“This was quite enough for your uncle. He decided that he would not wait for M. Lessaution’s return, which was not expected for another six months, but would cross the Atlantic and interview him on the spot where he was conducting his experiments. After reading the letter left by your ancestor, I can quite understand that to a man of leisure like his lordship, and a man with a taste for wandering to boot, the fascination of such a quest would be great. At any rate he sailed for Greytown about five months ago, and with the exception of a single letter purely on business matters I have heard no word from him since. You can imagine that his death has come as a shock.” “Well,” said I, “I am certainly astonished, but I cannot say I am greatly moved by your tale, Mr. Crum. It would certainly never have occurred to _me_ to cross three or four thousand miles of ocean to interview a foreign _savant_ about a coin or a document. But then, you see, I am not made that way.” “Very likely, my lord,” submitted the lawyer, “but you will pardon me if I say that you have not seen the letter by Admiral Sir John. That sheds a very curious light on the question, and certainly adds vastly to the interest one of your family must take in it. But I will show it to you at your leisure.” “I am as leisured now as I am likely to be for the rest of time,” said I, “but before I see the letter I should just like to squint at the coins, if you are not particularly occupied for the next hour.” He rose at once and preceded me to the outer office, where a door opened on to a flight of stone steps. Down these he guided me, ushering me at last into a broad, whitewashed cellar, wherein not less than half-a-dozen great safes faced each other from wall to wall. He clicked a key in the lock of one, and turned a handle. The great door swung back and showed row upon row of numbered sliding drawers, lined with velvet, and covered—every square inch of them—with coins of every degree of dirt, ancientry, and denomination. One drawer alone was nearly empty, and this held two gold pieces, and placed beside them on the velvet a sheet of ancient paper, covered with crabbed writing and faint with the dust of ages. The lawyer took it up and unfolded it carefully, and then I saw for the first time the screed that sent my uncle speeding across the ocean at its behest, and which was to leave its mark on my life also. CHAPTER III THE TESTIMONY OF SIR JOHN DORINECOURTE, KNT. The lawyer pushed back the drawers methodically, clanged to the safe door, and turned to me as I laboured toilsomely to decipher the faint scratchy handwriting. He held the two coins in his hand.