WE DECIPHER THE PARCHMENT
OUR excitement over the discovery was unbounded. Old Mr. Staffurth’s
announcement seemed hardly possible. His hand trembled as he held the
paper whereon I had copied the precious document catalogued among the
Oblata Rolls, while I, bending over him, stood eager but speechless.
“See!” he cried. “The cipher is cunningly reversed, in order to make it
more complicated. The big threes written by the old Italian were drawn
as a silent indication of the correct solution of this document.
Besides, there is before and after the entry of the date of the document
two threes, one at each end—meaning first the third letter, and
secondly each three letters reversed.”
“Let’s decipher it at once—whatever it is!” I exclaimed, hastily
pulling up a chair to the table beside him and taking a sheet of blank
paper and pencil. Imagine for yourself the tension of my mind at that
critical moment. What might not be concealed behind that bewildering
array of letters? Was the secret of the whereabouts of the treasure
written there, or was it, after all, only some unimportant record having
no reference at all to the hidden loot?
The old man was staring at the document with a puzzled air, for it was
apparently not so easy to decipher as he had believed.
“Dictate it to me, and I will write,” I urged quickly, holding up my
pencil ready. The suspense was irritating. We both of us were impatient
to get at the truth.
Slowly, and not without a good deal of difficulty, Staffurth reversed
each three letters of the cipher, three by three, and then reading them
by aid of the alphabet I had compiled, gave down the beginning of the
document to me as follows—
SP HXWE HQOPHWRABEH LCWO SR MCWO AP WO
On thys twenty-first daye of Maye in ye
RSKBO CPL HXABHAOHX WOBO SR WO BCAUPO SR
foure and thirtieth yere of ye raigne of
SKB ESKNBAUPO JCLAO OJAZCFOHX YKOPO SR
our souvrigne Ladie Elizabeth Quene of
OPUJCPLO RRBCPIO CPL ABOJCPLO LOROPLOB SR WO
Englande Ffrance and Irelande Defender of ye
RRCAHX A FCBHXSJSMOQ LC EIXSBPS XCNO MCLO
Ffaith I Bartholomew da Schorno have made
HXWE EOIBOH BOISBL.
thys Secret Record.
Our excitement knew no bounds. It was, after all, a secret record, and
without doubt it referred to the treasure! It is always interesting work
to decipher an old document, but more especially so one that no man has
been able to read for ages. Imagine yourself for a moment in my place,
with a fortune attached to the revelation of that secret!
Old Mr. Staffurth’s voice trembled, as did his thin, white hands. As a
palæographist he had at times made some remarkable discoveries while
delving in the dusty parchment records of bygone ages, but surely none
had ever affected him like this. We were learning the place where a
fortune lay hidden.
For close on two hours we worked together incessantly, slowly obtaining
the right equivalents of the cipher, but very often making errors in
calculation with the puzzling threes. The writing was simple after all,
but at the same time difficult to decipher, requiring great care and
patience. At length, however, I sat with the whole of the secret
revealed before me, written down in plain English, surely one of the
most interesting documents among the thousands preserved in the national
archives.
The record, which we read and re-read a dozen times with breathless
interest, was as follows—
_ON THYS TWENTY-FIRST DAYE OF MAYE IN YE FOURE and thirtieth
yere of ye Raigne of our Souvrigne Ladie Elizabeth, Quene of
Englande Ffrance and Irelande, Defender of ye Ffaith, I
Bartholomew da Schorno have made thys secret Record._
_TO EIGHT of ye men who fought wyth me on ye Great Unicorne
against ye Spanysh galleon and who made covenant was ye place of
ye loote knowne. In all those men dyd I place my trust. One
Robert Dafte hath broken hys oath and hath reveled ye secret,
for he hath tolde before hys death unto hys wyfe ye place into
which we walled ye golde. Therefore it hath become necessarie in
tyme to remove ye treasure which we captured from ye Spanysh and
from ye Barbarians of Algiers unto a place of safetie from
thieves, from conspiratiors, and from ye enemies of oure Quene._
_THEREFORE be it known unto ye person who may rede thys my
Record that on thys daye above written the whole of what I
possess has been removed from ye priest’s hole in ye Manor of
Caldecott and concealed in a place more fytting and secure. The
knowledge of it now remains only wyth my trusted friends Clement
Wollerton and John Ffreeman, the two signatories to ye present
document. Be it knowne also therefore that ye secret covenant
playced in ye hand of Richard Knutton is now made by me null and
voide, although my testamentary disposition of ye golde jewels
and all other articles whych I Bartholomew da Schorno, noble of
Ferrara, Commendatore of the Order of San Stefano, have
treasured shall remain as I have before written; that is to saye
that should ye Knights of Saint Stephen not require funds ye
golde is to become ye sole and absolute property of ye youngest
childe of ye family of Clement Wollerton, of Stybbington, in ye
Countie of Huntyngedon, but without any parte or portion to go
to ye familie of Richard Knutton, ye last mentioned havyng
wickedly and maliciously conspyred wyth ye wyfe of ye saide
Robert Dafte to steale and take possession of ye treasure during
our absence on ye seas._
_AND THEREFORE be it known unto ye person who gains ye secret of
thys cipher that I wyth mine owne hand have written thys my
record for two purposes. In ye firste playce to make it plaine
unto all men that it is my ardent desire to assist ye worke of
ye release of Christians in slavery in Barberie, and secondlie
to reveale unto ye one who deciphers my record ye place where ye
golde wyll be found. Let hym rede and marke well._
_FOURE MILES from Stamforde towne on ye great roade into
Scotlande and to ye left hande, is Tyckencote Laund. Within thys
woode have we buried ye treasure three arms-lengths deepe, and
to recover it ye directions whych herewyth I give must be
followed closely. Enter ye woode by ye path leading through ye
fieldes at ye fourth mylestone from Stamford towne and passe ye
lyne of six oakes always facing Empinghame church until ye Three
Systers are found. Midway between ye three, at twenty-and-nyne
foot-paces from ye south, have we planted an oak sapling and
beneath it will be found hydden ye golde of ye Spanyards and ye
jewels of ye Corsairs._
(Here followed the roughly-executed plan which consisted of three
triangles at unequal distance from each other, and a crude sketch of the
tree beneath which the gold was hidden. Across the sketch was an arrow,
presumably showing the direction of the sunrise, and a second one with
the word “Empinghame” written at its barb.)
_LET HE WHO fyndeth thys my wealthe carrie out my written will,
taking unto hymselfe one of the chests of monie as hys
recompense. But should he not give up ye remainder in full unto
ye last descendant of ye Wollertons of Stybbington my curse
shall for ever reste upon hym. That what is herein written is
true, we who alone knowe ye secret of ye saide treasure and have
taken oure oathes to keepe it untyl the golde should be wanted
by ye Knightes of Saint Stephen have hereunto sett oure hands
and seale on ye daye and yere first above written._
CLEMENT WOLLERTON.
JOHN FFREEMAN.
BARTHOLOMEW DA SCHORNO.
The spot to which the treasure had been secretly removed from that
upstairs chamber in Caldecott Manor was now actually revealed to us! But
we entertained a horrible suspicion that Bennett and his friends were
equally in the possession of the secret. The suggestion that the
document sold by the dead man Knutton contained a key to the cipher was,
of course, now dismissed; but we were nevertheless filled with fear that
the quartette might, by some means or other, have solved the problem,
just as we had done.
Philip Reilly, although he had returned to his desk at the bank, had
spent his spare time down at Hammersmith, and had watched the movements
of the four men. He had once or twice told me that he believed some
fresh move was being made, and he had also discovered that the fourth
man, he who had charge of Dorothy on that fatal night at Kilburn—a
short, dark-bearded, thick-set fellow known as Martin—was in reality a
low-class solicitor named Martin Franklin, who rented a small back
office in the Minories and appeared to have very few clients.
Staffurth agreed with me that we should lose no time in obeying the
directions given in the document before us, therefore I drove into the
city before the banks closed, and showed Philip the secret revealed. On
reading it he became highly excited, as may be imagined, and, having
obtained two days’ leave of absence from his manager, we went out and
bought several useful implements, including a saw, three shovels,
pickaxes, etc. Then, having sent them to King’s Cross cloak-room to
await us, we drove home to Chelsea, where we informed Usher of the good
news, and found him ready and anxious to render us assistance.
Afterwards I went on to Dorothy and showed her the solution of the
cipher. She seemed, however, apprehensive of some evil befalling me.
That night, having purchased an Ordnance map in Fleet Street, the three
of us left London, travelling to the quiet, old-world town of Stamford,
and putting up at that old-fashioned hostelry the Stamford Hotel.
Perhaps you, my reader, know the quaint, sleepy old Lincolnshire town,
with its Gothic architecture, its Elizabethan houses, its many church
spires, and its noisy cobbles. Thirty years ago, before the railways
came, it was a commercial centre and a busy, prosperous place; but
nowadays its streets are deserted, its fine old churches seem to be
tumbling to decay, and only on market days does the typically English
town awaken from its lethargy. Very picturesque is its situation, lying
behind the broad, fertile meadows of the Welland, with Burghley
House—that magnificent palace immortalized by Tennyson—in its
immediate vicinity.
It was not, however, to enjoy the pleasant peace of Stamford town that
we had come there. We did not arrive until nearly ten o’clock at night,
and were, of course, compelled to leave our implements at the railway
station. To take them to the hotel might arouse suspicion. Therefore we
ate our supper in the coffee-room—cold roast beef and ale—retired soon
after, and arose early next day, after a night of sleepless impatience.
In the privacy of Reilly’s room we decided upon a plan of action. With
Usher I was to hire a trap and drive to Tickencote village, which, we
learnt, was three miles away, past Casterton, on the Great North Road,
and then dismiss the conveyance, while Reilly was to go to the station,
obtain the tools, and follow us in a separate trap hired from the
George. At Tickencote village we were to meet and go on together to the
place indicated in the old Italian’s record.
Immediately after breakfast we parted company and Reilly went out, after
which we ordered a dog-cart and drove along the straight, broad highway,
with its quantity of telegraph lines at the side, the great road which
runs from London to York. The autumn morning was fresh, even a trifle
chilly, but the season was a late one, and the leaves had not yet
fallen, although the frosts had already turned them to their bright red
and golden tints. Beyond Great Casterton Church we crossed a bridge at
the end of the village, and a square tower among the trees in the
distance was pointed out by our driver as Tickencote Church. Arrived at
the village, which was just off the high road, we entered the inn.
Over a glass of ale we learnt several things we wished to know, namely,
that there was Tickencote Park and Tickencote Laund. The park commenced
at the junction of the high road with the short road leading up to the
village, while the Laund lay back from the road behind some fields
nearly a mile farther on. I learnt this by chatting with the landlady
about fox-hunting. There were always foxes in Tickencote Laund, she
informed me, and hounds were sure to have sport whenever they drew it.
While there it suddenly occurred to me that if Philip arrived with a
collection of tools our visit would at once arouse the curiosity of the
villagers. Therefore I whispered to Usher and we left the place,
eventually meeting our friend on the high road a quarter of a mile away.
He handed out the tools from the trap, then, jumping down, told the man
to return for him at four to Tickencote village.
In order not to attract any attention we walked on, leaving Reilly to
carry the picks and shovels at a short distance behind. Even there we
were not safe, for we knew not whether our enemies had secretly watched
our departure from London. Dorothy was always impressing upon me her
suspicion that the men kept continual observation on me, while Usher
knew Bennett well enough to be certain that he would not give up the
chance of a fortune without some desperate effort.
Nevertheless, keeping a watchful eye everywhere, we walked along the
wide muddy high road, impatient to arrive at our goal, and eager to dig
at the spot indicated by the roughly-drawn plan upon that faded
parchment.