Mr. Jock Danplank

“Mary,” said Mr. Jock Danplank, “we’re going to do thesepeople down one, or die like heroes! What say?”

The speaker, a Britisher who had weathered the States, looked down at his exceedingly pretty and diminutive American wife, and smiled grimly. And she, in return, stared meditatively at him, at the same time “snying” up her nose in a fashion peculiar to herself.

“Of course, we shall level up, J.D.,” she agreed. “If only your uncle had finished what he was saying”—she paused; then, “seventy-seven feet due east—seventy-seven feet due east—” she muttered thoughtfully, and tailed off again into silence and thought.

“East of what? East of what?” she exclaimed abruptly. “He must have meant east of some important object. Oh, why— Anyway,” she concluded, “it’ll be funny if we can’t go one better than that Britisher cousin of yours.”

“You forget, Mog, that I’m British,” said the big man, grinning mechanically.

“You?” said his wife, indignantly. “Why, you’re quite half American, and nearly as good as some real ones I’ve known.”

“Thank you, dear,” said her husband, gravely; and broke into talk. “Here we have the case in a few words,” he said. “My Cousin Billy was Uncle Gerald’s favourite. I rubbed my uncle up the wrong way when I was a young chap, and got slammed out of his will. I go abroad to dig up the blessed earth until I find the golden acorn. Somehow I miss the acorn, but, anyway, I got you under the mistletoe, Mog, an’ guess I’m not sorrowing!”

His wife grimaced, and threw her gloves at him. He caught them neatly, and continued:

“Meanwhile, Cousin Billy—who’s a bit of a hog in my humble opinion—fails one day to hide some of his funny work from my uncle, who is fearfully upset, and cuts him whack out of the will in turn, whilst I am taken once more into favour, as being perhaps a bit more wholesome-smelling than Billy; though, as the will said flat out, ‘too thoughtless in my speech to my elders and betters.’ Perhaps I was.”

“I’m sure of it,” said his wife, firmly.

“Anyway,” continued her husband, “here you have me back into the to the tune of a hundred thousand pounds—that’s five hundred thousand dollars, Mog! But the estate goes to Cousin Billy through the entail. You won’t understand that, but it doesn’t matter. Cousin Billy has the estate; I have the cash; at least, I mean that was uncle’s intention. Uncle dies of old age, and shock at Cousin Billy’s little goings on. On his death-bed he calls his solicitor across to him, and begins to tell him something, but gets no further than ‘seventy-seven feet due east’, when his speech fails, and he never delivers the rest of his message. After the funeral, the will is read. Consternation and well-earned agony of Cousin Billy, on learning that the estates and the mortgages are his, and the personal cash and effects mine. Consternation, also, later, on the part of the solicitor, who, on going through uncle’s papers and personal matters, can find no traces of cash or ‘paper’ to represent the said five hundred thousand dollars mentioned in the will. He puzzles over final words of uncle’s, but is no wiser.

“Meanwhile, he has cabled across to me. (Lucky he had my address!) We arrive, are told everything. We puzzle, and are no wiser, either. We take up quarters at the venerable village inn—my Cousin Billy not feeling in hospitable mood—and here we are, rightful owners of one hundred thousand pounds, and puzzling our little heads to know what uncle meant when he said, ‘Seventy-seven feet due east—’ What you might call something in the nature of a conundrum, with the solution in Heaven. At least, I hope so.”

Jock Danplank ended his summary of the situation, and sat down on the arm of his wife’s chair. He fumbled in his inside coat-pocket, and brought out a small packet of papers, methodically banded together with elastic. He removed the elastic, and selected a paper which he proceeded to unfold and glance through.

“ J.D.,” said his wife, suddenly. “If that’s the will, let me have a look at it. I’ll bet there’s something you wise men have overlooked. Let me see it.”

“Here, madam!” said her husband, and handed the paper to her. “It’s not the will itself, of course, but it’s an official copy, or whatever it’s called.”

Mrs. Jock Danplank made no reply, but read steadily at the document for some minutes, with occasional little snorts of impatient disgust at the twisted phraseology and the economical punctuation.

“What’s this about your uncle’s writing-table being left to you?” she asked, suddenly looking up at him.

“Oh, that!” said Jock Danplank. “He to left it me as a sort of keepsake, I s’pose.”

“J.D.,” said his wife, earnestly, “you’re an ass. Send for it at once.”

“If you mean,” said her husband, “that you expect to find anything in it, you’re just mistook, my Mog. Old Jellett, the lawyer, and his confidential clerk have been through it in detail; why, he even had a professional cabinet-maker to overhaul it for any secret drawers or recesses—”

“Why,” interrupted his wife, who had not been listening, “there’s a cottage as well.” She had been running her glance down the will, and had come to the item further on. “A cottage and gardens, J.D.”

“Yes,” assented her husband. “That’s where the table is, I understand. The place used to belong to my Aunt Lydia. I remember it when I was a boy; the cottage used to be a little farmhouse then. I suppose uncle must have had the place rebuilt, and turned the fields round it into gardens and private grounds. Jellett tells me it’s quite a decent little place, and that uncle was quite fond of it—used to run down there for quiet weekends from town, instead of opening some of the rooms at the Hall.”

“Well,” said Mary Danplank, “why aren’t we there, instead of here?”

“Oh,” replied her husband, “one hardly likes to go rushing in too soon. We’ll take a walk over to-morrow, if you like, and have a look at it.”

“We’ll go right over this minute.”

The big man rubbed his clean-shaven cheek a moment, meditatively, then swung a powerful knee off the arm of her chair, and stood up.

“Very well, Mog,” he said. “Perhaps you’re right. We’ll go and look after our own interests personally, right away.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Jock Danplank, laying her cheek a moment against his sleeve, “you’re almost as nice and sensible as a real American, J.D.”

“Thank you, Mog,” said her husband simply. And together they went downstairs into the main street of the village.

The landlord was at the door, bowing respectfully a listening ear to a dissipated young man sitting in a smart dogcart with tremendously high wheels.

“Yessir,” said the landlord. “Yessir—yessir.” And between each he nodded profoundly. “Dinner for six gents? Yessir. All shall be as you say, sir.”

“Hullo, Billy!” shouted Jock Danplank. “Glad to see you’re still alive. How’s the mare going?”

His cousin turned in his seat, and glared at him.

“Hang you!” he roared, at last. “Speak when you’re spoken to.”

“Sore about it still, Billy, eh?” said Jock Danplank, loosing his wife’s hand gently from his sleeve. “Better be civil, though, Billy. You look out of condition.”

But his cousin confined his attention now markedly to the stout landlord, who had been expectantly rubbing his hands during this passage between the cousins.

“At seven sharp,” were his last words; and, with that, he whipped up his horse, and bowled away at a smart trot stationwards, without so much as a further glance at Jock Danplank.

“Nice specimen, Mog, for a cousin,” said Jock. And then they set out in the direction of the cottage.

The door was opened by a dear old lady, who proved to have been Uncle Gerald’s housekeeper. She asked them in, carried off Mrs. Danplank to quite the most charming little bedroom she had ever seen, and won her little American heart by her homely, motherly way of speech and natural kindliness.

Later, there was tea, also scones, in one of the sunlit afternoon rooms downstairs; and then old Mrs. Hartleytres took them on a tour of inspection.

There were four small but most exquisitely shaped and furnished rooms downstairs, excluding offices and the mahogany panelled hall. The fourth room proved to be Uncle Gerald’s study. It was done in the deepest rose-tinted shades, and all the outer wall of the room was one long window, out of which opened two glassed doors, French fashion, into a veritable circular sea of rose blooms, to which the window was the only visible entrance. The effect was marvellously beautiful, and Jock Danplank’s diminutive wife uttered an exclamation. But, as it proved, it was not the sight of the rose-tinted room and the world of blooms beyond that had stirred her to exclaim; it was rather the fact that in the very centre of the room was a gigantic writing-table of old red Spanish mahogany, in the top of which was inlaid a curious pattern in roses, radiating outward from a common centre.

“J.D.,” said his wife, “the table!” And she ran forward to study it. “Why,” she remarked, after looking at it a little, “it’s a fixture, I do believe. Your uncle must have had some real reason for mentio—”

She paused abruptly, and looked at old Mrs. Hartleytres.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the old housekeeper. “Mr. Jellett, the lawyer, has said the same thing to me. He’s been here a dozen times to look at that table; he and Mr. Baker, his chief clerk. They even had a workman in. Mr. Jellett told me he suspected a secret drawer; not the money, ma’am, but a paper to tell where it is. You see, I was present at the reading of the will. Sir Gerald Gwynn was very kind, he left me a thousand pounds.”

Mr. Jock Danplank walked over to the table and pushed it, first one way and then the other, but it did not move. “Firm as a rock,” he muttered, and stooped to look at it; but his wife was already down on her knees, lifting the carpet away a little from one of the pedestals.

“It’s built into the floor, J.D.,” she said, with a note of excitement in her voice. “What’s that been done for?”

Her husband got down also on his knees, and examined it. He looked up presently at Mrs. Hartleytres. “Did the lawyer have this table lifted?” he asked.

But the old housekeeper shook her head.

“No, sir,” she replied. “That table’s never been moved since Sir Gwynn had it put there. He had some queer ways, if you’ll forgive me for saying so; and such a to-do as there was about the fixing of that same table, you never heard.”

Mr. Jock Danplank walked towards the window. “J.D.,” his wife called after him, “if I don’t find anything, I’m going to have this table lifted, and the floor underneath taken up.”

“Very well, Mary,” said her husband. “Perhaps it will be as well, if it can be done without harming things.”

His wife resumed her search, and he walked out into the circular garden. It was exceedingly beautiful, the roses having been trained to make a perfect circular wall of bloom right round, excepting where the French windows opened into the place. In addition to the rose trees, there were numbers of beautifully sculptured groups and figures set around the garden, and in the centre was a very fine specimen of the “Fighting Gladiator”, done in bronze. The ground was one beautiful level of marvellously cultivated grass, smooth and even and pilelike as velvet.

“Splendid!” said Jock Danplank, looking round him with the deepest appreciation. “Simply fine!”

“Yes, sir,” agreed the housekeeper; “I believe this is the second finest rose-garden in England. Sir Gwynn loved this place.” She sighed a little. “Poor gentleman,” she said, “he was dreadfully lonely. I dare say that made him so—so peculiar at times, and so eccentric.”

Mr. Jock Danplank nodded, and rejoined his wife, to continue the tour of the house.

By the time this had been done, evening had set in. And when they got down again to the study, and found that a cheerful fire was easing out the first touch of autumn chill, they appreciated old Mrs. Hartleytres’ suggestion that they should send back the boy with the trap, and stay the night.

“Have your boxes sent over in the morning, ma’am, and stay here for good,” she suggested. “ ’Tis your own place now.”

“That’s hoss-sense, Mrs. Hartleytres,” said Jock’s wife.

And so it was arranged that they should at once enter into so much of their fortune as was discoverable.

Now, I am particular to give the following somewhat trivial details with exactness, as there happened that night a somewhat strange and disturbing thing.

During the evening, whilst Jock Danplank smoked and meditated quietly, his wife went once more through all the various drawers of the big writing-table in one final effort to discover some signs of a secret recess, but without success. Later, her husband took his cigar out into the circular rose garden; and the two of them traipsed round happily on the short-cut grass, enjoying the sense of togetherness in their “very own” grounds. But in no case did they trample on any of the flower-beds; nor, on returning, did Jock Danplank leave the catches of the French window unfastened.

Yet, see what happened. In the morning, Mrs. Danplank was awakened by voices under her window

“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Mr. Biggle.”

“I’m not mistook, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am!” said a husky, shrill voice, which was evidently that of the head-gardener, “When I come, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am; there was the great silly footmarks all acrost my beds—dang un! beggin’ your pardin’, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am; an’ there was the French winder open, showin’ as ’ee come out last night for a smoke-o an’ a walk round. No, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am, I’ll say wot I ’ave to say; Mr. Danplank ain’t no gennelman to do such a thing, not so how he was twenty times Sir Gerald’s own nevvy, which he couldn’t be. It’d make old Sir Gerald turn in ’is grave an’ ’ave the cold shudders, which ’ee ’as, if ’ee was to larn of sich a thing. It would that!”

“Hush, Mr. Biggle!” said the voice of the old housekeeper. “You’ve no right to speak like that of young Mr. Danplank. There’s some mistake. And, anyway, the flower-beds are his own.”

“Eh!” said the shrill, husky voice again. Poor old Sir Gerald’s mebbe tearin’ his hair this very minnit in ’ell—not but ’ee wer’ as bald as a hegg—just to think wot things is comin’ to, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am.”

“Hush!” said the housekeeper’s voice again. “They’re sleeping up there, Mr. Biggle. You must see Mr. Danplank yourself when he comes down.”

In the bedroom, little Mrs. Danplank was shaking her husband vigorously.

“ J.D.! J.D.! J.D.!” she said shrilly in his ear. “Wake up! Wake up! There’s been someone in the house, and they’ve been on Biggle’s flower-beds. You’re sure you fastened the window last night?”

“Absolutely!” said her husband, sitting up. He got out, and began to dress; and presently the two of them were investigating matters downstairs.

Little Mrs. Danplank went immediately to the big writing-table, and directly afterwards she called out:

“Someone’s been at this table during the night, J.D.! Someone’s been at the table; all the drawers have got mixed; they’ve not been put back according to their numbers! Look!”

Her husband ran across from where he had been examining the catch of the big French windows, and stooped to look at the table.

“You’re right, Mog,” he said, very seriously.

In the same instant his wife dropped on her knees, and lifted back the carpet quickly from around the pedestals.

“I knew it!” she said bitterly. “I knew it! The table’s been moved! See, the screws have been taken out! Here’s one of them on the carpet! Oh, J.D., suppose they’ve discovered where the money is! Oh, if only we could have caught them! Who do you think it is?”

Mr. Jock Danplank was squatting now beside his wife, examining things, with a very grim face.

“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars, Mog, to a red cent it’s my gentle Cousin Billy,” he said, at last. “I’d like to have caught him. Stand away a moment, dear.”

She obeyed him, and, with one prodigious heave, he lifted the table, tilting it backwards so that he could look underneath; but there was nothing. He propped the table securely in this position with a chair; then, going down on to his knees, he investigated minutely, with the aid of a candle, both the floor and the underneath parts of the pedestals. His wife also joined him in his examination; but at the end of twenty minutes, or more, they had to admit that there were no signs of any secret receptacle.

Yet Mr. Jock Danplank was not satisfied, for, ringing the bell, he asked whether there was such a thing as a brace-bit and a narrow-bladed saw in the house. These were finally obtained from the gardener’s workshop, and Jock Danplank began immediately to bore a series of holes in the floor in a line. Then, with the saw, he connected them, until he had sawn across one plank. He repeated the operation several feet away, and finally lifted out the portion of plank he had cut away; but he found the space between the floor and the ceiling below to be perfectly normal in design, as he proved by looking between the beams by the aid of his candle, and also by piercing a small hole through the plaster of the ceiling beneath.

“Nothing there, dear,” he said to his wife. “Cheer up, Mog; we mustn’t be disappointed. I don’t believe for a moment that whoever’s been messing with the table last night found anything.”

“J.D.!” said his diminutive wife soberly. “You don’t know one bit whether the thief found anything or not. You’re just trying to comfort me. Whoever it was must have known something about the table. If it was your Cousin Billy, I’ll bet he knew something we didn’t; and I’ll bet you J.D., we’ll never touch a cent of all that money that your uncle meant you to have.”

“We’ll see, Mog,” said her big husband quietly. “We’ll have breakky now, and then I want to be quiet and think.”

They informed old Mrs. Hartleytres that someone had broken into the house during the night, and meddled with the table. The old lady, dreadfully shocked and disturbed, repeated to them what they already knew, about the gardener finding footmarks on his flower-beds.

“And a dreadful way he is in, too, ma’am, about it,” she said.

How much the gardener was upset, Mr. and Mrs. Jock Danplank discovered for themselves on emerging some time later, through the French window, into the rose garden. They found old Biggle standing over his two men and a boy, and giving fierce attention to the remedying and obliteration of the defacing footmarks. On seeing them approach, he whipped off his dirty old cap, and came remorselessly towards them.

“Mr. Danplank, sir,” he said, his shrill, husky voice trembling with suppressed anger. “I take it as very thoughtless of you, sir, to go traipsing over my flower-beds, like as if they was dirt—which I won’t say, they ain’t, but not to be walked over, sir. I was pretty near minded to give notice, I was that, sir; but I thought as I’d give you one more chance, sir. But I will say wot I thinks, sir, an’ that is as it wer’ a wicked an’ cruel thing to do!”

Mr. Jock Danplank stood a moment, and looked down at the little old gardener. Then he laughed a little, very quietly, and held out his hand.

“Mr. Biggle,” he said, “I respect your attitude in the matter, and I give you my word that I have not walked over your flower-beds, and should never dream of doing such a stupid thing. You may be interested to know that there has been some stranger in the garden during the night; for the study has been broken into, and some of the furniture disturbed. I hope you’ve not cleaned up all the footmarks, as I want to take a pattern of one or two, Mr. Biggle.”

Mr. Biggle, now thoroughly restored to his normal temperature, hastened to stop the work of repair; but it was too late. Not a single footprint had been left untreated, much to his as well as to Mr. Jock Danplank’s annoyance; for he was grimly desirous of getting even with the desecrator.

“It’d make old Sir Gerald turn in ’is grave; it would that!” he kept repeating vehemently in his shrill, husky voice. “Not as I ever thought the old gennelman would rest comfortable nohow,” he concluded. “Never still a moment, as you might say, Mr. Danplank, sir, day or night. All night I’ve known ’im walkin’ round this ’ere garding. All night, Mr. Danplank, sir.”

“You don’t mean to suggest, Mr. Biggle, that it is my uncle who’s been tramping over your flower-beds, I hope?” said Jock Danplank.

“Wot? Old Sir Gerald hisself!” said Mr. Biggle, very seriously. “Why, Mr. Danplank, sir, ’ee’d as soon think of walkin’ on ’is own face; not as I say ’ee could do it, mind you!”

The following morning there was fresh trouble, for Mr. Biggle insisted on calling Jock Danplank at six o’clock in the morning to come out and look at something he had discovered in the garden. This was nothing less than an immense hole which had been dug bang in the centre of his largest flower-bed. The hole was fully six feet deep and about ten across, and roughly circular. All round it the earth had been trampled by more than one pair of feet; and, as for the flower-bed itself, it was completely smothered out of existence beneath the pile of earth which had been thrown up out of the great hole.

Mr. Biggle’s state of mind had passed beyond any hope of easement from words. At times mechanically, at half-minute intervals, he assured Mr. Danplank that old Sir Gerald would turn in his grave; but his imagination got no further, for he seemed temporarily stunned with the excess of his stupefied rage.

Jock Danplank himself was more than a little angry, but he was also more than a little excited. Evidently someone—Cousin Billy, he named that someone to himself—had certain reasons for supposing that the treasure was buried somewhere in the garden. In that case, there might be real hopes of Jock Danplank finding it for himself; unless those who had dug that great hole had actually discovered and removed the money during the night. Somehow, Mr. Jock Danplank had an inward conviction that nothing had come out of that hole, except the earth that lay piled around. Yet he could not be sure, of course, and felt proportionately anxious.

After considerable cogitation, he decided to see the whole business through himself, and make no complaint to the police; and, with this intention, he arranged with Mr. Biggle that a watch should be kept in the garden at nights by Mr. Biggle and his three men, assisted by himself.

In furtherance of this idea, he went up to town next day, and invested in two bull-terriers, who were tied up each night near to the French windows opening into the rose garden. And so the watch of the garden began. Mr. Jock Danplank assigned to himself the first watch, which extended from dark to midnight, and which was invariably shared by his diminutive but plucky wife. They kept their watch from a little shelter erected temporarily among the flower-beds, and cunningly screened by a number of newly planted rose bushes.

Yet it seemed that it was going to prove truly a case of locking the stable door after the horse is stolen; for a week passed without the least sign of anything suspicious.

“Oh, J.D., I’m sure they’ve found it!” said Mrs. Danplank more than once, towards the close of that week. “How shall we ever be able to prove it. They’ve got it, and we may just as well stop watching now.”

Yet the very next night something happened; for about two in the morning, Mr. Jock Danplank was awakened by his wife shaking him furiously.

“J.D.! J.D.! J.D.!” she was whispering shrilly in his ear. “Wake up! Wake up! There’s something happening in the garden! The dogs have just gone mad. Hark!”

Jock Danplank did listen, and surely the dogs were filling the night with their crazy barking; then there was the sound of a man shouting; and in a moment big Jock Danplank was out of bed, and into his slippers and dressing-gown.

He dashed into the study, slipped the catch of the French windows, and raced into the garden, shouting to Mr. Biggle, whose watch it was.

“ ’Ere, sir, ’ere!” he heard the old gardener shouting in the distance, and he raced towards the call, cutting across rose-beds ruthlessly. He found old Biggle sitting, moaning a little, in one of the smaller circles of olden turf which lay between the rose bushes on the farther side of the garden.

“Tripped on summat, Mr. Danplank, sir, an’ wrenched my ankle somethin’ horful,” the old man explained, gritting out the words with pain. “Take care wot you’re doin’ sir, there’s a rope stretched across ’ere, somewheres, that’s wot caught my foot, sir. I thought I saw someone runnin’ when the dogs started; an’ I did a sprint after ’em, but I fouled summat with my foot. Strike a light, Mr. Danplank, sir.”

He struck a light, as the old man requested, and looked around him.

“Why, Biggle,” he said suddenly, “there’s a surveyor’s broken tape or something here. Th— Why, look, man, the turf’s all lifted here!”

And so it was; and in the centre of the little grass circle there was stuck a large wooden peg, to which one end of the measuring-tape was attached; the other end he discovered eventually was fastened to the bronze “Fighting Gladiator” which stood, as has been mentioned, in the centre of the rose garden. This, however, later. In the meanwhile, Jock Danplank had unhitched one of the dogs, and, taking him by the chain, followed his tracings of the intruders’ footsteps. These led across the garden, cutting ruthlessly across beds, eventually to the outer surrounding hedge, through which a gap had been burst. This led out on to a ten-acre meadow, beyond which was the high road; so that Jock, knowing the man or men had a good start, wasted no more time, but hurried back to old Biggle, whom he found now surrounded by the two under-gardeners and Mrs. Danplank.

“We’ll carry him into the house, and then get spades and see what’s underground here,” said Mr. Jock Danplank. But old Biggle refused to be moved. He sent his two underlings for spades and pickaxes, also for a couple of hurricane lamps. When these were brought he insisted on holding one, whilst the other he gave to Mrs. Danplank to hold.

Then the digging commenced, and for two hours went forward breathlessly, in every sense of the word. Yet nothing was unearthed, though by that time the hole stretched almost across the little opening, and was fully as deep as the men’s shoulders. Another two hours of digging followed; and then the delving was abandoned, for it was obvious that there was no treasure there; and that Cousin Billy—for so Jock Danplank named the intruder to himself—was once more very distinctly off the mark; for this second attempt made it plain that the first had been unsuccessful.

With this knowledge came the comforting realisation that the treasure was still unmoved; and for the next week Jock Danplank and his wife took the hint that the measuring-tape had given them, and tried every imaginable measurement about the gardens, and even had a narrow hole sunk diagonally under the statue of the “Fighting Gladiator,” to make sure that warlike gentleman was not standing guard over their gold; but everything led to nothing. Finally, in a moment of inspiration, Mrs. Dunplank suggested excitedly that they should measure seventy-seven feet due east through the French windows from the gigantic writing-table.

At this suggestion, Jock Danplank grew almost as excited as his wife, for it seemed to explain the reason for the special mention of the table in his uncle’s will. The measurement was made from the centre rose of the inlay of the table-top, and the bearing taken by compass. Where the end of the tape came out on the smooth-grown grass, Mr. Jock Danplank thrust in his pocket-knife. Then, with the aid of old Biggle—whose ankle was now recovered—and the two under-gardeners, a huge circle of turf, some fifteen feet across, was removed, and digging operations commenced.

This was in the early forenoon. By late evening the hole had been sunk ten feet deep, and the attempt was then abandoned; for it was plain that treasure was a stranger to that place.

It took old Biggle a week to get that turf replaced to his liking, and all levelled up; and after that it seemed just useless to search the garden any further. Yet, because of what had already happened, and because, likewise, of a certain pugnacious determination in Jock Danplank, the night watches were not discontinued, but kept up as usual.

In this fashion a month passed, without incident; two months, and finally the half of a third; so that Mr. Jock Danplank began to think that no further attempts would be made in the line of midnight excavations among his flower-beds. And then something happened.

Mr. Danplank had ceased himself to participate in the watching, leaving it to Biggle and his two under-gardeners, who arranged it between them, and took off so many hours each day to make up for the extra time put in.

Thus it happened that instead of crouching out in the gardens, Mr. Danplank and his diminutive wife passed their evenings in the cosy study; and because of this, they happened to notice something that otherwise they might not have noticed.

“The dogs are very quiet to-night, J.D.,” remarked his wife, as she sat smoking cigarettes and reading.

“Yes,” said her husband. And relapsed again into reading.

Said his wife some half-hour later:

“J.D., I’m sure there’s something funny about the dogs to-night. I’ve not heard a sound from them all evening. I’m going out to have a look at them.”

“Hey?” said her big husband, lowering his newspaper, and stretching himself. “What’s that, dear?”

“It’s the dogs,” she said rising. “I don’t know. I’ve a feeling there’s something wrong. I’m going to see.”

She walked across to the French windows, opened one of them, and called to the dogs, who had their kennels one on each side of the windows, only a few yards away. But instead of a frenzy of answering barks, only a perfect silence greeted her.

Jock Danplank dropped his paper, and crossed to the window.

“Funny!” he muttered, as the silence remained constant. He stepped outside, and walked to the left-hand kennel, calling the dog by name. He reached the kennel, and stooped.

“Mary,” he said quietly, “bring that electric-torch off the mantelpiece.”

His wife ran quickly, and was back in a moment with the torch. He took it from her, switching on the light, and shone it down at the ground before the kennel. Bella, the bull-terrier bitch, lay stiff, with a piece of half-eaten meat still between her clenched jaws.

“Um!” said Jock Danplank, speaking even more quietly than before. He walked across to the other kennel, and held the light. The dog, Jerry, lay half in and half out of his kennel, and he was just as still and rigid as his wife Bella.

“This,” said the big man, straightening up, “grows interesting. I fancy, Mog, with the blessing of Fate, we may have a little fun ahead of us to-night. But I’m sorry for the dogs. Go inside, dear, and shut the window. I shall be back in a few minutes.”

His wife obeyed, for she was able to diagnose those times when her husband had, as it were, taken the helm. In a short time he returned.

“Now, dear,” he said, “ draw the curtains over the windows while we make a few arrangements in here. I’ve had a word with Biggle, and he’s got his two men with him in the shelter; also, you’ll be interested to hear that he appreciates a suggestion I made concerning the water-hose. You’ll remember that the hydrant comes up near the shelter. Now, we’ll pull this couch out a bit, and shove some cushions and a rug down on the floor at the back. You run upstairs and put a light in our bedroom, as if we were going to bed. Bring my camera down with you; it’s got fresh plates in. You might also bring that snap-flashlight of mine. Oh, yes, and my stick out of the hall, as you come back. I’ll be ready by then.”

When little Mrs. Danplank returned, she found the study in darkness and the curtains drawn back, once more exposing the windows.

“Here, Mog,” said her husband’s voice. And in a moment his hands took the camera, stick, and flashlight from her, and guided her down on to cushions at the back of the drawn-out couch.

“Now, my little lady,” he said, “you take charge of the flashlight, and when I nudge you let there be light. I’ll attend to the rest of the photography. I’ve what you might call a suspicion that we shall have a visitor right here in this room before long, and I guess we’ll take his picture free of charge. But if I’m mistaken, and he sticks to his old bad habit of digging holes in the garden, why, then old Biggle’ll slip round and give us word, and we’ll go picture-makin’ outside. I’ll run up now and turn out the bedroom light, then Mr. Cousin Billy—for I’ve quite a notion that will be the name of our visitor—will think we’ve gone nicely to by-by, bless him, and he’ll have a comfy feeling that he can go ahead. You see, I’ll bet he’s watching even now from some corner or other.”

When Mr. Jock Danplank returned, he ensconced himself comfortably with his wife at the back of the couch; and so their watch began. For two hours they remained silent save for occasional whispers, their gaze fixed upon the windows. Another half-hour passed, and the clock in the room struck two, musically, in the darkness. A minute later little Mrs. Danplank gripped her husband’s arm sharply, for suddenly a man’s head had become silhouetted against the lesser darkness of the outside night.

“Cousin Billy!” said Jock Danplank, in a low voice. “He’s trying to lift the drop-latch with a knife, or something.”

“Ssh!” whispered his wife anxiously; and after that they were absolutely silent. A minute passed, and then another. Twice they heard the latch jingle a little as the knife half lifted it out of its snick, then suddenly the window opened, for the latch had been lifted clear; and the next instant the intruder was standing motionless in the opening, evidently listening.

For a few moments he stood thus, and they could interpret the tenseness of his attitude. Then he came right into the room, closed the window very quietly, and began to fumble with the curtains. These he managed eventually to draw, and the next instant a little beam of light darted here and there about the room; he was evidently using some kind of electric-torch or lamp.

He walked across the room, and from where they lay behind the couch they heard the key turned very quietly in the lock. He had locked the door to prevent any surprise in the rear, as might be said.

The man went swiftly then to the big writing-table, lifted off a litter of papers that were on it, and deposited them noiselessly upon the floor. Then for fully ten minutes he examined the surface of the table, as the two watchers were able to see by raising their heads above the back of the couch. The man appeared to be pressing with his thumb here and there upon the top of the table, giving little, almost noiseless grunts each time; and both Jock Danplank and his wife grew excited with the thought that perhaps they were about to learn the hiding-place of some paper that should tell them where their money had been put away.

Suddenly there was a little grunt that plainly marked pleased surprise and excitement upon the part of the intruder. He appeared to be pressing hard upon the table with the tips of the fingers of his right hand, and at the same time attempting to rotate his arm, as though trying to unscrew something. A moment later the rapid movement of his elbow denoted that he was actually unscrewing something that squeaked faintly. And suddenly he gave out a gasp, and lifted some object from the table, which he examined by the light of his electric lamp.

Jock rose boldly from behind the couch to stare, and saw that the man held one of the inlay-roses in his hand—the rose evidently screwed out of the table-top like a plug. As the man turned it over, Jock saw that there was a thin cord attached to the underside; and instantly it was plain to him that his cousin—for such he knew the intruder to be—had at last solved the whereabouts of the treasure…. “Seventy-seven feet due east….”

Jock saw it all now. Seventy-seven feet due east of the spot touched by that rose, when the rose was laid due east out on the grass outside at full stretch of that thin cord which evidently connected it with the recess in the table from which it had been unscrewed. What a cunning notion!

Evidently his Cousin Billy had knowledge how to use the rose; for he switched off his lamp, and, drawing the curtains, he opened the window. He stepped out noiselessly into the garden, and proceeded across the grass, drawing the cord after him. In a minute he returned, and examined the surface of the table; then, switching off the light again, he went out once more, and appeared to make some adjustment of the position of the rose upon the grass.

Half a dozen times, perhaps, he came back, and switched on the light to examine the table, and each time Mr. Jock Danplank and his wife dived out of sight again behind the sofa. And each time that he returned noiselessly to the garden, Jock and Mrs. Danplank rose and stared after him through the darkness. Suddenly Jock Danplank comprehended.

“Mog,” he whispered, “the inlay of roses on the table is a sort of fancy compass. What fools we were never to twig! He’s laying the direction by the branch of roses that points east through the window. That must be why my uncle was so particular about fixing the table exactly. See?”

“Yes,” whispered his wife, who was trembling with excitement, in the darkness beside him. “What a good thing we never took a flashlight of him, J.D., when he first came in, we should never have known then. He’s a bad man, but he must be clever.”

Cousin Billy came in quietly once more and examined the table. He must have been satisfied that the direction was now right, for he went out again, and stayed out. They could see him dimly. He appeared to be about halfway towards the centre of the rose-garden. Then they saw him walking in a bent position due east, as though he were trailing something out across the turf.

“He’s measuring seventy-seven feet to the east of the place where the rose touches the ground,” said Jock Danplank. “As soon as he gets to his favourite exercise, Mog, we’ll slip out and look on from close quarters. This is what I call decent of Cousin Billy; he’s doing his level best to help us.”

A few minutes later, after the silent man out on the grass had walked to and fro a great many times between the rose and some point to the eastward of it, he gave a low “miau” like a cat; and immediately there came two figures out of the darkness of the rose bushes to the south of the garden. These joined him, and directly the watchers saw the vague gleam of shirts and bare arms through the darkness, as coats were abandoned by all three; then came the faint noises of drying implements cautiously used.

“Now,” said Jock Danplank, and helped his wife hurriedly into her coat. “Come along.” And he led the way silently through the French windows, out into a little winding path that led them deeply among the rose bushes, and so to the shelter upon the far side, where old Biggle and his two under-gardeners sat, peering silently through the bushes at the three men of the night who were mauling Mr. Biggle’s choice turf, there before his very eyes.

“Biggle,” said Jock, stealing silently into the shelter, “my wife and I have come to join the audience. I think we may conclude, Biggle, that we have them now—eh?”

“We ’ave ’em, Mr. Danplank, sir,” replied Biggle, rising and offering his seat to Mrs. Danplank, with nice courtesy. “The Lord ’elp ’em, Mr. Danplank, sir, when I gets my hands on to ’em. Leastways, I should say ’elp me not to do murder when I starts on ’em.”

The old man’s tone made it clear that he burned and trembled with passion at the visible and audible proofs of outrage to his garden that was going on within thirty or forty feet of them.

“Old Sir Gerald would turn in ’is grave—” began Biggle.

But Mr. Jock Danplank interrupted his assurance with a question regarding the hose. “They’ll need a wash, Biggle, after that dirty work, you know,” he said.

“All’s ready, Mr. Danplank, sir, as you ordered,” said Biggle; “an’ I’ve told Bill an’ Jarge they’m to show their lanterns so soon as you whistles, sir.”

After that, for maybe a full hour and a half, Mr. Danplank allowed his cousin and assistants to indulge in their hobby of hole making to their heart’s content. Then, thinking that it was about time, he drew his wife quietly out of the shelter, and ensconced her with himself among some rose bushes away to the right, from which they commanded a view of Cousin Billy’s operations.

“Now, Mog,” he whispered, “get that flashlight all ready. When I tell you, blaze away.”

He stared hard into the darkness, and could vaguely see the heads and shoulders of the three men working furiously but silently in the big hole they had made. He aimed his camera—a twin-lens—at the hole, then whistled shrilly. As the whistle went across the dark garden the sounds of digging ceased instantly, and then, in the darkness, two jets of light shone out, flashed through the bushes, swung round to and fro, and settled on the sweating faces of Cousin Billy and two other men.

Jock Danplank focussed rapidly, and even as he did so there came the sharp his-hissing of the great hose as Biggle turned on the hydrant. Then Biggle got to work. The powerful stream of water arched through the night, glittering in the light from the two bull’s-eye lanterns, and smote Cousin Billy full in the face. There was a yell and a splutter, and in the same instant of time Mr. Jock Danplank gave the word to his wife. She pressed the trigger of the flashlight, and instantaneously the whole of the visible gardens flashed out in a blaze of white and blinding light, each leaf fluttering in the night breeze showing clear-cut and vivid. It lit up the face of Cousin Billy as he essayed madly to scramble up out of the big hole that was rapidly becoming a lake. He swore incredibly, screaming out his oaths with gasps and bubblings, as the remorseless Biggle kept the hydrant full upon him. The darkness felt upon the gardens with an effect upon the senses as of thunder. But still the hose played on, directed by the aid of the lanterns. The two other men had disappeared with the first arrival of the water, and were gone away through the bushes

And now at last Cousin Billy achieved the almost impossible, and ascended out of the pit of his discomfiture. As he did so the flashlight blazed out again, showing him dripping mud from head to feet, and the hose searching him from top to bottom in every sense of the word.

“Send you a proof to-morrow, Billy!” shouted Mr. Jock Danplank as the darkness fell for the second time. “Good-night, old man!”

There was no reply, only a smashing and rending among the rose-bushes as Cousin Billy left at a high rate of speed, the hydrant following the sounds remorselessly until he was out of range.

“Now,” said Mr. Jock Danplank, when things had subsided a little. “Get some buckets and bail out.” He handed his camera to his wife, and threw off his coat. When the buckets were brought he was first into the hole, up to his knees in mud and water. In twenty minutes the hole was dry, more or less, and digging was resumed. Morning found them still digging, and nowhere any signs of treasure.

Mary Danplank brought them out hot coffee, and tried hard to hide her bitter disappointment. It was plain that almost their last hope of finding the treasure had gone. The men all came up out of the hole, and stood round, drinking, and almost sullen with disappointment and fatigue.

“It’s no use, Mog,” said Jock Danplank, at last. “I’m beginning to think the talk about money in the will must have been all rot. Uncle was a queer chap. I expect he got a bit off his balance towards the end, and just imagined he’d got more than he had. He must have spent it all doing this place up. He— By Jove!”

His speech ended in a shout. He hove his cup and saucer bang down on to the grass, and dashed into the house. A moment later he gave out a great bellow.

“The compass! The compass! Where’s the compass!”

He discovered it even whilst he shouted, put it down on the table, let it steady, and then spied along it.

“Found it!” he roared. “Found it, by gum! The table’s not been put back straight since we shifted it. The hole’s twenty feet too much to the south. Shift the rose to the north! Shift the rose to the north!” He waved one big hand energetically, and his wife ran to obey. “Yes, yes, that’s it Mary. Put it down there—just there. Right. Now the tape; measure off—measure off! More to the north. There! Got it. Stick something in. Right! Now spades!” And he came dashing out through the window.

An hour later they found the money, every sovereign of it. If you please, it was packed neatly in old distemper tins, of the washable variety. That’s all, except that Biggle was very much troubled for a year to come, until his turf once more resumed its velvet look of ages. Even then his trained eye saw imperfections. Meanwhile, Cousin Billy had received his “proofs”, accompanied by the following little note:

“Dear Billy,—Herewith the proofs. We think they’re immense. Treasure safe to hand. Congrat. me, old man.—Your affec. cousin,

“Jock.”