It was about eleven the next morning when Merrick received the following
note, brought by a boatman:--
"DEAR MERRICK,--Am I commissioned? If not, don't trouble, but if
I am, be just outside Lostella, at the turning before you come to
the Smack Inn, at two o'clock. Bring with you a light cart, a
policeman--or two perhaps will be better--and a man with a spade.
There will probably be a little cabbage-digging. Are you fond of
the sport?--Yours, MARTIN HEWITT.
"P.S.--_Keep all your men aboard_; bring the spade artist from the
town."
Merrick was off in a boat at once. His principals had replied to his
telegram after Hewitt's departure the day before, giving him a free hand
to do whatever seemed best. With some little difficulty he got the
policemen, and with none at all he got a light cart and a jobbing man
with a spade. Together they drove off to the meeting-place.
It was before the time, but Martin Hewitt was there, waiting. "You're
quick," he said, "but the sooner the better. I gave you the earliest
appointment I thought you could keep, considering what you had to do."
"Have you got the stuff, then?" Merrick asked anxiously.
"No, not exactly yet. But I've got this," and Hewitt held up the point
of his walking-stick. Protruding half an inch or so from it was the
sharp end of a small gimlet, and in the groove thereof was a little
white wood, such as commonly remains after a gimlet has been used.
"Why, what's that?"
"Never mind. Let us move along--I'll walk. I think we're about at the
end of the job--it's been a fairly lucky one, and quite simple. But I'll
explain after."
Just beyond the Smack Inn, Hewitt halted the cart, and all got down.
They looped the horse's reins round a hedge-stake and proceeded the
small remaining distance on foot, with the policemen behind, to avoid a
premature scare. They turned up a lane behind a few small and rather
dirty cottages facing the sea, each with its patch of kitchen garden
behind. Hewitt led the way to the second garden, pushed open the small
wicket gate and walked boldly in, followed by the others.
Cabbages covered most of the patch, and seemed pretty healthy in their
situation, with the exception of half a dozen--singularly enough, all
together in a group. These were drooping, yellow, and wilted, and
towards these Hewitt straightway walked. "Dig up those wilted cabbages,"
he said to the jobbing man. "They're really useless now. You'll probably
find something else six inches down or so."
The man struck his spade into the soft earth, wherein it stopped
suddenly with a thud. But at this moment a gaunt, slatternly woman, with
a black eye, a handkerchief over her head, and her skirt pinned up in
front, observing the invasion from the back door of the cottage, rushed
out like a maniac and attacked the party valiantly with a broom. She
upset the jobbing man over his spade, knocked off one policeman's
helmet, lunged into the other's face with her broom, and was making her
second attempt to hit Hewitt (who had dodged), when Merrick caught her
firmly by the elbows from behind, pressed them together, and held her.
She screamed, and people came from other cottages and looked on. "Peter!
Peter!" the woman screamed, "come 'ee, come'ee here! Davey! They're
come!"
A grimy child came to the cottage door, and seeing the woman thus held,
and strangers in the garden, set up a piteous howl. Meantime the digger
had uncovered two wooden boxes, each eighteen inches long or so, bound
with hoop-iron and sealed. One had been torn partly open at the top, and
the broken wood roughly replaced. When this was lifted, bars of yellow
metal were visible within.
The woman still screamed vehemently, and struggled. The grimy child
retreated, and then there appeared at the door, staggering hazily and
rubbing his eyes, a shaggy, unkempt man, in shirt and trousers. He
looked stupidly at the scene before him, and his jaw dropped.
"Take that man," cried Hewitt. "He's one!" And the policeman promptly
took him, so that he had handcuffs on his wrists before he had collected
his faculties sufficiently to begin swearing.
Hewitt and the other policeman entered the cottage. In the lower two
rooms there was nobody. They climbed the few narrow stairs, and in the
front room above they found another man, younger, and fast asleep. "He's
the other," said Hewitt. "Take _him_." And this one was handcuffed
before he woke.
Then the recovered gold was put into the cart, and with the help of the
village constable, who brought his own handcuffs for the benefit and
adornment of the lady with the broom, such a procession marched out of
Lostella as had never been dreamed of by the oldest inhabitant in his
worst nightmare, nor recorded in the whole history of Cornwall.
"Now," said Hewitt, turning to Merrick, "we must have that fellow of
yours--what's his name--Gullen, isn't it? The one that went down to
measure the hole in the ship. You've kept him aboard, of course?"
"What, Gullen?" exclaimed Merrick. "Gullen? Well, as a matter of fact he
went ashore last night and hasn't come back. But you don't mean to
say----"
"I _do_," replied Hewitt. "And now you've lost him."