Next, Armorel remembered the secret cupboard at the head of the bed. Her own bed had its secret recess at the head--every respectable bedstead used formerly to have them. Where else could money be hidden away safely? To be sure, everybody knew this hiding-place, but everybody pretended not to know. It was an open secret, like the concealed drawer in a schoolboy's desk. Our forefathers were full of such secrets that everybody knew. The stocking in the teapot: the receptacle under the hearthstone: the hidden compartment in the cabinet: the secret room: the secret staircase: the recess in the head of the bed--these were all secrets that everybody knew and everybody respected. I think that even the burglar respected these conventions. Armorel knew how to open the panel--she found the spring and it flew open, rustily, as if it had not been opened for a great many years. Behind the panel was a recess eighteen inches long and about nine inches deep. And here stood a Black Jack--nothing less than a Black Jack; a quart Jack, not a Leather Jack, but a tankard made of tin and painted with hunting scenes something like an Etruscan vase, or perhaps more like a Brown George. Why should anyone want to hide away a Black Jack? This quart pot, however, held something better than stingo--even stronger: it was half-filled with foreign money. Here were moidores, doubloons, ducats, pieces-of-eight, Louis d'ors, Spanish pillar dollars, sequins, gold coins from India--nothing at all in the pot less than a hundred years old. Armorel took out a handful and looked at them. Well, gold coins do look like money. She began to feel really rich. She had a quart tankard half-full of gold coins. She added the Black Jack to the other treasures on the table. All this foreign money must have come out of the wrecks. And, since it was all so old, out of wrecks that had happened before the memory even of the Ancient Lady. This, then, was perhaps the Great Surprise. But there remained the sea-chest under the window, and again, when Armorel looked upon it, the chest continued to call to her, 'Open me! Open me! See what I have for you!'