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He took up a few papers and cleared his throat.

“I’ve asked Sir Thomas to come here as a family friend, and a witness, and a man of great experience of men and things, and I feel sure he’ll allow us to benefit by his advice.”

“Anything I can do, my dear fellow ...” said I.

“Thanks, Tom. I knew it. But what I want to make clear is that, when I say ‘we’ and ‘you,’ I’m referring to the set of four cousins, of whom I am the eldest.

“As you know, we are the children of three sisters, Mary, Jane, and Anne, who unfortunately are now dead. They were the only children of our grandfather Gregory Jorico, who, born in 1835, married a Miss Tobin, whence Toby gets his second Christian name, practised as a doctor in London, and died intestate in the year 1890.

“Gregory Jorico’s father was one John Jorico, born in 1805, a Bristol merchant, who died in 1870. He had issue, Gregory, the doctor, and a daughter who died young. He was our great-grandfather—on our maternal side. I hope I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” said Toby.

“This John Jorico’s father, our great-great-grandfather, Captain John Gregory Jorico, is the ancestor with whom the four of us are vitally concerned. He was born in the year 1755 and died in 1830 at the age of 75.

“My mother, the eldest of the three sisters, I fancy was more in the confidence of her father, Dr. Gregory Jorico, than your respective mothers. Besides, she married into his own profession—he and my father, Mowbray Binkley, from whom I inherited the baronetcy, were great friends. I remember him very well. He died when I was about 10—my mother when I was 35. I grew up, as it were, under the legend of the Family Fortune.

“It was, however, not till three years ago, when I was very badly hit—you all know what I refer to—that, finding myself at the very loosest end in life, it struck me that I might occupy myself in looking into this mythical fortune supposed to have been left by our ancestor, Captain John Gregory Jorico.

“All I had to go upon was the tradition that he died in Bristol. Our grandfather had told my mother that his father had said so.

“For three years I have ridden my hobby, and I think I’ve got somewhere.”

He smiled genially, and paused as though he had used a humorous metaphor. Good-natured Toby nodded and said: “Good man.” Young Nicholas stared into the fire.

“I think I’ve searched the records of every parish and every public institution in the city of Bristol. I advertised periodically in the Bristol papers for any information concerning the Jorico family.” He pointed to the table. “I’ve lots of information.

“First, there’s the Will of Captain John Gregory Jorico. Let us call him Ancestor Jorico for short. I’ve seen it with my own eyes in the District Registers of Bristol, which were set up among forty others by the Act of 1857. This is a copy of it ...” He handed it round. “But it was almost illegible, written evidently on his death-bed. One would say that the signature was the last dying effort in which he spent himself. Read it.”

We read:

“1st November 1830. I leave my fortune of £500,000 to my son.... (Signed) John Gregory Jorico.”

“It was a paralytical scrawl,” Binkie continued, “but it was a valid will. Laws relating to witnesses and so forth didn’t come in till 1838. His son John proved it, and took possession of his father’s estate.

“Not the half-million of money. That’s the whole point of the business. Not a trace of the half-million was ever found. They had to attribute the great fortune to the megalomaniac dreams of a dying man. John inherited the comfortable little house in Vine Street, Bristol, where his father lived, and two or three thousand pounds loose cash, which, after all, was a jolly good sum to have in those days.

“Here is another fact in the Bristol records. This from the Parish Church of St. Stephen’s, where I found the baptismal register. Great-grandfather John was a younger son. There was an elder called Gregory, born in 1803. I told you John was born in 1805.

“You see a point I must make. The dying Ancestor Jorico said in his will, ‘My son.’ Which son? I had to find out.

“I found that John married a Bristol girl—one Frances Appleworth. As great-grandfather John predeceased her, it appears that she had the custody of many of his family papers; and, having quarrelled with her son, our grandfather Gregory, because he had London ambitions, transferred all that she could, under his will, of her personal effects to her own Appleworth family. There is still a distant cousin of hers, of the same name, a partner in a considerable Bristol brewery, who, when I tracked him down, I found had kept many interesting oddments of books and papers that had come down to him from the old lady. He has put the whole lot at my disposal. These are the most important ones. This, for instance.”

He handed us a faded four-page newspaper—the “Port of Spain Gazette,” 15th August, 1801. We read a paragraph which he pointed out:

“Just arrived, the Brig Flora, Master, Captain John Gregory Jorico, bringing 103 negroes, eighty males, sixteen females and seven children. All young and in perfect health. The same will be put up to Public Auction at 8 a. m. tomorrow. God save the King!”

“From this you will see,” said Binkie, rubbing his hands with an air of humour, “that our illustrious Ancestor was engaged in the slave-trade. Pretty lucrative in those days. Here’s something else that nobody for practically a hundred years has taken the trouble to look at.”

He handed us a dirty, greasy, leather-bound note-book, a mass of unintelligible figures, with here and there the ordinary nautical references to latitude and longitude; obvious additions in pounds, shillings and pence, some trivial, some amounting to considerable sums. One column totted up unmistakably to £15,000. The mass of the book, however, seemed to be in a clumsy cipher.

“I had to do this rotten sort of work at the Admiralty during the war,” said Binkie, beaming at us from the hearthrug. “I’ll give you the deciphered details later. But this little book proves indubitably that our revered Ancestor Jorico combined the profession of pirate and slave-trader. This account of his doings about the year 1800 is not only in cipher, but in some exasperating system of mnemonics for his own gratification.

“The thing I want to impress on you is this. No one reducing that note-book to alphabetical sense could sneer at Ancestor Jorico’s half-million bequest as the senile dreams of a dying man.

“I’ve got all kinds of side-lights on Ancestor Jorico. He seems to have retired definitely from his profession in 1810 at the age of 55. But he had married and bought a house in Vine Street about ten years before. He was a man of substance. A couple of years before his death he bought land near Bath and sold it at a profit. I’ve seen the deeds. There’s no sign of senile decay in the transactions of Ancestor Jorico. Death, as far as I can gather, took him by surprise. He had his half-million—ill-gotten if you like—private treasure; and, with the grip of Death on his throat, he found it behoved him to leave it to somebody. God knows who was present at his bedside. Great-grandfather John? I don’t know ...”

He paused. Everybody drew a short breath. He displayed a sense of drama with which I should not have credited him.

“Remember,” he went on, “there was a son, Gregory, two years older than John. I have a copy of his baptismal certificate.”

He passed the slip round. It contained little information besides that which he had already given. The father was described as “Master Mariner.”

“I’ve not been able to trace the families of godfathers and godmothers beyond the year 1848. They must either have died out or left Bristol. I mention this only to show you that I have left few stones unturned. But the gem of my collection is this.”

He took from his conjurer’s table an oval locket with a thin gold rim. It contained, like so many of the lockets of the period, only a lock of hair. This one was a wisp of the golden curl of a child.

“It opens, you see,” said Binkie, with the air of one saying: “There’s no deception, ladies and gentlemen.”

He showed us writing on the back of the oval bit of cardboard that kept the curl in place. There were two inscriptions in entirely different handwritings. One was:

“The haire of my beluved son Grigori aged 2 years.”

“That,” said Binkie, “was written by Ancestor Jorico’s wife, who died in 1817. Her name, both on the baptismal certificates and on the register of deaths, was given as Juanita. Who she was, except a Spaniard—she couldn’t spell her own child’s name—God only knows. But the second entry is important.”

“Drowned at sea. J.J.”

“That’s in the handwriting of his brother, our great-grandfather, John Jorico. If I believed in Purgatory, I could wish him a couple of extra years in it for not putting in the date. They seemed to be a most unmethodical lot.”

“I expect they enjoyed themselves all the more, Binkie,” said Toby, leaning back in his chair, with hands clasped comfortably behind his head. “The only thing I didn’t love about the Army, when it was my privilege to belong to it as an amateur, was its method. Your most secret thoughts, actions and desires have to be recorded on a yellow form made of beastly paper and headed with hideous combinations of letters and figures. It was necessary for war—just like dug-outs and plum-and-apple jam. But the Joricos lived in piping times of peace. What use could they have had for method?”

“If there’s one thing I should loathe,” said the boy, Nicholas, “it would be the Army.”

Binkie snapped at him. “Do you a damn lot of good, young fellow. Teach you to think straight and act straight.”

“That’s all right,” Mrs. Dalrymple struck in pleasantly; “but what we all want to know is—what about the half-million of money which Gregory says is going to be shared among the four of us? A hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds! See the water running down the corners of my mouth. You don’t say you can’t lay your hands on it?”

Binkie made her a little bow, and his smile was crisp and pleasant.

“You must give me time, my dear Hettie. Like the Wild West young man at the piano, whom strangers were requested not to shoot, I’m doing my best. I haven’t finished.”

In a mechanical nervous movement he pressed back his shirt cuffs. If his nervous fingers had produced from thin air a half a million pound Bank of England note, I swear I should not have been surprised. A blue Persian cat—Binkie liked cats—give me the most mongrelly decent dog any day—rose from its slumbers on the opposite corner of the hearthrug, stretched, arched its back and looked up at him with the confident expectation of a Familiar. I will not deny that there was some tensity in the air of excited minds. For any one of the four cousins, a fortune of a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds would have revolutionized the universe. I, too, an outsider, was strung up. So, when Binkie with an upheld finger and a smile of mystery on his face, and the cat still watching him to see that he made no mistake, announced that he had something up his sleeve, I burst out laughing.

Binkie looked pained. The cat stalked away in offended dignity. I caught Hettie Dalrymple’s eye. She deliberately winked at me. I found I was liking her more and more. Young Nicholas lit a cigarette. Toby cried cheerfully:

“Of course you’ve got something up your sleeve, old chap. Let’s have it out without so much method about it.”

I saw a shadow of annoyance pass across Binkie’s face. I reproached myself for my untimely laughter. Ridicule, except on deliberate occasions, is not a gentleman’s weapon.

“My dear boy,” said I, “you must forgive us. Don’t you see you’ve put us all on edge? We’re a bit hysterical.”

Binkie yielded graciously.

“I never thought of that. You see, I’ve been plugging away at this for three years, and when I thought the proper time had come, I wanted to put the whole story before you logically and clearly, to set out all the steps that have made me arrive at what I think are my logical conclusions. I wanted to establish in your minds certain incontestable facts. At the risk of boring you, I’ll recapitulate them. Ancestor Jorico was a slave-trader and a pirate. He amassed a great deal of treasure, on his own showing in the little note-book. That book only deals with one year, in which we see a total of £50,000 presumable profit. Suppose he continued at the same game for another ten years—until 1800. That would account for the half-million. But what did he do with the one year’s £50,000? He either lost it, or didn’t realize on it. As he definitely left £500,000 by will, I conclude that he didn’t—or more probably couldn’t—realize on it. I’m not a romantic man, as you all know. But I have been for some time logically convinced that there is hidden treasure to that estimated amount somewhere on the surface of the earth. My researches have proved that we four cousins are the only surviving heirs to this big fortune. I say I may have bored you by going into detailed ramifications of family history. But I thought it right you should have, like myself, a sound and indisputable ground-work to go upon. Don’t you agree with me?”

He was very dignified and masterful. We all murmured something inarticulate, except Nicholas, who, greatly impressed, and catching Binkie’s quarter-deck eye, said:

“Why, of course, Cousin Gregory.”

“Good,” said Binkie. “Now, Ancestor Jorico, as I have remarked before, besides carrying on his business as a slave-trader, was also engaged in professional piracy. He retired in 1810 on his profits from what then was, of course, honourable employment. He had married a Spanish woman—either resident in Trinidad—see the record in the ‘Port of Spain Gazette’ of 1801—or from the Spanish main; he had set up house in Bristol, where the eldest son, Gregory, was born, as the records show, in 1803. He must have gone on with his profession—slave-trading or what not—until he retired in 1810. How do I know he retired? I’ve seen his name over and over again since that date in the Bristol civic records. He was an Alderman, so please you, and a Churchwarden of the Parish Church of St. Stephen’s. All that’s cut and dried.... His economic life was that of a comfortable Master Mariner who had retired on his savings. Nothing more. But behind him was the hidden private treasure. Hidden for some reason that no one can explain, and, also to him, as far as I can make out from the baffling records, inaccessible. But I ...”

He turned to his conjurer’s table and indicated some old leather-covered books.

“... I am well on the track of its whereabouts. Here are three books out of the dozen known to belong to him that I have picked out as likely to contain information. They are the only ones which he seems to have read, and they are thumbed as though he had consulted them during his voyages and, if not annotated textually, they contain many entries and calculations in his own handwriting. Most of the additions are obviously sums of money and many of the items are prefaced by secret marks which I haven’t any key to decipher, except on the hypothesis that they refer to precious stones. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the same hieroglyphics recur in various columns. Thus, for instance, if you assume an asterisk to refer to pearls, a long dagger to diamonds, and so on, the items 250 and 700 would represent pearls to the estimated value of £250 and diamonds to that of £700. Now here, in ‘Crosby’s Mariner’s Guide,’ published in 1762, is an isolated marginal note of £50,000, which corresponds to the entry in the little black note-book. By collating all the totals scattered over the margins and fly-leaves, I reach a figure practically reaching the half-million in the will.” He held up the book, and a sheaf of typed papers, and threw them back on the table. “I’ll be most happy to go into the details another time, with any or all of you.”

He paused dramatically, evidently enjoying himself. The tension still lasted. Hettie cried:

“But, Gregory, where’s the treasure all the time? How you got at it is frightfully interesting, but we’re all on tenter-hooks.”

“I’m coming to it, my dear Hettie,” said he with a little deprecatory gesture. “Just give me time. I must put things before you in logical sequence.”

Toby whispered to me:

“I’m afraid the Admiralty found out that dear old Binkie hadn’t the Nelson touch.”

Well, Binkie took from his table—he must have spent an hour in arranging his properties, or what in Courts of Justice are called exhibits—a yellow bit of quarto-size paper, which, folded in four, had almost come to pieces at the folds, and held it out before us.

“I discovered this in ‘Colson’s Mariner’s New Calendar,’ published in 1772”—he pointed to the volume. “It is the rough map of an island ...”

We could see that for ourselves while he went on with his exposition. It was almost a square island, but it ran out into a blunt headland on the northern end of the western side, and to a long promontory on the southern. In a corner of the page was a fairly drawn thing—I don’t know what nautical folk call it—showing the spokes of the compass. From a point somewhere on the west side was drawn a line in a north-east direction, half-way across the map. It was ended by a circle in which was the conventional representation of a bird.

“Now, Tom,” said he, “can you spot what island that is?”

A soldier doesn’t see many islands. I was once stationed at Malta when I was young, and since then whatever devastating passion for islands I may have had has burned out. I shook an unintelligent head.

“Doesn’t the ‘Port of Spain Gazette’ which I showed you give you an idea? It’s the Island of Trinidad in the West Indies. The point where the short slanting line starts from is Port of Spain. I found that out for myself. I’ve never been there. All my service afloat has been in the Mediterranean and Home waters. But what was the meaning of the circle with a bird in it? I went to the Royal Geographical Society. They referred me to the West India Committee. There they overwhelmed me with information. They pointed out faint pencillings which could only be seen through a strong magnifying glass, which represented perfectly good rivers. Two of them ran into—or rather from the circle. And the circle marked with astonishing accuracy a cave inhabited by a kind of goat-sucker bird which is only found in two or three other places in the world. It is called to this day the Cave des Diablotins.”

“And you think the treasure is buried there?” cried Hettie.

“I do.”

“Forgive me if I seem dull,” said Nicholas. “But I don’t see how you connect up—the map with the figures.”

Neither did I. But I suspected the conjurer of still keeping something up his sleeve. I was right. He said, smiling somewhat pityingly on the boy:

“Not one of you has noticed a ‘W.B.’ in a corner of the map. What do these letters stand for? They look like the signature of the man who made the map. As a matter of fact, they are. This book proves it.”

He picked up a volume, announcing its title, “‘Robertson’s Elements of Navigation,’ published 1796,” and showed us the front fly-leaf.

“You see this book originally belonged to one William Bence. The name is crossed out, and underneath is written the signature in full of old Jorico. William Bence made the map, which is not characteristic of our ancestor. The compass is drawn with a draughtsman’s skill. So is the outline of Trinidad. So is the nice little bird. This other thing, however, is in keeping with the horrible Jorico mnemonics which I’ve been showing you.”

He opened a page, and there on the margin was the roughest pictorial note: a chest in rude perspective, showing the lid. On the lid the spidery figure of a man; but he had horns, and forked tail sticking out behind.

“That’s how I connect up, Nicholas,” said Binkie with an air of triumph. “And if you’ll put all I have said together, I’m sure you’ll warrant me in my conviction that somewhere in that cave in Trinidad, even today off the tourist track on account of difficulty of access, our family fortune of half a million of money bequeathed by Ancestor Jorico lies buried.”

He rang a bell and wiped his forehead. The butler came in with drinks. We talked at random about Binkie’s discovery. He had impressed the four of us. His method of exposition had been a bit pedantic, but no one could deny its soundness. There seemed no flaw in his argument. The only criticisms were made by young Nicholas, who had asked if Binkie could provide him with “Whitaker’s Almanac.”

Binkie’s library was a nightmare of books of reference. Nicholas might as well have asked him if he had such a thing in his house as a cake of soap. Binkie provided “Whitaker” at once.

“I see,” said Nicholas, turning to the page about Trinidad, “that Columbus discovered the island in 1498, the Spaniards colonized it in 1588, and the British took it from them in 1797. So it must have been in a pretty ragged condition in old Jorico’s time. If the cave is difficult of access even today, it must have been situated in the heart of a virgin forest over a hundred years ago. From what Whitaker says of the length and breadth of the island, the cave must be about twenty-five miles from the sea. Why should they have buried treasure so far inland, when they must have had thousands of nice hiding-holes on the coast? And how could they have got there with a big chest, anyhow?”

“That,” said Binkie politely, “I must leave to your imagination. If you like to start out as a romantic writer, here’s something Stevensonian to your hand. The more incredible are things you hear about people, the more probable it is that they are perfectly true. Who was it—Tertullian, I think—who said he believed because it was unbelievable? I don’t go as far as that. From a mass of interrelated facts I’ve deduced a logical conclusion. That’s all I know about it. You can take it or leave it.”

“Assuming the treasure is there in the Cave des Diablotins,” said Toby, “what’s the next step?”

“To go and find it,” said Binkie.

“That’s obvious,” said Hettie Dalrymple. “But who’s going?”

“My cousin, Jane Crowe,” said Binkie.

“What has Jane got to do with it?” I asked.

“Everything.”

I saw by the twinkle in his absurd eyes, at once shrewd and childish, that he had something more to spring upon us.

“Have you told her about this treasure stunt?” Toby asked.

“Not a word.” He glanced around to see whether our glasses needed replenishing, and poured himself out another drink. “But Lady Jane Crowe, as you’re aware”—he turned to Hettie and Nicholas—“is a very rich woman. She has a 1,300-ton yacht, and goes all over the world in it. I’ve made it my business to instil into her mind the notion of a cruise this winter among the West Indian Islands. She’s going. I’m so sorry she wasn’t here this evening, so that I could tell her why. My duty, of course, was first to take into my confidence my three cousins here who would benefit with me equally in any discoveries. But Jane’s a good sort ...”

“One of the best,” said I.

“A bit difficult, of course, like most old maids.”

“Old maid?” I cried. “What are you talking about? She’s a widow!”

“Pull yourself together, Tom,” said Binkie.

I did. He was not so far wrong. The married life of Jane, the daughter of the Earl of Wintermere, with Horace Vanburen Crowe, of God knows what Railway Combine in America, had been of short practical duration. Whether she tried to thrust Cloomer Castle and its ancestral and historical armour of Crusaders’ maces down his throat, or whether he, treating her as a modern Danäe, half stifled her in a hail of molten dollars, I don’t know; and I don’t care. It’s none of my business. He may have been disappointed in his ideal of the perfect-asparagus-eater among women; his darling shape in boots with knobs over the toes may have got on her nerves. Who can gauge the subtle centrifugal forces of married life? All that matters in this record is to state the fact that they separated soon after their honeymoon, that he died soon afterwards, poor chap, of typhoid through eating oysters at Monte Carlo—which none of his most fervent supporters could attribute to the cruel-heartedness of Jane—and left her his immense fortune.

That was twenty years ago. Her widowed life, as far as I was aware, had been of the most rigid austerity.

Now and again Binkie has flashes of insight. Anyone who calls Binkie a darned fool is a darneder one. Accepting Jane Crowe as a married woman, it had never struck me to allude to her as an old maid. But as I envisaged the weather-beaten Jane, I knew he was right. The woman had recaptured her virginity.

This may be a digression; but it will prepare you for Jane, who lived most of her life on a 1,300-ton yacht which could cross any of the Seven Seas.

“Difficult? Yes,” I agreed. “But give her her head....”

“Quite so,” said Binkie.

“All the same,” said I, “if you’re keen on this treasure-hunting, I don’t see why you can’t go by yourself to Trinidad by an ordinary passenger boat.”

“Don’t you? It seems simple.” Binkie smiled artfully. “I’d like to have my co-heirs with me, and Jane will take the whole lot of us there and back, free, gratis and for nothing!”

“You’ve got a nerve, Binkie,” said Toby, rising. “I’ll have another drink.” While helping himself, he said:

“How can I plant myself on Lady Jane whom I scarcely know? Besides, how can I get away from my business?”

“And I?” said Hettie Dalrymple, whose eyes were rather bright with excitement. “I can’t throw up my job.”

“And I must look for one,” said Nicholas gloomily. “It would be splendid. But you must cut me out.”

“And you, Tom?”

“I? Where do I come in? This is your family affair, not mine.”

“You’ll come in as general Providence manager to Jane. Otherwise she and I’ll fight like cat and dog. Your influence and co-operation will be useful in all sorts of ways. And, of course—with the consent of my three cousins taken for granted—if you come in with us—business is business, my dear fellow—you’ll have a percentage on the profits of the voyage. That we can arrange privately.”

In his fussy yet disciplined and methodical mind, he had the whole thing cut and dried. I saw now why he needed my services, chiefly as buffer between himself and Jane. But naturally I laughed at his fantastic business proposition. A Lieutenant-General, I had no idea of putting myself as a paid servant under the thumb of an ex-Commander of the Royal Navy.

“A pearl necklace or so,” said I ironically, “and a few diamond bracelets for my wife and the girls, when you find the treasure, will meet all my modest requirements.”

In spite of Binkie’s logic, I didn’t believe in the treasure. But I believed in a pleasant winter trip to the West Indies in Jane’s yacht, should she, of her own accord, do me the honour of inviting me. My womenfolk would let me go. They loathe the sea, having curiously queasy stomachs. But they are indulgent to me in my pursuit of incomprehensible enjoyments. I have Grand Lodge rank, for instance. Well ...

“You’ll find all your difficulties melt like snow in the sun,” said Binkie pleasantly. “If you really will a thing, it’s done. I’ll fix up everything else for you.”

He talked convincingly. Half an hour later three somewhat upset young people and a cynical elderly gentleman parted company in the street.