“When old man Eversleigh died,” he resumed, “the income of the fortune
was divided equally among his sons. You know what the others did with
their shares: palaces in New York and London and Paris, chateaux on
the Breton Coast, deer and grouse moors in Scotland, steam yachts and
all the rest of it, the same as they have kept it up ever since. At
first Vortigern Eversleigh went in for all that sort of thing harder
than any one of his brothers. But when his wife died, more than forty
years ago, he stopped all that at once. He sold everything else,
bought this place, put the wall round it and built that infinity of
structures inside. You’ve seen the pinnacles and roofs of them, and
that’s all anybody I ever talked to has ever seen of them since they
were finished about five years after his wife’s death. You’ve seen
the two gate-houses and you know each is big even for a millionaire’s
mansion. You can judge of the size and extent of the complication of
buildings that make up the castle or mansion-house or whatever you
choose to call it. There Vortigern Eversleigh lived. Not once did he
ever leave it that I can learn of. There he died. Since his death, full
twenty years ago, his share of the Eversleigh income has been paid
to his heir. No one has ever seen that heir. From what I’ll tell you
presently you’ll see as I have that the heir is probably not a woman.
But nobody knows anything about him, he has never been outside these
miles of wall. Yet not one of the greedy, selfish Eversleigh grandsons
and grand-daughters, and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, has ever
objected to the payment to that heir of the full entire portion of
Vortigern Eversleigh, and that portion has been two hundred thousand
dollars a month, paid in gold on the first banking day of each month.
I found that out for sure, for there have been disputes about the
division of Wulfstan Eversleigh’s share and of Cedric Eversleigh’s
share and I made certain from the papers in the suits. All that money,
or the value of it, has been either reinvested or spent inside that
park wall. Not much has been reinvested. I got on the track of the
heir’s purchases. He buys musical instruments any quantity and at
any price. Those were the first things I made sure of. And artists’
materials, paints, brushes, canvas, tools, woods, clay, marble, tons
of clay and great blocks of superfine-grained marble. He’s no magpie
collecting expensive trash for a whim; he knows what he wants and why;
he has taste. He buys horses and saddlery and carriages, furniture and
carpets and tapestries, pictures, all landscapes, never any figure
pictures, he buys photographs of pictures by the ten thousand, and he
buys fine porcelains, rare vases, table silver, ornaments of Venetian
glass, silver and gold filigree, jewelry, watches, chains, gems,
pearls, rubies, emeralds and--diamonds; diamonds!”
Thwaite’s voice shook with excitement, though he kept it soft and even.
“Oh, I did two years investigating,” he went on, “I know. People
blabbed. But not any of the servants or grooms or gardeners. Not a
word could I get, at first or second or third hand, from them or any
of their relatives or friends. They keep dumb. They know which side
their bread is buttered on. But some of the discharged tradesmen’s
assistants told all I wanted to know and I got it straight, though not
direct. No one from outside ever gets into that place beyond the big
paved courtyards of the gate-houses. Every bit of supplies for all that
regiment of servants goes into the brownstone gate-house. The outer
gates open and the wagon or whatever it is drives under the archway.
There it halts. The outer gates shut and the inner gates open. It
drives into the courtyard. Then the Major-domo (I suppose that wouldn’t
be too big a name for him) makes his selections. The inner gates of the
other gateway open and the wagon drives under the archway and halts.
The inner gates close fast and the outer gates open. That’s the way
with every wagon and only one enters at a time. Everything is carried
through the gate-house to the smaller inner courtyard and loaded on the
wagons of the estate to be driven up to the mansion.
“Everything like furniture, for instance, comes into the courtyard
of the green-stone gate-house. There a sort of auditor verifies the
inventory and receipts for the goods before two witnesses from the
dealers and two for the estate. The consignment may be kept a day or
a month; it may be returned intact or kept entire; any difference is
settled for at once upon return of what is rejected. So with jewelry.
I had luck. I found out for certain that more than a million dollars
worth of diamonds alone have gone into this place in the last ten years
and stayed there.”
Thwaite paused dramatically. I never said a word and we sat there in
the rear seat of that stationary auto, the leather creaking as we
breathed, Rivvin sucking at his pipe, and the leaves dripping above us;
not another sound.
“It’s all in there,” Thwaite began again. “The biggest stack of loot in
North America. And this is going to be the biggest and most successful
burglary ever perpetrated on this continent. And no one will ever be
convicted for it or so much as suspected of it. Mark my words.”
“I do,” I broke in, “and I don’t feel a bit better than when we
started. You promised to explain and you said I’d be as eager and
confident as you and Rivvin. I acknowledge the bait, admitting all
you say is true, and it doesn’t seem likely. But do you suppose any
recluse millionaire eccentric is going to live unguarded? If he is
careless himself his household are the reverse. By what you tell of
the gate-houses there are precautions enough. Diamonds are tempting if
you like, but so is the bullion in the mint. By your account all this
accumulation of treasure you imagine is as safe where it is as the gold
reserve in the United States Treasury. You scare me, you don’t reassure
me.”
“Keep your head,” Thwaite interrupted. “I’m no fool. I’ve spent years
on this scheme. After I was sure of the prize I made sure of the means.
There are precautions a-many, but not enough. How simple to put a
watchman’s cottage every hundred yards on the other side of the road
across from the wall? They haven’t done it. How simple to light the
road and the outside of the wall? They haven’t done that. Nor have they
thought of any one of the twenty other simple outside precautions.
The park’s big enough to be lonely. And outside the wall is all dark,
lonely road and unfenced, empty woods like this. They’re overconfident.
They think their wall and their gate-houses are enough. And they are
not. They think their outside precautions are perfect. They are not. I
know. I’ve been over that wall ten times, twenty times, fifty times.
I’ve risked it and I have risked man-traps and spring guns and alarm
wires. There aren’t any. There isn’t any night patrol, nor any regular
day patrol, only casual gardeners and such. I know. I made sure of it
by crawling all over the place on my belly like an Iroquois Indian in
one of Cooper’s novels. They are so confident of the potency of their
wall that they haven’t so much as a watch dog, nor any dog of any
kind.”