There was a little heap of charred paper on the brown bed of
pine-needles. Marquis was about to take up this charred paper when his
eye caught something thrust in between the two stones. It was a handful
of torn bits of paper.
Marquis got them out and laid them on the top of the flat stones under
his light.
“Ah,” he said, “Madame Barras, while she smoked, got rid of some money.”
“The package of gold certificates!” I cried. “She has burned them?”
“No,” he replied, “Madame Barras has favored your Treasury in her
destructive process. These are five-pound notes, of the Bank of
England.”