Mere words fail to express my chagrin. Job Seal could perhaps have uttered remarks sufficiently pointed and appropriate, but for myself I could only reflect that this unknown man who called himself Mr. Purvis, of London, had forestalled me.

The parchment he had purchased of this drink-sodden old yokel might, for aught I knew, give a clue to the spot of which I was in search. We had more than a thousand golden guineas locked up safely in the bank in London, but both Seal, Mr. Staffurth, and myself felt certain that the great bulk of the treasure still remained undiscovered.

But what was the explanation of these inquiries by the mysterious Purvis? He evidently knew that the family of Knutton had been appointed hereditary guardians of the Italian’s hoard, and he, like myself, was investigating the possibility of securing it.

I asked the old labourer, Ben Knutton, to describe the parchment he had sold, but owing to the landlady’s sharp and well-meant remonstrance he was not communicative.

“It was all stained and faded so that you could hardly see there was any writin’ on it at all,” he said vaguely.

“But there was a seal on it. What was it like?”

“Oh, it was a thick, round bit o’ wax what had been put on to a narrow piece of parchment and threaded through at the bottom so that it hung down.”

“Did you ever notice the device on the seal?” I inquired eagerly.

“There was a lion, or summat—it were very much like what’s on the stone in front o’ Caldecott Manor.”

That decided me. The document the foolish old simpleton had sold for half a sovereign was the one that had been in his family since the days of Queen Elizabeth, and in all probability gave some clue, if a guarded one, to the secret.

“This stranger knew all about the Knuttons?” I hazarded.

“Lor’ bless you yes. He knew more about my family than I do myself. Been studying ’em, he said.”

I smiled within myself. Whoever this man Purvis was he was certainly no fool.

“Well,” observed the landlady, addressing me, “my own opinion is, sir, that Ben has made a very great mistake in selling the paper to a stranger. He don’t know what it might not be worth.”

“I quite agree,” I said. “The thing should have been examined first.”

“Oh,” said the old man, “Mr. Beresford, who was the parson before Mr. Pocock, borrowed it from my brother Dick and kept it a long time, but couldn’t make head nor tail of the thing. He said it was written in some kind of secret writing.”

“In cipher, perhaps,” I remarked. And it then occurred to me what Mr. Staffurth had told me, that at the end of the sixteenth century a great many private documents were so written that only those in possession of a key could decipher them. It might be so in the case of the one in question.

“How big was it?” I inquired.

“Oh, when it wor spread out, it measured about a foot square. It folded up, and there was some scribbling on the back. I remember that my father, just afore he died, called Dick to him and told him to look in the bottom of the old chest—the one I’ve got at home now. He did so, and brought the faded old thing out. I’d never seen it before, but my father told Dick to keep it all his life, and give it to his eldest son. He made Dick promise that.”

“And before your brother Dick died he carried out his father’s wish?”

“Yes, sir. Then young Dick gave it to me. I thought half a sovereign for it was a good bargain.”

“It all depends upon what it contained. It might have been of great importance to your family,” I said; “it might have had to do with the fortune which it is supposed to be yours by right.”

“Ah, sir!” the landlady exclaimed, smiling. “We’ve heard a lot about that great fortune of the Knuttons. I used to hear all about it when I was a girl, how that if they had their own they’d be as rich as the Marquis of Exeter. It’s an old story in Rockingham.”

“It was foolish in the extreme to sell a document of the contents of which he was ignorant,” I declared. “But he’s parted with it, and it’s gone, so, as far as I can see, nothing can be done.”

“Where’s the half-sovereign?” asked the landlady sharply of the old fellow.

“Spent it.”

“Yes, on drink,” she said. “You know very well you treated all your friends out of it, both here and at the other inns, and that you haven’t been sober these two days till to-night. If you didn’t have so much beer, Ben Knutton, it would be better for you, and for us too, I can tell you that.”

“That’s enough, missus,” the old man said, “you’re always grumbling, you are.”

I left the old yokel sitting on a bench over a big mug of beer and chatted with the landlady. In the course of conversation I asked if she knew any one of the name of Woollerton, but she was unaware of any person bearing that cognomen. Then in the summer twilight I strolled back to my headquarters in Caldecott, much puzzled over the curious manner in which I had been checkmated by this mysterious Purvis.

As far as it went my visit there had been satisfactory, because I had established the fact that there was truth in the story of Bartholomew da Schorno’s property at Caldecott, and that in the family of Knutton there had been, until two days ago, a document similar in form to that I had found on board the Seahorse. We had in the bank tangible proof that the owner of the Seahorse was a man of wealth; therefore I could not help believing that there was treasure stored somewhere ashore. Besides, the local legend of the fortune of the Knuttons added greatly to its possibility.

I smoked with a couple of farmers that evening, and learnt what I could from them. It was not much, only that a few years ago some one had taken the Manor House with an idea of turning it into a private lunatic asylum.

“Did it answer?” I asked of one.

“............