ng
such a letter as he had written. His lordship was certain that the
money had been hidden somewhere else; probably buried under one of the
trees in the park. Of course this was possible, and represented the
usual method by which a stupid person conceals treasure, yet I did not
think it probable. All conversations with Higgins showed the earl to
have been an extremely suspicious man; suspicious of banks, suspicious
even of Bank of England notes, suspicious of every person on earth,
not omitting Higgins himself. Therefore, as I told his nephew, the
miser would never allow the fortune out of his sight and immediate
reach.

From the first the oddity of the forge and anvil being placed in his
bedroom struck me as peculiar, and I said to the young man,--

'I'll stake my reputation that forge or anvil, or both, contain the
secret. You see, the old gentleman worked sometimes till midnight, for
Higgins could hear his hammering. If he used hard coal on the forge
the fire would last through the night, and being in continual terror
of thieves, as Higgins says, barricading the castle every evening
before dark as if it were a fortress, he was bound to place the
treasure in the most unlikely spot for a thief to get at it. Now, the
coal fire smouldered all night long, and if the gold was in the forge
underneath the embers, it would be extremely difficult to get at. A
robber rummaging in the dark would burn his fingers in more senses
than one. Then, as his lordship kept no less than four loaded
revolvers under his pillow, all he had to do, if a thief entered his
room was to allow the search to go on until the thief started at the
forge, then doubtless, as he had the range with reasonable accuracy
night or day, he might sit up in bed and blaze away with revolver
after revolver. There were twenty-eight shots that could be fired in
about double as many seconds, so you see the robber stood little
chance in the face of such a fusillade. I propose that we dismantle
the forge.'

Lord Chizelrigg was much taken by my reasoning, and one morning early
we cut down the big bellows, tore it open, found it empty, then took
brick after brick from the forge with a crowbar, for the old man had
builded better than he knew with Portland cement. In fact, when we
cleared away the rubbish between the bricks and the core of the
furnace we came upon one cube of cement which was as hard as granite.
With the aid of Higgins, and a set of rollers and levers,