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 hor? 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 cama?eu 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 hor? 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.”
