FORESTALLED
MERE words fail to express my chagrin. Job Seal could perhaps have
uttered remarks sufficiently pointed and appropriate, but for myself I
could only reflect that this unknown man who called himself Mr. Purvis,
of London, had forestalled me.
The parchment he had purchased of this drink-sodden old yokel might, for
aught I knew, give a clue to the spot of which I was in search. We had
more than a thousand golden guineas locked up safely in the bank in
London, but both Seal, Mr. Staffurth, and myself felt certain that the
great bulk of the treasure still remained undiscovered.
But what was the explanation of these inquiries by the mysterious
Purvis? He evidently knew that the family of Knutton had been appointed
hereditary guardians of the Italian’s hoard, and he, like myself, was
investigating the possibility of securing it.
I asked the old labourer, Ben Knutton, to describe the parchment he had
sold, but owing to the landlady’s sharp and well-meant remonstrance he
was not communicative.
“It was all stained and faded so that you could hardly see there was any
writin’ on it at all,” he said vaguely.
“But there was a seal on it. What was it like?”
“Oh, it was a thick, round bit o’ wax what had been put on to a narrow
piece of parchment and threaded through at the bottom so that it hung
down.”
“Did you ever notice the device on the seal?” I inquired eagerly.
“There was a lion, or summat—it were very much like what’s on the stone
in front o’ Caldecott Manor.”
That decided me. The document the foolish old simpleton had sold for
half a sovereign was the one that had been in his family since the days
of Queen Elizabeth, and in all probability gave some clue, if a guarded
one, to the secret.
“This stranger knew all about the Knuttons?” I hazarded.
“Lor’ bless you yes. He knew more about my family than I do myself. Been
studying ’em, he said.”
I smiled within myself. Whoever this man Purvis was he was certainly no
fool.
“Well,” observed the landlady, addressing me, “my own opinion is, sir,
that Ben has made a very great mistake in selling the paper to a
stranger. He don’t know what it might not be worth.”
“I quite agree,” I said. “The thing should have been examined first.”
“Oh,” said the old man, “Mr. Beresford, who was the parson before Mr.
Pocock, borrowed it from my brother Dick and kept it a long time, but
couldn’t make head nor tail of the thing. He said it was written in some
kind of secret writing.”
“In cipher, perhaps,” I remarked. And it then occurred to me what Mr.
Staffurth had told me, that at the end of the sixteenth century a great
many private documents were so written that only those in possession of
a key could decipher them. It might be so in the case of the one in
question.
“How big was it?” I inquired.
“Oh, when it wor spread out, it measured about a foot square. It folded
up, and there was some scribbling on the back. I remember that my
father, just afore he died, called Dick to him and told him to look in
the bottom of the old chest—the one I’ve got at home now. He did so,
and brought the faded old thing out. I’d never seen it before, but my
father told Dick to keep it all his life, and give it to his eldest son.
He made Dick promise that.”
“And before your brother Dick died he carried out his father’s wish?”
“Yes, sir. Then young Dick gave it to me. I thought half a sovereign for
it was a good bargain.”
“It all depends upon what it contained. It might have been of great
importance to your family,” I said; “it might have had to do with the
fortune which it is supposed to be yours by right.”
“Ah, sir!” the landlady exclaimed, smiling. “We’ve heard a lot about
that great fortune of the Knuttons. I used to hear all about it when I
was a girl, how that if they had their own they’d be as rich as the
Marquis of Exeter. It’s an old story in Rockingham.”
“It was foolish in the extreme to sell a document of the contents of
which he was ignorant,” I declared. “But he’s parted with it, and it’s
gone, so, as far as I can see, nothing can be done.”
“Where’s the half-sovereign?” asked the landlady sharply of the old
fellow.
“Spent it.”
“Yes, on drink,” she said. “You know very well you treated all your
friends out of it, both here and at the other inns, and that you haven’t
been sober these two days till to-night. If you didn’t have so much
beer, Ben Knutton, it would be better for you, and for us too, I can
tell you that.”
“That’s enough, missus,” the old man said, “you’re always grumbling, you
are.”
I left the old yokel sitting on a bench over a big mug of beer and
chatted with the landlady. In the course of conversation I asked if she
knew any one of the name of Woollerton, but she was unaware of any
person bearing that cognomen. Then in the summer twilight I strolled
back to my headquarters in Caldecott, much puzzled over the curious
manner in which I had been checkmated by this mysterious Purvis.
As far as it went my visit there had been satisfactory, because I had
established the fact that there was truth in the story of Bartholomew da
Schorno’s property at Caldecott, and that in the family of Knutton there
had been, until two days ago, a document similar in form to that I had
found on board the _Seahorse_. We had in the bank tangible proof that
the owner of the _Seahorse_ was a man of wealth; therefore I could not
help believing that there was treasure stored somewhere ashore. Besides,
the local legend of the fortune of the Knuttons added greatly to its
possibility.
I smoked with a couple of farmers that evening, and learnt what I could
from them. It was not much, only that a few years ago some one had taken
the Manor House with an idea of turning it into a private lunatic
asylum.
“Did it answer?” I asked of one.
“No. They had only three gentlemen, so I suppose it didn’t pay.”
Neither of the men knew anything regarding the facts I desired to prove.
They were not natives of the place, one being from Orton, in
Huntingdonshire, and the other from Islip, near Thrapston. So they were
not versed in the legendary lore of the place.
I ate my plain supper alone, and went to bed when the house closed at
ten. But betimes I was up, and before noon next day was sitting in Mr.
Staffurth’s little back study.
He had before him a big pile of valuable manuscripts which he was
deciphering and investigating, part of his profession being to catalogue
and value manuscripts for certain well-known dealers and auctioneers.
This is a profession in itself, and requires the most erudite knowledge
of the mediaeval literature of Europe, as well as an acquaintance with
the rarity of any particular manuscript. Piled on the table was a batch
just sent from one of the West-end firms who employed him. Most of the
bindings were the original ones—oaken boards covered with leather, some
were of purple velvet mostly faded, while the manuscripts themselves
were of a varied character, Latin Bibles of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, an exquisite fifteenth century _Horæ_ with splendid
illuminations and miniatures, a rare copy of what is known as _La Bible
de Herman_, a fine Gothic copy of Du Guesclin, with miniatures in
_camaïeu gris_ heightened with gold, a tenth century Hieronymus, and a
dozen other smaller manuscripts, the value of none being below fifty
pounds apiece.
“Ah!” cried the old gentleman, pushing his spectacles to his forehead as
I entered, “I’m very glad to see you, doctor,” and he moved aside a
wonderfully illuminated _Horæ_ that he had been examining, counting the
number of leaves, the number of lines to a column, the number of
miniatures, and determining its date and where it was written.
“So you’ve been down to Caldecott. Well, what did you discover?”
I took the cigarette he offered and, flinging myself in the old
arm-chair, related all that had transpired and all that I had
discovered.
As I did so he drew towards him the old vellum volume that I had
discovered on board the _Seahorse_—the book written by Bartholomew da
Schorno—and opened it at the place where he had put in a slip of paper
as mark.
“You certainly have not been idle,” he remarked. “Neither have I. To be
brief, doctor, I have, after spending the whole of yesterday upon this
manuscript, at last discovered the secret referred to in the beginning.”
“You have!” I gasped excitedly. “What is it? The secret of the
treasure?”
“No, not exactly that,” was his answer, calm and slow as befitted an
expert in such a dry-as-dust subject as faded parchments. “But there is
given here the key to a certain cipher which may assist us in a very
great degree. There is, or rather was, in the possession of Richard
Knutton and his family a certain document written in cipher explaining
how and where the Italian had disposed of his secret hoard. It was
written in cryptic writing in order that the Knuttons themselves,
although guardians of the secret, should not be able to seize the
treasure. Only by means of this book can the document entrusted to them
by old Bartholomew be deciphered. Here is a full description of it. Let
me read in English what it says:—
I HAVE THIS DAY, THE FOURTH OF MAY, 1590, given into the hands
of my trusted lieutenant, Richard Knutton, a parchment wherein
is explained the hiding-place of all I possess, including all
that I took from the Spanish galleon two years ago. I have
presented unto this same Richard Knutton the Manor Farm of
Caldecott as a free gift to him and to his heirs for ever, while
he has sworn before God to hand down the sealed parchment to his
eldest son, and so on until the gold shall be wanted for the
treasury of the noble Knights of St. Stephen. The document is in
cipher that no man can read, but hereunto I attach a key to it
by which the secret of the treasure-house may at the proper time
be revealed and its contents handed over, either to the Knights
at Pisa or to the youngest representative of the house of
Wollerton, as I have already willed.
“Then,” remarked the old expert, “there follows an alphabet to which he
has fortunately placed the cipher equivalent, and by means of which we
should be enabled to make out the document in the hands of the
Knuttons.”
“Mr. Staffurth,” I said gravely, interrupting him, “I much regret to
tell you that we have been forestalled.”
“Forestalled! How?” he cried, starting and turning to look at me full in
the face.
I explained my meeting with the besotted Ben Knutton of Rockingham, and
of how, only two days ago, he had sold for half a sovereign the actual
document we wanted, and had been drunk for a couple of days afterwards.
“What bad luck!” exclaimed the old man. “What infernal luck! If we had
got hold of that the secret would have been ours within an hour or two.
But as the thing has passed into other hands—well, as far as I can see
at present, we must remain utterly in the dark.”
“Yes. But there’s a great mystery surrounding the identity of the person
who has so cleverly forestalled us,” I said. “Who can he be? And how can
he be aware of the existence of the treasure?”
The old man shook his head.
“My dear doctor,” he said, “the whole affair is a very romantic and
mysterious one. It certainly increases our difficulties a hundredfold,
now that the last of the Knuttons has sold the parchment that has been
in his family for three centuries or so. Still, we have at least one
satisfaction, that of knowing that the person into whose hands it has
passed can make nothing out of it without the key contained here.” And
he smiled with evident satisfaction.
“We must discover the identity of this man who calls himself Purvis,” I
said firmly. “Perhaps we can obtain it from him.”
“We must—by fair means or foul,” remarked Mr. Staffurth calmly, taking
off his spectacles and wiping them carefully. “I agree with you
entirely. We _must_ recover possession of that parchment.”