One other point we must also remember about the dispositions of this crypt. There is only one access to it, and that is neither from the chapter house above nor from the adjacent cloister, but from the church itself. A low, vaulted passage is entered by a door at the south-east corner of the south transept of the abbey, now for many centuries the special burial place for poets, eminent and otherwise. This passage descends by a flight of steep steps to the crypt itself, and the flight originally seems, I am told—doubtless as another precaution against robbery—to have been a broken one suggesting that a steep drop, presumably spanned by a short ladder, further barred access to the crypt. We must remember, too, that this sole access to the treasury was within a few feet of the sacristy of the abbey. The sacristy was the chapel to the south of the south transept, and communicating with it where the sacrist kept the precious vessels appropriated to the service of the altar. Altogether it looks as if the crypt were originally intended as a storehouse for such church treasure as the sacrist did not need for his immediate purposes. From this use it was diverted, as we have seen, to the keeping of the royal treasures. Nowadays the sacristy is called the chapel of St. Faith and is used for purposes of private devotion. We must not forget the close connexion in our period of the sacristy and the crypt. The connexion becomes significant when we remember that among Pudlicott’s monastic boon companions at the palace-keeper’s lodge was the sacrist of the abbey, Adam of Warfield. Pudlicott had made up his mind to steal the king’s treasure. The practical problem was how to get access to it. If we examine the evidence collected at the enquiry, we find that there are two discrepant accounts as to how the robber effected his purpose. The one is warranted by the testimony of a large number of sworn juries of reputable citizens of every ward in the city of London, of burgesses of Westminster, and of the good men of every hundred in the adjacent shires of Middlesex and Surrey. It is—like much truthful evidence—rather vague, but its general tendency is, while recognizing that Pudlicott is the prime offender, to make various monks and palace officers his accomplices. Of the latter category William of the Palace seems to have been the most active, while of the many monks Adam Warfield the sacrist was the most generally denounced. But the proved share of both Adam and William was based largely on the discovery of stolen property in their possession. The evidence of the juries suggests theories as to how the crime may have been perpetrated; it does not make the methods of the culprits clear and palpable. But it suggests that masons and carpenters were called in, so that some breaking in of the structure was attempted, and in particular it suggests that the churchyard was the thoroughfare through which the robbers removed their booty.