It was quite clear that all this turning things upside down had no other object than the discovery of something. Ralph asked himself what they were trying to find.
He strolled round the park, made a tour of the mansion, hunting through the cellars with especial care, without discovering anything of a nature to solve the problem, the data of which he did not know. It is all very well to seek but it is necessary to know what you are seeking.
At half-past eleven he had arrived at no result of any kind; and the necessity of doing something was impressing itself on his mind more and more strongly. Every delay gave the others greater and greater chances; and he risked finding himself confronted by the accomplished fact.
At that moment the five friends were standing on a long terrace behind the mansion, a terrace which looked down on the park and the lake. A small balustrade ran along the edge of it, broken at regular intervals by twelve brick pillars which served as pedestals for old stone vases, nearly every one of which was broken.
A gang of workmen armed with picks set about demolishing the wall. Ralph watched them do it thoughtfully, his hands in his pockets and a cigarette between his lips, without bothering himself about the fact that his presence on that spot might appear a trifle strange.
Godfrey d’Etigues rolled a cigarette; and then having no matches, he walked up to Ralph and asked him for a light.
Ralph held out his cigarette and while the Baron was lighting his, a complete plan formed itself in his mind, a spontaneous, very simple plan, of which the least details rose before him in their logical sequence.
He pulled off his cap and displayed his carefully brushed curls which were not at all those of an ordinary fisherman. The Baron d’Etigues gazed at him earnestly, and, suddenly enlightened, fell into a fury.
“You again! And disguised! What is this new intrigue and how dare you follow me here? I’ve already told you in the clearest possible terms that a marriage between my daughter and you is impossible.”
Ralph caught his arm and said imperiously:
“We don’t want a scandal! That would do neither of us any good. Bring your friends to me.”
Godfrey tried to shake him off.
“Bring your friends!” Ralph repeated in a yet more imperious voice. “I am going to render you a service. What are you looking for? Something antique, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said the Baron impressed against his will by Ralph’s earnestness. “We’re looking for a candlestick.”
“A candlestick with seven branches, of course that’s what it is! I know its hiding-place. Later I shall be able to give you other information which will be useful to you in the work you have taken in hand. Then we’ll talk about Mademoiselle d’Etigues. Today there is no question of her. Call your friends!”
Godfrey hesitated; but Ralph’s confident promises impressed him. He called to his friend and they came at once.
“I know this young man,” he said in a grudging voice. “And according to him we shall perhaps succeed in finding—”
Ralph cut him short.
“There’s no perhaps about it, Monsieur,” he said impatiently. “I belong to this part of the country. And when I was a boy, I used to play in this château with the children of an old gardener who was the caretaker of it. One day he pointed out to us a ring affixed to the wall of one of the cellars and said: ‘That’s a hiding-place that is. I’ve often been told of how they put valuables into it—gold candlesticks and clocks and jewelry.’ ”
These revelations made the Baron and his friends open their eyes. De Bennetot however raised an objection.
He said: “But we’ve already searched the cellars.”
“Not thoroughly,” Ralph declared. “I’m going to show you.”
They made for the cellars by the quickest way, a staircase at the end of the left wing which descended to the basement from the outside of the building. Two large doors opened on to three or four steps, after which came a series of vaulted chambers.
“The third on the left,” said Ralph, who, in the course of the tour he had made through them, had studied the ground. “Here … this one.”
He made them all precede him, through a door so low that they had to stoop to enter it, into a dark cellar.
“You can’t see an inch before your face,” grumbled Rufus d’Estiers.
“That’s true,” said Ralph. “But here are some matches and I saw a candle-end on one of those steps into the cellars. Half a minute—I’ll run for it.”
He shut the door of the cellar, turned the key quietly, took it out of the door, and called out to his prisoners:
“Mind you light all the seven branches of the candlestick. You will find it under the last slab carefully wrapped up in spiders’ webs!”
Before he got outside the building he heard the five of them hammering furiously at the door. He was sure that, worm-eaten and shaky, it would hold out but a very few minutes. But that was all the time he wanted.
He rushed up on to the terrace. A workman was demolishing the fourth of the little brick pillars. Ralph took his pick from him, saying:
“Hand it over, mate. The proprietor has just told me what to do.”
“Shall I help you?” said the workman.
“There’s no need, thanks.”
Ralph hurried to the ninth pillar, and knocked the vase off it with a stroke of his pick. Then he attacked the top of the pillar, which was covered with cracked cement, which fell to pieces under his blows. Under the cement cap the pillar was hollow, and the hollow had been filled with earth and pebbles. Ralph started to clear them out quickly with the point of his pick. And about a foot down it turned up a piece of corroded metal. A glance showed him that it was veritably a branch of one of those great candlesticks one sees on the altars
