It was that same week, I believe, that I received two other unexpected
visitors. They came together. One of them was the Superintendent of
Coins at the British Museum; the other was the well-known antiquary and
great authority upon the Anglo-Saxon coinage, Sir Theophilus Wraxton.
"Mr. Tait," the superintendent began, not without some touch of natural
shamefacedness in his voice and manner, "I have reason to believe that I
may possibly have been mistaken in my positive identification of the
coin you showed me that day at the Museum as our own specimen of the
gold Wulfric. If I _was_ mistaken, then I have unintentionally done you
a most grievous wrong; and for that wrong, should my suspicions turn out
ill-founded, I shall owe you the deepest and most heartfelt apologies.
But the only reparation I can possibly make you is the one I am doing
to-day by bringing here my friend Sir Theophilus Wraxton. He has a
communication of some importance to make to you; and if he is right, I
can only beg your pardon most humbly for the error I have committed in
what I believed to be the discharge of my duties."
"Sir," I answered, "I saw at the time you were the victim of a mistake,
as I was the victim of a most unfortunate concurrence of circumstances;
and I bear you no grudge whatsoever for the part you bore in subjecting
me to what is really in itself a most unjust and unfounded suspicion.
You only did what you believed to be your plain duty; and you did it
with marked reluctance, and with every desire to leave me every possible
loophole of escape from what you conceived as a momentary yielding to a
vile temptation. But what is it that Sir Theophilus Wraxton wishes to
tell me?"
"Well, my dear sir," the old gentleman began, warmly, "I haven't the
slightest doubt in the world myself that you have been quite
unwarrantably disbelieved about a plain matter of fact that ought at
once to have been immediately apparent to anybody who knew anything in
the world about the gold Anglo-Saxon coinage. No reflection in the world
upon you, Harbourne, my dear friend--no reflection in the world upon you
in the matter; but you must admit that you've been pig-headedly hasty in
jumping to a conclusion, and ignorantly determined in sticking to it
against better evidence. My dear sir, I haven't the very slightest doubt
in the world that the coin now in the British Museum is _not_ the one
which I have seen there previously, and which I have figured in the
third volume of my 'Early Northumbrian and Mercian Numismatist!' Quite
otherwise; quite otherwise, I assure you."
"How do you recognize that it is different, sir?" I cried excitedly.
"The two coins were struck at just the same mint from the same die, and
I examined them closely together, and saw absolutely no difference
between them, except the dent and the amount of the clipping."
"Quite true, quite true," the old gentleman replied with great
deliberation. "But look here, sir. Here is the drawing I took of the
Museum Wulfric fourteen years ago, for the third volume of my
'Northumbrian Numismatist.' That drawing was made with the aid of
careful measurements, which you will find detailed in the text at page
230. Now, here again is the duplicate Wulfric--permit me to call it
_your_ Wulfric; and if you will compare the two you'll find, I think,
that though your Wulfric is a great deal smaller than the original one,
taken as a whole, yet on one diameter, the diameter from the letter U in
Wulfric to the letter R in Rex, it is nearly an eighth of an inch
broader than the specimen I have there figured. Well, sir, you may cut
as much as you like off a coin, and make it smaller; but hang me if by
cutting away at it for all your lifetime you can make it an eighth of an
inch broader anyhow, in any direction."
I looked immediately at the coin, the drawing, and the measurements in
the book, and saw at a glance that Sir Theophilus was right.
"How on earth did you find it out?" I asked the bland old gentleman,
breathlessly.
"Why, my dear sir, I remembered the old coin perfectly, having been so
very particular in my drawing and measurement; and the moment I clapped
eyes on the other one yesterday, I said to my good friend Harbourne,
here: 'Harbourne,' said I, 'somebody's been changing your Wulfric in the
case over yonder for another specimen.' 'Changing it!' said Harbourne:
'not a bit of it; clipping it, you mean.' 'No, no, my good fellow,' said
I: 'do you suppose I don't know the same coin again when I see it, and
at my time of life too? This is another coin, not the same one clipped.
It's bigger across than the old one from there to there.' 'No, it
isn't,' says he. 'But it is,' I answer. 'Just you look in my
"Northumbrian and Mercian" and see if it isn't so.' 'You must be
mistaken,' says Harbourne. 'If I am, I'll eat my head,' says I. Well,
we get down the 'Numismatist' from the bookshelf then and there; and
sure enough, it turns out just as I told him. Harbourne turned as white
as a ghost, I can tell you, as soon as he discovered it. 'Why,' says he,
'I've sent a poor young fellow off to Portland Prison, only three or
four months ago, for stealing that very Wulfric.' And then he told me
all the story. 'Very well,' said I, 'then the only thing you've got to
do is just to go and call on him to-morrow, and let him know that you've
had it proved to you, fairly proved to you, that this is not the
original Wulfric.'"
"Sir Theophilus," I said, "I'm much obliged to you. What you point out
is by far the most important piece of evidence I've yet had to offer.
Mr. Harbourne, have you kept the gold clippings that were found that
morning on the cocoa-nut matting?"
"I have, Mr. Tait," the superintendent answered anxiously. "And Sir
Theophilus and I have been trying to fit them upon the coin in the
Museum shelves; and I am bound to admit I quite agree with him that they
must have been cut off a specimen decidedly larger in one diameter and
smaller in another than the existing one--in short, that they do not fit
the clipped Wulfric now in the Museum."