“What does this mean, Johnny? It means that we have found a hill of gold; not solid gold, as in the story-books, but gold that pays ounces and probably pounds to the ton. How the prospectors have missed it all these years I can’t understand, unless it is that they’ve made their cuttings on the north side of the hill, where they have found nothing but slate and sandstone. The little river in the valley must be feet deep in alluvial, for I panned the bed and got eight ounces of pure gold in an hour—and that was by rough and ready methods. I had to be careful not to make the boys too curious, and I am breaking camp to-morrow, and I want you to cable or send me £500 to Mossamedes. The statuette I’m bringing home is worth all that. I would bring more, only I can’t trust these Angola boys; a lot of them are mission boys and can read Portuguese, and they’re too friendly with a half-breed called Villa, who is an agent of Oberzohn & Smitts; the traders and I know these people to be the most unscrupulous scoundrels on the coast. “I shall be at Mossamedes about three weeks after you get this letter, but I don’t want to get back to the coast in a hurry, otherwise people are going to suspect I have made a strike.” Leon put the letter down. “There is the story in a nutshell, gentlemen,” he said. “I don’t, for one moment, believe that Mr. Barberton showed Villa the letter. It is more likely that one of the educated natives he speaks about saw it and reported it to Oberzohn’s agent. Portuguese is the lingua franca of that part of the coast. Barberton was killed to prevent his meeting the girl and telling her of his find—incidentally, of warning her to apply for a renewal of the concession. It wasn’t even necessary that they should search his belongings to recover the letter, because once they knew of its existence and the date which Barberton had apparently confounded with the date the letter was written, their work was simply to present an application to the Colonial Office at Lisbon. It was quite different after Barberton was killed, when they learnt or guessed that the letter was in Mr. Lee’s possession.” Meadows agreed. “That was the idea behind Oberzohn’s engagement of Mirabelle Leicester?” “Exactly, and it was also behind the attack upon Heavytree Farm. To secure this property they must get her away and keep her hidden either until it is too late for her to apply for a renewal, or until she has been bullied or forced into appointing a nominee.” “Or married,” said Leon briskly. “Did that idea occur to you? Our tailor-made friend, Monty Newton, may have had matrimonial intentions. It would have been quite a good stroke of business to secure a wife and a large and auriferous hill at the same time. This, I think, puts a period to the ambitions of Herr Doktor Oberzohn.” He got up from the table and handed the papers to the custody of the detective, and turned with a quizzical smile to his friend.