And there the hawthorn was placed.
Bellmark, usually the most careful and methodical of men, left the tools where they were, in spite of a threatening shower. Strangely silent, Elsie led the way back to the house and taking the men into the drawing-room switched on the light.
“I think you have a tin opener, Mrs Bellmark?”
Elsie, who had been waiting for him to speak, almost jumped at the simple inquiry. Then she went into the next room and returned with the bull-headed utensil.
“Here it is,” she said, in a voice that would have amused her at any other time.
“Mr Bellmark will perhaps disclose our find.”
Bellmark put the soily tin down on Elsie’s best table-cover without eliciting a word of reproach, grasped it firmly with his left hand, and worked the opener round the top.
“Only paper!” he exclaimed, and without touching the contents he passed the tin into Carrados’s hands.
The blind man dexterously twirled out a little roll that crinkled pleasantly to the ear, and began counting the leaves with a steady finger.
“They’re bank-notes!” whispered Elsie in an awestruck voice. She caught sight of a further detail. “Bank-notes for a hundred pounds each. And there are dozens of them!”
“Fifty, there should be,” dropped Carrados between his figures. “Twenty-five, twenty-six——”
“Good God,” murmured Bellmark; “that’s five thousand pounds!”
“Fifty,” concluded Carrados, straightening the edges of the sheaf. “It is always satisfactory to find that one’s calculations are exact.” He detached the upper ten notes and held them out. “Mrs Bellmark, will you accept one thousand pounds as a full legal discharge of any claim that you may have on this property?”
“Me—I?” she stammered. “But I have no right to any in any circumstances. It has nothing to do with us.”
“You have an unassailable moral right to a fair proportion, because without you the real owners would never have seen a penny of it. As regards your legal right”—he took out the thin pocket-book and extracting a business-looking paper spread it open on the table before them—“here is a document that concedes it. ‘In consideration of the valuable services rendered by Elsie Bellmark, etc., etc., in causing to be discovered and voluntarily surrendering the sum of five thousand pounds deposited and not relinquished by Alexis Metrobe, late of, etc., etc., deceased, Messrs Binstead & Polegate, solicitors, of 77a Bedford Row, acting on behalf of the administrator and next-of-kin of the said etc., etc., do hereby’—well, that’s what they do. Signed, witnessed and stamped at Somerset House.”
“I suppose I shall wake presently,” said Elsie dreamily.
“It was for this moment that I ventured to suggest the third requirement necessary to bring our enterprise to a successful end,” said Carrados.
“Oh, how thoughtful of you!” cried Elsie. “Roy, the champagne.”
Five minutes later Carrados was explaining to a small but enthralled audience.
“The late Alexis Metrobe was a man of peculiar character. After seeing a good deal of the world and being many things, he finally embraced spiritualism, and in common with some of its most pronounced adherents he thenceforward abandoned what we should call ‘the common-sense view.’
“A few years ago, by the collation of the Book of Revelations, a set of Zadkiel’s Almanacs, and the complete works of Mrs Mary Baker Eddy, Metrobe discovered that the end of the world would take place on the tenth of October 1910. It therefore became a matter of urgent importance in his mind to ensure pecuniary provision for himself for the time after the catastrophe had taken place.”
“I don’t understand,” interrupted Elsie. “Did he expect to survive it?”
“You cannot understand, Mrs Bellmark, because it is fundamentally incomprehensible. We can only accept the fact by the light of cases which occasionally obtain prominence. Metrobe did not expect to survive, but he was firmly convinced that the currency of this world would be equally useful in the spirit-land into which he expected to pass. This view was encouraged by a lady medium at whose feet he sat. She kindly offered to transmit to his banking account in the Hereafter, without making any charge whatever, any sum that he cared to put into her hands for the purpose. Metrobe accepted the idea but not the offer. His plan was to deposit a considerable amount in a spot of which he alone had knowledge, so that he could come and help himself to it as required.”
“But if the world had come to an end——?”
“Only the material world, you must understand, Mrs Bellmark. The spirit world, its exact impalpable counterpart, would continue as before and Metrobe’s hoard would be spiritually intact and available. That is the prologue.
“About a month ago there appeared a certain advertisement in a good many papers. I noticed it at the time and three days ago I had only to refer to my files to put my hand on it at once. It reads:
“‘Alexis Metrobe. Any servant or personal attendant of the late Alexis Metrobe of Fountain Court, Groat’s Heath, possessing special knowledge of his habits and movements may hear of something advantageous on applying to Binstead & Polegate, 77a Bedford Row, W.C.’
“The solicitors had, in fact, discovered that five thousand pounds’ worth of securities had been realized early in 1910. They readily ascertained that Metrobe had drawn that amount in gold out of his bank immediately after, and there the trace ended. He died six months later. There was no hoard of gold and not a shred of paper to show where it had gone, yet Metrobe lived very simply within his income. The house had meanwhile been demolished but there was no hint or whisper of any lucky find.
“Two inquirers presented themselves at 77a Bedford Row. They were informed of the circumstances and offered a reward, varying according to the results, for information that would lead to the recovery of the money. They are both described as thoughtful, slow-spoken men. Each heard the story, shook his head, and departed. The first caller proved to be John Foster, the ex-butler. On the following day Mr Irons, formerly gardener at the Court, was the applicant.
“I must now divert your attention into a side track. In the summer of 1910 Metrobe published a curious work entitled ‘The Flame beyond the Dome.’ In the main it is an eschatological treatise, but at the end he tacked on an epilogue, which he called ‘The Fable of the Chameleon.’ It is even more curious than the rest and with reason, for under the guise of a speculative essay he gives a cryptic account of the circumstances of the five thousand pounds and, what is more important, details the exact particulars of its disposal. His reason for so doing is characteristic of the man. He was conscious by experience that he possessed an utterly treacherous memory, and having had occasion to move the treasure from one spot to another he feared that when the time came his bemuddled shade would be unable to locate it. For future reference, therefore, he embodied the details in his book, and to make sure that plenty of copies should be in existence he circulated it by the only means in his power—in other words, he gave a volume to everyone he knew and to a good many people whom he didn’t.
“So far I have dealt with actualities. The final details are partly speculative but they are essentially correct. Metrobe conveyed his gold to Fountain Court, obtained a stout oak coffer for it, and selected a spot west of the
