that
the account was sent in on that date. Indeed, as the village of
Chizelrigg is but a few miles away, it would have been quite possible
for my uncle to have bought the heavy paper in the morning, tried it,
and in the afternoon sent for the commoner lot; but in any case, the
bill would not have been presented until months after the order, and
the two purchases were thus lumped together.'