THE GUARDIAN OF THE SECRET
I HAD some tea at the Plough, with fresh butter and cream which, after
those weeks on board the _Thrush_, were delicious.
Much gratified that I had at last discovered the house of the noble
freebooter, I set to work to make inquiries regarding the family of
Knutton, the hereditary guardians of the treasure, and of the
descendants of Clement Wollerton, who, it appeared, had been
Bartholomew’s lieutenant, and whose skeleton I had most probably seen on
board the _Seahorse_.
The innkeeper’s sister was still communicative, so I asked her if she
knew any one of either name in the village.
“No, sir, I don’t know any one of such name in Caldecott,” she answered,
after reflecting a few moments. “There’s old Ben Knutton, who lives in
Rockingham.”
“What kind of a man is he?”
“Well, his character’s not of the best,” she answered; “he’s a labouring
man, but he’s a lazy, good-for-nothing old fellow, who frequents every
inn in the district.”
“Married?”
“No, a widower. He lives in a cottage close to the Sonde Arms, in the
main street of Rockingham.”
The description she gave was certainly not that of the hereditary
guardian of the Italian noble’s treasure. Nevertheless, as he was the
only person of that name in the district, I decided to walk back past
the station and on to Rockingham, a distance of about a mile, and make
his acquaintance.
It was a lovely summer’s evening, and the walk through the cornfields
was delightful, although my head was filled with the strange, old-world
romance which within the past few weeks had been revealed to me. The
main point which occupied my attention was whether the treasure was
still hidden—or had it ever been hidden?—in that tumble-down old Manor
House. In order to make secret investigation it would be necessary to
rent the place and carefully search every hole and corner. Some of those
panelled, low-ceilinged rooms above were, to me, attractive. A good deal
might be hidden there, or in the roof.
After some inquiries I found the man Knutton’s cottage, small,
poorly-furnished, close-smelling, and not over clean. A slatternly girl
of fourteen called “Uncle! You’re wanted.” And a gruff voice responded
from the upstairs room. He came heavily down the narrow, uncarpeted
stairs, a rough-looking type of agricultural labourer, in drab moleskin.
His age was about sixty-five, with beery face, grey eyes,
round-shouldered, and wearing his trousers tied beneath the knee, and
boots that had never known blacking.
“Your name’s Ben Knutton, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. That’s my name.”
“Well, Mr. Knutton,” I said, “I want to have a few minutes’ chat with
you alone.”
I noticed that he looked somewhat aghast. Afterwards I learnt that he
was an expert poacher, and he probably believed me to be a detective.
Through a decade or so he had had a good deal of the Marquis of Exeter’s
and Mr. Watson’s game, and the major part of it had found its way by an
irregular route to Northampton market.
He first went very red, then white, his hand trembled, and he had to
steady himself for a moment.
“Just go out for a minute or two, Annie,” he said to his niece. “I want
to speak to this gentleman. Take a seat, sir.” He pulled forward one of
the rush-bottomed chairs from beside the rickety old bureau.
“Don’t think, Mr. Knutton, that I’ve come here with any hostile intent,”
I said, in order to reassure him. “I’ve come to Rockingham expressly to
ask you one or two questions regarding your family. I am making some
investigations about the Knuttons, and perhaps you can assist me. Have
you any brothers or sisters living?”
“No, sir, I haven’t. My brother Dick died this ten years ago.”
Dick! Then that man’s name was Richard Knutton!
“Did he leave any sons?” I inquired.
“Only one—young Dick. He enlisted, and was killed in Afghanistan.”
“He enlisted after his father’s death?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, more at his ease.
“Your family is a very old one in this neighbourhood, isn’t it?”
“One o’ the oldest, they says. The Knuttons lived at the Manor Farm up
at Caldecott for more’n a hundred years. But we’ve come down in the
world since then.”
“The Manor Farm is the one attached to the Manor of Caldecott, eh?”
“It’s close to Caldecott Manor House. There’s fifteen hundred acres o’
land with it. And nowadays, sir, I often works on that self-same land
for Mr. Banks, what owns it now.”
“Are you the oldest of your family?”
“No, sir, Dick was. I was the second. Dick was the lucky ’un, and was
old Mr. Banks’ foreman for years; that was in the present Mr. Banks’
father’s time, when farmin’ was a lot better than what it is now. Lor’,
sir, in this district three-quarters of the farms scarcely pay their
rents. All the landlords ought to be generous like the Duke o’ Bedford;
but they ain’t, and we labourers have to suffer.”
“More work and less beer,” I remarked, with a laugh.
“Well, sir, when you mention beer, I’d be pleased to drink a pint at
your expense.” A remark which showed the rustic cadger.
“And so you shall when we’ve finished our talk,” I said. “Tell me, have
you ever heard or known of any person called Wollerton?”
“Wollerton!” he repeated. “Why, now that I remember, that’s the very
question the gentleman asked me the day before yesterday.”
“What gentleman?” I gasped.
“A gentleman I met in the Sonde Arms. He said he knew me, but I didn’t
remember ever having set eyes on him before. He treated me and then
asked me a whole lot of questions, some of ’em very similar to what
you’ve asked me. I don’t understand what he or you—beggin’ your pardon,
sir—are driving’ at.”
“But this person who was so inquisitive? What kind of man was he?”
“A middle-aged gentleman from London. He stayed the night at the Sonde
Arms, and left in the morning. He was a tall, fair man, and funnily
enough seemed to know a lot about my relations.”
“You don’t know his name?”
“No, he didn’t tell me.”
This fact was certainly strange. Was it possible that some other person
was in possession of the secret of the hoard and had forestalled me in
making inquiries?
This beery labourer seemed, without doubt, a descendant of the Richard
Knutton whose signature was written upon the faded parchment. As
guardians of the treasure, the Knuttons had apparently been given the
Manor Farm in order to be constantly near the spot where the spoils of
war were concealed. Their residence at the farm through generations
appeared to show that instructions had passed from father to son, and
had, until seventy years ago, been strictly observed. Then the family
had fallen upon evil times, and the descendants had degenerated into
labourers, the youngest enlisting as a private soldier.
“I suppose you told this gentleman you met all about your family, just
as you’ve told me—eh?”
“Pretty well the same story.”
“What else did he ask you?”
“Well, he wanted to know one or two rather queer things about my family
history—things I’d never heard nothing about. My father always did used
to say that we were entitled to a big fortune, and he’d heard it from
his father. Only that fortune ain’t come, and I don’t suppose it ever
will. But both you gentlemen coming to me and asking the same questions
has aroused my curiosity.”
“Ah!” I said. “Fortunes that are talked of in families are usually
phantom ones. Why, there’s scarcely a family in England who don’t
believe that they’ve been done out of their rightful inheritance.”
“I know that, sir. I could name twenty people in Rockingham who believe
themselves the rightful heirs to property. That’s why I never believed
the story about our fortune. My poor old father had to go on the parish
before he died—a shilling a week and two loaves. So the idea of the
fortune didn’t benefit him much.”
“But what was the story which your father told you?” I inquired.
“Oh, it was quite a romance. Half the people in Rockingham know about
it, because when the old man used to get a drop o’ beer he always
boasted of the great wealth that would be his some day.”
“But what was the story? Tell it to me as nearly as you can remember
it.”
“Well, he used to say that long ago—hundreds of years, I think—the
Knuttons were rich, but one son turned an adventurer, and accumulated a
big treasure of gold and silver. This he hid away very carefully,
because in those times there was no banks and places like there is now;
but he left the secret in the hands of the head of the family, to be
handed down for a certain number of years.”
“Then has it come down to you?” I asked quickly.
“No, sir, I only wish it had,” he laughed. Although a hard drinker, as I
could tell from his puffed cheeks and unsteady hand, I was fortunate in
finding him on that occasion quite sober.
“Perhaps the term of years ended and the fortune was realized,” I
suggested, for to me it seemed more than probable that the secret of the
hiding-place had been discovered long ago.
“No, sir, I think not,” was the old man’s prompt reply. “If it had, we
should have all been in a better position. No, I believe the whole thing
is a fable, as every one has declared it to be. Why here, in Rockingham,
they used to call my father ‘Secret Sammy,’ because when he was drunk he
always spoke mysteriously of what he called ‘The Secret.’”
“Have you any idea of the reason your family left the Manor Farm?”
“Owing to several bad seasons on top of each other. They were ruined,
like hundreds of others. I’ve heard say that the last of the Knuttons
who had the place used very often to go up to London by the coach, and
he was fond of gambling. That was what really ruined him.”
“Do you know anything about the Manor House—who lived there when you
were a boy?”
“Why that’s one of the questions the stranger asked me in the Sonde
Arms,” he exclaimed.
Very curious certainly, I thought. Who could possibly be aware of the
secret given up by the sea except myself, Mr. Staffurth, and Job Seal?
“And you told him, I suppose?”
“I told him that old Squire Blacker lived there with his wife and two
daughters from my early recollection. They all died, except the elder
daughter, who didn’t marry, and lived there for over twenty years, an
old maid. When she died the place was bought by a Jew living in Ireland,
and there’s been lots o’ tenants since. They never stay long because o’
the damp and the rats. I worked there seven years ago, helpin’ to do a
drain, and the rats were something awful. I never saw such monsters in
all my life. Young Jack Sharpe’s terrier killed nearly a couple of
hundred of ’em in one day. The stackyard is so close, you see.”
“As far as you know, your family has never had any connection with the
Manor itself?” I asked.
“I never heard it,” he replied. “We were at the Manor Farm for
generations, as I’ve told you—but never at the Manor House.”
“And you don’t believe the story about the fortune awaiting you
somewhere?”
“Well, sir, I wish I could believe it,” was the old man’s answer. “We’ve
been awaiting for it long enough, ain’t we?”
I laughed, as though I shared his view with regard to the legend. At
that juncture it was not my intention to tell him the object of my
inquiries, and when he pressed me I turned the conversation into a
different channel.
As I had promised, I went with him across to the Sonde Arms and regaled
him with beer. Then when he saw the tangible reward for his
communicativeness he endeavoured to assist me further.
“I say, missus, what was the name o’ that there gentleman who stayed
’ere the night afore last? You know—the gentleman who talked such a lot
to me in yon little parlour?”
“Oh, he gave his name as Purvis—Charles Purvis, of London, is what he
wrote in the book,” answered the landlady. “But I think you were a fool,
Ben—a big fool. I didn’t like that man at all. He wanted to know too
much about everybody’s business.”
“Yes, he was a bit curious like,” and the old man glanced meaningly at
me. “But why was I a fool, missus?”
“Why to sell him that old bit of parchment. If nobody could make it out
in Rockingham, there were lots of people up in London who could have
read it. Perhaps it has to do with your fortune—you don’t know.”
“What!” I cried, starting to my feet; “did you sell the stranger a
parchment? What kind was it?”
“It looked like a deed, or something of the sort,” explained the
landlady, “and it’s been in Ben’s family for years and years, they say.”
“Young Dick gave it to me before ’e went a soldierin’. His father had
given it to him, telling him to be sure and not part with it. So he gave
it to me for fear he might lose it. It had a yellow seal a-hanging to
it, and a whole lot o’ scrawly signatures. I showed it to lots of
people, but nobody could make head nor tail of it.”
“And you sold it—the night before last?” I cried, in utter dismay.
“What was the good o’ keepin’ it? The stranger offered me half a
sovereign for it, and I wasn’t the one to refuse that for a bit o’ dirty
old parchment what nobody could read.”