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The fragment of paper which Mr. Campion held and at which the others glanced over his shoulder was thumbed and dirty, but the message was legible enough.

“Gwen’s, London. Dear S.,—This is to give you the office. Have heard from P. that the old man is angry. We have both been on wrong track, as I thought. I am off to Fly by Night to-night. The old man’s heard of something that may give us the lead in on the doings. There is supposed to be something carved on one of the trees in the garden which will show us the light. Seems like Sweet Fanny Adams to me. Join me careful. You can leave that bunch, they know less than us.—Yours, D.”

“There you are,” said Mr. Lugg. “That’s what I call evidence. It gives it to yer in one.”

“I’m hanged if I can see it,” said Guffy, who was still frowning over the document. “Can you make head or tail of this, Campion?”

“Well, yes, in a way. It’s extremely interesting.” The pale young man in the horn-rimmed spectacles continued to regard the missive thoughtfully. “You see, Sniffy’s correspondent is inclined to stick to his own vernacular. Translated, I imagine it goes something like this, doesn’t it, Lugg? ‘Dear Sniffy,—This is to warn you. Have heard from P. that the man who employs us is angry. We have been on the wrong scent, as I thought. I am off to Pontisbright to-night. Our employer has heard of something which may give us a clue to the whereabouts of the proofs. There is alleged to be something carved on one of the trees in the garden’—of the old Pontisbright house, I suppose—‘which may give us that clue. I am not very sanguine about this. Join me at Pontisbright, but take care. You can leave Mr. Campion and his friends. They know less than we do.—Yours, Doyle.’ ”

“How d’you make out Pontisbright?” said Farquharson.

“Rhyming slang. It’s still used a good deal, especially for proper names. That’s only a guess, I know, but I think we’re fairly safe in assuming that it’s what the man means.”

“Of course you are,” said Mr. Lugg’s sepulchral voice from the background.

“How do you know ‘D’ stands for Doyle?” continued Guffy obstinately.

“Well, Peaky Doyle has been with Sniffy Edwards on this job and he’s the most likely person to write to his friend on the subject. Also, he spends a lot of his time at Gwen’s, a rather shady lodging-house in the Waterloo Road.”

“Peaky Doyle is the man we’ve called ‘widow’s peak’ all along, the man who fired at us at Brindisi, I suppose?” said Eager-Wright. “I say, Campion, this is important, isn’t it? What do you actually make of it?”

Mr. Campion considered. His pale face was vacant as ever, but his eyes were thoughtful.

“It’s an interesting note altogether,” he said at last. “I see no reason at all to suppose that it isn’t genuine, and in that case it puts us on a new scent altogether. In the first place, if Peaky Doyle is going to Pontisbright, I suppose we’d better go too. That’s the name of the Suffolk village, by the way, where the Pontisbright mansion originally stood. Well, well, well; perhaps the fun is going to begin at last.”

He was silent again for a moment and stood looking down at the paper.

“I know what you’re thinkin’,” said Mr. Lugg suddenly. “You’re thinkin’ just what I’ve bin thinkin’ all along, and it’s this: ’Oo exactly is Peaky Doyle’s old man?”

Mr. Campion glanced at his aide, and for a moment they regarded each other solemnly.

“Well, why not?” said Mr. Lugg. “It might be. And if so, either you give up the ’ole idea or I ’and in my resignation.”

“Nerves troubling you again?” enquired his employer mildly.

“No,” said Mr. Lugg stoutly. “I know what’s good for me, though. I’ve never worked a miracle yet and I don’t want t’ave to begin now.”

Mr. Campion seemed to realize that this cryptic conversation must be very tantalizing to his friends, and he turned to them.

“Peaky Doyle once worked for a very extraordinary person early on in his unbeautiful career,” he explained, “and the thought has occurred to both Lugg and me that he might be back at his old job. I suppose you people have heard of Brett Savanake?”

“The financier?” enquired Farquharson, while Eager-Wright and Guffy looked blank.

Campion nodded. “He’s an extraordinary man, one of those business geniuses who turn up now and again. He’s chairman of a dozen companies of international importance, and how he got there is one of those mysteries that people have given up trying to explain. Early on in his career there were some very queer stories floating about, and just after the Winterton Textile Trust smash he used to go about with a bodyguard of thugs. Peaky Doyle featured rather prominently in that outfit. Since then Savanake’s just gone on from strength to strength. He’s never photographed, never interviewed, but keeps out of the limelight as much as possible.”

“But,” said Farquharson, aghast, “would this be big enough for him? Think of the risk!”

Mr. Campion grinned. “I don’t think the risk would worry him,” he said. “But whether the thing’s big enough is another matter altogether. If we’re up against him we’re up against something pretty exciting. Still, I don’t see any way of finding that out immediately. If it arises, it arises. What is important is this yarn about a clue carved on a tree trunk. We can’t afford to ignore a hint like that, can we? Alas, I see the day of my pomp departing. I must get back to work.”

“Look here,” said Guffy, “what exactly are we looking for? This may seem rather a trite question to you, but it’s been worrying me.”

Campion apologized. “I’m sorry,” he said with genuine contrition. “I ought to have explained this before. There’s three things without which the Powers-That-Be don’t consider they could possibly get a favourable decision at the Court of The Hague. The first—it’s rather like a fairy story, isn’t it?—is the crown which was made for Giles Pontisbright in the reign of Henry the Fourth. He had it made by Italian workmen, and the only description of it we can get is a rather fanciful affair in a manuscript in the British Museum. I’ll read it to you.”

He sat down on the bed again and took a slip of paper from his note-case. He began to read, the archaic words sounding even more strange in his precise voice.

“ ‘Three drops of blood from a royal wound, three dull stars like the pigeon’s egg, held and knit together with a flowery chain. Yet when a Pontisbright do wear it, none shall see it but by the stars.’ ”

As he finished reading he eyed Guffy gravely through his enormous spectacles.

“It sounds very difficult, doesn’t it?” he said, “That bit about it not being visible when it’s on, for instance. Besides, those ancient crowns weren’t one of those red-plush bowler-hat affairs with festoons of jewellery. They made ’em almost any shape. Well, then, that’s that. Our next little problem is the charter. That’s written on parchment which, according to the stationery bills of the time, must have been either one-half or one quarter of a whole sheepskin. It’s written in Latin, of course, bears Henry the Fourth’s seal and his mark. I don’t think the fellow could write. And the third treasure, is, as it should be, the most important of all, and simply consists of Metternich’s receipt for the money in 1814. Heaven knows what that looks like. So, you see, we’re going to have fun.”

Guffy’s pleasant round face flushed. “It’s rather jolly, though, isn’t it?” he said. “I mean, I rather like it. Who’s got the Pontisbright manor house now? I ought to know that part of the country well, but I can’t even remember having heard the name before.” Mr. Campion met Farquharson’s eyes and grimaced. “That’s where we come up against another snag,” he said. “There’s no longer any house at all. When the title lapsed the old Countess, who was the only member of the family left, simply sold up everything, lock, stock, and barrel. The entire place was dismantled and sold piece by piece, until nothing but a hole which had contained the foundations was left. It was one of the great acts of vandalism of the Victorian era.” He paused. “Not very helpful, is it?”

“But the garden,” persisted Guffy. “This fellow Peaky Doyle distinctly mentions the garden.”

“Oh, the grounds are still there, we believe,” put in Farquharson. “Not kept up at all, you know, but still there.”

“But isn’t there anyone even remotely connected with the family living in the place? In the dower house, or somewhere?”

“There’s a mill,” ventured Eager-Wright. “That’s inhabited by the family of a man who made an unsuccessful claim to the title just before the war. He was killed in France afterwards, and the family consists of a few kids, I think, but we’re not sure about that. You think we ought to go down there, Campion?”

The tall fair young man in horn-rimmed spectacles nodded.

“I think so. After all, as far as we know Peaky Doyle and his friends are the only people who are interested in this affair besides us, and in our present position with nothing definite to lay hands on, let us go and see what the other fellow’s got.”

“Now that’s sensible,” said Mr. Lugg with the sublime confidence of a man who cannot conceive a situation when his opinion is not useful. “Only all I say is, find out first ’oo you’re up against. And if it’s you know who I mean, leave it alone.”

Mr. Campion ignored him. “Look here, Farquharson,” he said, “in your position as Equerry-in-chief, I wonder if you’d mind making all the necessary arrangements? Pay our bills and give notice and see we leave to-night.”

“To-night?” expostulated Mr. Lugg. “I’ve got an appointment to-night. I don’t want to leave a bad impression in the place. People get talkin’ and it might look funny.”

His further expostulations were cut short by a discreet tapping on the outer door. He ambled off to open it, still protesting, and returned a moment or so later to announce that Monsieur Etiénne Fleurey was desolate, but could he have a word with Mr. Randall?

Guffy went out in some surprise and was still more astonished to find the little man himself standing on the threshold. He was pink and apologetic, and Guffy, who realized the blow to his dignity which he must have suffered by being forced to attend to anything personally, regarded him enquiringly. The manager could hardly speak.

“Monsieur Randall, I am prostrate with regret. You will accompany me?”

He led the young man into an unoccupied suite farther down the corridor and closed the door with every show of caution. Having satisfied himself that he could not be overheard, he presented a shining face to his visitor which was adorned with such an expression of woe that all Guffy’s sympathies as well as his curiosity were aroused.

“Monsieur, the situation in which I find myself is, as you would say, putrid. I am annihilated. My world has come to an end. It would be infinitely better if I were dead.”

“That’s all right,” said Guffy, not knowing quite what else to say. “What’s up?”

“The unspeakable imbecile who complained,” Monsieur Fleurey continued, tears in his eyes, “he has gone. He has departed, crept out of the hotel like a veritable odour, but that is not all. Circumstances which I dare not divulge, circumstances which you, my dear Monsieur Randall, will as a man of honour understand and respect, machinations of fate over which I have no control, compel me to insist that the man Smith return anything which he may have taken—no doubt in some perfectly pardonable error—from the room of this canaille whom we all so justifiably detest.”

“I say,” said Guffy, trembling between a sense of guilt and a desire to help, “this is going to be rather awkward, isn’t it?”

“Awkward? Never in my career have I experienced such a sense of embarrassment such as now overwhelms me! But what can I do? I tell you my entire life, the fortunes of my hotel which are my very existence, depend upon the recovery of a certain”—Monsieur Fleurey gulped—“a certain letter which the man Smith doubtless suspected was one of his own.”

Guffy made up his mind. Apart from the fact that the little manager appeared to be on the verge of hurling himself weeping at his feet, Mr. Randall had very strong ideas concerning the ethics of Mr. Lugg’s escapade.

“Look here,” he said, “I imagine there’s been some mistake. Suppose in about fifteen minutes or so you search the room occupied by Sniff—I mean your late client. You never know with letters. They slip behind beds, or get tucked under carpets, don’t they?”

Monsieur Fleurey’s little bright brown eyes met the Englishman’s for a second. Then he seized Guffy’s hand and wrung it.

“Monsieur Randall,” he said with a gulp which he could not quite repress, “you are a veritable hero. The—how shall I say?—the pineapple of your race.”

Guffy went back to the royal suite and delivered his ultimatum. Mr. Lugg was inclined to be truculent, but Campion was instantly obliging.

“That’s rather a good idea on the whole,” he said. “You slip out and throw the letter behind the bed, Lugg. After all, we’ve read it. Don’t be a fool.”

When the big man had gone off grumbling on his errand he turned again to Guffy.

“I shouldn’t think many things would arouse our friend Etiénne so thoroughly, would you?” he said slowly.

“Rather not. The poor fellow seemed on the verge of suicide.” Guffy was still amazed.

Mr. Campion moved over to the telephone. “Little Albert has had one of his rare and illuminating thoughts,” he said, and put through a call to Paris.

After some moments’ rapid conversation in French with some oracle in the capital, he hung up the receiver and faced the trio. There was a curious expression in the pale eyes behind the spectacles, and for the first time that day a faint tinge of colour on the high cheek-bones.

“That was my good friend Daudet of the Sûreté,” he said. “He knows everything, although this question was simple enough in all conscience. It occurred to me that the only thing that could produce such a state of hysteria in the good Fleurey was the fear of losing his job, of relinquishing the eminent position he has worked so hard to attain. I enquired of Daudet the name of the proprietors of this hotel, and he tells me that this, the Mirifique at Nice, and the Mirabeau at Marseilles are owned by the Société Anonyme de Winterhouse Incorporated. And that interesting little combine, my pretties, is chairmaned and practically owned by that beautiful soul Brett Savanake. D’you know, I really think things are going to begin.”