centuries before: we determined to have that and to take it over to the United States, where we knew we could realize immense sums on it, from collectors, with no questions asked. There were other matters, too, which were handy--we carefully removed the lot, brought them along the coast to this very cove, and interred them in those ruins where we three foregathered this afternoon." "And whence, I take it, you have just removed them to the deck above our heads?" I suggested. "Right, Middlebrook, quite right--there they are!" he admitted with a laugh. "A grand collection, too--chalices, patens, reliquaries, all manner of splendid mediaeval craftsmanship--and certain other more modern things with them--all destined for the other side of the Atlantic--the market's sure and safe and ready--" "You think you'll get them there?" I asked. "I shall be more surprised than I ever was in my life if I don't," he answered readily, and with that note of dryness which one associates with certainty. "I'm a pretty cute hand at making and perfecting and carrying out a plan. Yes, sir, they'll be there, in good time--and they'd have been there long since if it hadn't been for an accident which I couldn't foresee--that bank-manager chap had the ill-luck to break his neck. Now that put me in a fix. I knew that the abstraction of these things would soon be discovered, and though I'd exercised great care in covering up all trace of my own share in the affair, there was always a bare possibility of something coming out. So, knowing the stuff was safely planted and very unlikely to be disturbed, I cleared out, and determined to wait a fitting opportunity of regaining possession of it. My notion at that time, I remember, was to get hold of some American millionaire collector who would give me facilities for taking up the stuff, to be handed over to him. But I didn't find one, and for the time being I had to keep quiet. Inquiries, of course, were set afoot about the missing property, but fortunately I was not suspected. And if I had been, I shouldn't have been found, for I know how to disappear as cleverly as any man who ever found that convenient." He threw away the stump of his cigar, deliberately lighted another, and leaned across the table towards me in a more confidential manner.