‘Yes, sir. You didn’t know of that, perhaps. Among the things master collected after he retired from business—and he was always collecting something, as long as he could get about among the brokers, and in all the courts and alleys in London—there was a good bit of old silver. Five Queen Anne teapots; three Oliver Cromwell tankards, not very much to look at unless you were up to that sort of thing, but worth their weight in gold, Mr. Sivewright used to say to me. “I wish I was rich enough to do more in old silver,” he has said many a time. “There’s nothing like it. Collectors are waking up to the value of it, and before many years are over old silver will be almost as precious as diamonds.” He picked up a good many nice little bits first and last, through rummaging about among old chaps that dealt in second-hand stuff of that sort, and didn’t trouble to ask any awkward questions of the people that brought ’em the goods; picked up things that would have gone into the melting-pot very likely, if his eye hadn’t been quick enough to see their value. One day he’d bring home a set of spindle-legged saltcellars; another time a battered old rosewater dish. Once he bought a “monstrance” which had been used upon some cathedral altar, once upon a time—solid gold set with rubies and emeralds. “The fool that I bought it from took it for ormolu,” he said.’ ‘And these are the things that are gone, I suppose,’ said Lucius, somewhat puzzled by the old man’s loquacity. Why should Wincher inform him of the existence of these things if he were an accomplice of the thief? Yet this seeming candour was doubtless a part of the traitor’s scheme. ‘Every one of ’em, sir. There’s been a clean sweep made of ’em. But how any thief could find out where they were kept is more than I can fathom. It’s too much for my poor old brains.’ ‘The thief was well informed, depend upon it, Mr. Wincher,’ answered Lucius. ‘And pray, whereabouts did you keep this old silver?’ ‘Would you like to see, sir?’ ‘I should.’ ‘I’ll show you the place, then.’ Jacob Wincher led the way to the extreme end of the repository, where behind a tall screen of old oak panelling there was a massive muniment chest furnished with a lock which seemed calculated to defy the whole race of burglars and pick-locks. The old servant took a key from his pocket—a small key, for the lock was of modern make—unlocked and opened the chest. There was nothing in it except an old damask curtain. ‘The silver was rolled up in that curtain,’ said Jacob Wincher, taking up the curtain and shaking it vigorously, as if with some faint hope that the Queen Anne teapots would fall out of its folds, like the rabbits or live pigeons in a conjurer’s trick. ‘The iron safe was a landlord’s fixture in Bond-street, and we were obliged to leave it behind us, so this chest was the safest place I could find to put the silver in; in fact, master told me to put it there.’