of certain things
of value stored in that bank, and to clear out to far-off regions with
what we got. We discovered that two chests deposited in the bank's
vaults by old Lord Forestburne contained a quantity of simply
invaluable monastic spoil, stolen by the good man's ancestors four
centuries before: we determined to have that and to take it over to
the United States, where we knew we could realize immense sums on it,
from collectors, with no questions asked. There were other matters,
too, which were handy--we carefully removed the lot, brought them
along the coast to this very cove, and interred them in those ruins
where we three foregathered this afternoon."

"And whence, I take it, you have just removed them to the deck above
our heads?" I suggested.

"Right, Middlebrook, quite right--there they are!" he admitted with a
laugh. "A grand collection, too--chalices, patens, reliquaries, all
manner of splendid mediaeval craftsmanship--and certain other more
modern things with them--all destined for the other side of the
Atlantic--the market's sure and safe and ready--"

"You think you'll get them there?" I asked.

"I shall be more surprised than I ever was in my life if I don't," he
answered readily, and with that note of dryness which one associates
with certainty. "I'm a pretty cute hand at making and perfecting and
carrying out a plan. Yes, sir, they'll be there, in good time--and
they'd have been there long since if it hadn't been for an accident
which I couldn't foresee--that bank-manager chap had the ill-luck to
break his neck. Now that put me in a fix. I knew that the abstraction
of these things would soon be discovered, and though I'd exercised
great care in covering up all trace of my own share in the affair,
there was always a bare possibility of something coming out. So,
knowing the stuff was safely planted and very unlikely to be
disturbed, I cleared out, and determined to wait a fitting opportunity
of regaining possession of it. My notion at that time, I remember, was
to get hold of some American millionaire collector who would give me
facilities for taking up the stuff, to be handed over to him. But I
didn't find one, and for the time being I had to keep quiet.
Inquiries, of course, were set afoot about the missing property, but
fortunately I was not suspected. And if I had been, I shouldn't have
been found, for I know how to disappear as cleverly as any man who
ever found that convenient."

He threw