denly
disappeared from The Towers, as completely as they had from their town
mansion, but what direction they had taken was not discovered.

They were "wanted" for the clearing up of the death of their two
servants, whose bodies were identified by the domestics brought up from
the country house; but the witness particularly sought for was the old
housekeeper, who, it was presumed, would be able to give a pretty good
account of the doings at the great mansion. But she could not be found,
and the suspicion at once arose that she had been murdered by the men
who made the attack upon the safe after obtaining leave to go up to town
on business.

Search was therefore made in the town mansion, and also in the adjoining
house with the curious underground works, but without result, and the
disappearance of the old lady's body added to the mystery.

The family were wanted, too, soon after, upon another charge--that of
coining, for upon further investigation of the supposed wealth banked in
the strong-room, it was found that the coins were base.

But it required a far more than superficial examination to prove this,
official after official from the Mint declaring them to be genuine
according to the ordinary tests. Their weight was absolutely correct,
the workmanship was perfect, and they gave forth a true ring, but upon
every sovereign being broken in half, though there was nothing to see,
the coin appearing to be of gold with the proper amount of hardening
metal added, the application of the acid test showed that something was
wrong.

The examination of the bars of metal supposed to be gold, and discovered
in the underground place beneath the old professor's house, gave the
explanation, the two chests delivered by the railway company helping the
matter, for after the police had removed a layer or two of old books,
they came upon small oaken boxes containing ingots of the base metal
used in the manufacture of the coin, these being of an ingeniously
compounded alloy, whose constituents, after metallurgical analysis, the
Mint authorities kept secret.

Examination of the cellarage proved quite startling, from the perfection
of the dies, presses, and rolling mills, all of great power, beautifully
made, but of foreign production.

There was a small furnace, too, with crucibles, and other paraphernalia,
the most interesting find being the small ribbons of metal from which
the round counter-like flats had been punched, and some