What really happened seems to me to have been something like this. I have no doubt that Pudlicott got into the treasury by the simple process of his friend, Adam of Warfield, giving him facilities for forcing the door or perhaps breaking a window. He remained in the crypt a long time so that he might hand out its contents to confederates who, as we learn from the depositions, ate, drank, and revelled till midnight for two nights running in a house within the precincts of the Fleet prison, and then went armed and horsed to Westminster, returning towards daybreak loaded with booty. But not only the revellers in Shenche’s headquarters, but many monks, many abbey servants, the custodians of the palace, the leading goldsmiths of the city, and half the neighbours must have been cognisant of, if not participating in, the crime. It speaks well for honour among thieves, that it was not until deplorable indiscretions were made in the disposal of the booty that any news of the misdeed reached the ears of any of the official custodians of the treasure. Suspicion of the crime was first excited by the discovery of fragments of the spoil in all sorts of unexpected places. A fisherman, plying his craft in the then silver Thames, netted a silver goblet which had evidently been the property of the king. Passers-by found cups, dishes, and similar precious things hidden behind tombstones and other rough hiding-places in St. Margaret’s Churchyard. Boys playing in the neighbouring fields found pieces of plate concealed under hedgerows. Such discoveries were made as far from Westminster as Kentish Town. Moreover, many other people lighted upon similar pieces of treasure trove. Foreign money found its way into the hands of the money-changers at London, York, and Lymm, and other remote parts. The city goldsmiths were the happy receivers of large amounts of silver plate, among them, I regret to say, being William Torel, the artist-goldsmith, whose skill in metal work has left such an abiding mark in the decorations of the abbey church. There were, too, scandalous stories whispered abroad. One of them was that a woman of loose life explained her possession of a precious ring by relating that it was given her by Dom Adam the sacrist “so that she should become his friend”. Such tales soon made the story of the robbery common property. At last it came to the ears of the king and his ministers, then encamped at Linlithgow for the Scottish war. Thereupon, on 6 June, the king appointed a special commission of judges to investigate the matter. On 20 June, John Droxford, the keeper of the wardrobe, came to Westminster with the keys of the crypt, and then and only then did any official examination of the treasury take place. An entry was made into the crypt and the damage which had been done was inspected. The result is still to be read in an inventory of the treasures lost and the treasures found which Droxford drew up, and which may now be studied in print.