As she spoke she took a telegram from her pocket and handed it to me. I glanced over the words it contained.
‘Just heard that cart was seen at Higgins’s this morning. Man and assistant arrested on suspicion. House searched. No gold there. Please come down at once.’
‘So they have bolted with it?’ I said.
‘That we shall see,’ was her reply.
Shortly afterwards we arrived at the police station. The inspector was waiting for us, and took us at once into a private room.
‘I am glad you were able to come, Miss Cusack,’ he said, bowing with great respect to the handsome girl.
‘Pray tell me what you have done,’ she answered, ‘there is not a moment to spare.’
‘When I received your wire,’ he said, ‘I immediately placed a man on duty to watch Higgins’s shop, but evidently before I did this the cart must have arrived and gone – the news with regard to the cart being seen outside Higgins’s shop did not reach me till four-thirty. On receiving it I immediately arrested both Higgins and his assistant, and we searched the house from attic to cellar, but have found no gold whatever. There is little doubt that the pawnbroker received the gold, and has already removed it to another quarter.’
‘Did you find a furnace in the basement?’ suddenly asked Miss Cusack.
‘We did,’ he replied, in some astonishment; ‘but why do you ask?’
To my surprise Miss Cusack took out of her pocket the advertisement which she had shown me that morning and handed it to the inspector. The man read the queer words aloud in a slow and wondering voice:
Send more sand and charcoal dust. Core and mould ready for casting. – JOSHUA LINKLATER.
‘I can make nothing of it, miss,’ he said, glancing at Miss Cusack. ‘These words seem to me to have something to do with founder’s work.’
‘I believe they have,’ was her eager reply. ‘It is also highly probable that they have something to do with the furnace in the basement of Higgins’s shop.’
‘I do not know what you are talking about, miss, but you have something at the back of your head which does not appear.’
‘I have,’ she answered, ‘and in order to confirm certain suspicions I wish to search the house.’
‘But the place has just been searched by us,’ was the man’s almost testy answer. ‘It is impossible that a mass of gold should be there and be overlooked; every square inch of space has been accounted for.’
‘Who is in the house now?’
‘No one; the place is locked up, and one of our men is on duty.’
‘What size is the furnace?’
‘Unusually large,’ was the inspector’s answer.
Miss Cusack gave a smile which almost immediately vanished.
‘We are wasting time,’ she said; ‘let us go there immediately.’
‘I must do so, of course, if nothing else will satisfy you, miss; but I assure you –’
‘Oh, don’t let us waste any more time in arguing,’ said Miss Cusack, her impatience now getting the better of her. ‘I have a reason for what I do, and must visit the pawnbroker’s immediately.’
The man hesitated no longer, but took a bunch of keys down from the wall. A blaze of light from a public house guided us to the pawnbroker’s, which bore the well-known sign, the three golden balls. These were just visible through the fog above us. The inspector nodded to the man on duty, and unlocking the door we entered a narrow passage into which the swing doors of several smaller compartments opened. The inspector struck a match, and, lighting the lantern, looked at Miss Cusack, as much as to say, ‘What do you propose to do now?’
‘Take me to the room where the furnace is,’ said the lady.
‘Come this way,’ he replied.
We turned at once in the direction of the stairs which led to the basement, and entered a room on the right. At the further end was an open range which had evidently been enlarged in order to allow the consumption of a great quantity of fuel, and upon it now stood an iron vessel, shaped as a chemist’s crucible. Considerable heat still radiated from it. Miss Cusack peered inside, then she slowly commenced raking out the ashes with an iron rod, examining them closely and turning them over and over. Two or three white fragments she examined with peculiar care.
‘One thing at least is abundantly clear,’ she said at last; ‘gold has been melted here, and within a very short time; whether it was the sovereigns or not we have yet to discover.’
‘But surely, Miss Cusack,’ said the inspector, ‘no one would be rash enough to destroy sovereigns.’
‘I am thinking of Joshua Linklater’s advertisement,’ she said.
‘“Send more sand and charcoal dust.” This,’ she continued, once more examining the white fragments, ‘is undoubtedly sand.’
She said nothing further, but went back to the ground floor and now commenced a systematic search on her own account.
At last, we reached the top floor, where the pawnbroker and his assistant had evidently slept. Here Miss Cusack walked at once to the window and flung it open. She gazed out for a minute, and then turned to face us. Her eyes looked brighter than ever, and a certain smile played about her face.
‘Well, miss,’ said the police inspector, ‘we have now searched the whole house, and I
