“My preamble will be brief,” he said, “for I am eager to come to the object of this reunion. On the day—it is fourteen years ago—on which I installed myself at Nantes in the office of a notary whose practice I had bought, my predecessor, after having given me full information about the more complicated cases in hand, exclaimed: ‘Ah, but I was forgetting … not that it’s of any importance. … But all the same. … Look, my dear confrère, this is the oldest set of papers in the office. … And a measly set too, since it only consists of a sealed letter with a note of instructions, which I will read to you:
Missive entrusted to the strict care of the Sire Barbier, scrivener, and of his successors, to be opened on the 12th of July, 1921, at noon, in front of the clock of the Château of Roche-Périac, and to be read in the presence of all possessors of a gold medal struck at my instance.
“There! No other explanations. My predecessor did not receive any from the man from whom he had bought the practice. The most he could learn, after researches among the old registers of the parish of Périac, was that the Sire Barbier (Hippolyte Jean), scrivener, lived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At what epoch was his office closed? For what reasons were his papers transported to Nantes? Perhaps we may suppose that owing to certain circumstances, one of the lords of Roche-Périac left the country and settled down at Nantes with his furniture, his horses, and his household down to the village scrivener. Anyhow, for nearly two hundred years the letter entrusted to the strict care of the scrivener Barbier and his successors, lay at the bottom of drawers and pigeonholes, without anyone’s having tried to violate the secrecy enjoined by the writer of it. And so it came about that in all probability it would fall to my lot to break the seal!”
Maître Delarue made a pause and looked at his auditors. They were, as they say, hanging on his lips. Pleased with the impression he had produced, he tapped the leather satchel, and continued:
“Need I tell you that my thoughts have very often dwelt on this prospect and that I have been curious to learn the contents of such a letter? A journey even which I made to this château gave me no information, in spite of my searches in the archives of the villages and towns of the district. Then the appointed time drew near. Before doing anything I went to consult the president of the civil court. A question presented itself. If the letter was to be considered a testamentary disposition, perhaps I ought not to open it except in the presence of that magistrate. That was my opinion. It was not his. He was of the opinion that we were confronted by a display of fantasy (he went so far as to murmur the word ‘humbug’) which was outside the scope of the law and that I should act quite simply. ‘A trysting-place beneath the elm,’ he said, joking, ‘has been fixed for you at noon on the 12th of July. Go there, Monsieur Delarue, break the seal of the missive in accordance with the instructions, and come back and tell me all about it. I promise you not to laugh if you come back looking like a fool.’ Accordingly, in a very sceptical state of mind, I took the train to Vannes, then the coach, and then hired a donkey to bring me to the ruins. You can imagine my surprise at finding that I was not alone under the elm—I mean the clock—at the rendezvous but that all of you were waiting for me.”
The four young people laughed heartily. Marco Dario, of Genoa, said:
“All the same the business grows serious.”
George Errington, of London, added:
“Perhaps the story of the treasure is not so absurd.”
“Monsieur Delarue’s letter is going to inform us,” said Dorothy.
So the moment had come. They gathered more closely round the notary. A certain gravity mingled with the gayety on the young faces; and it grew deeper when Maître Delarue displayed before the eyes of all one of those large square envelopes which formerly one made oneself out of a thick sheet of paper. It was discolored with that peculiar shine which only the lapse of time can give to paper. It was sealed with five seals, once upon a time red perhaps, but now of a grayish violet seamed by a thousand little cracks like a network of wrinkles. In the left-hand corner at the top, the formula of transmission must have been renewed several times, traced afresh with ink by the successors of the scrivener Barbier.
“The seals are quite intact,” said Monsieur Delarue. “You can even manage to make out the three Latin words of the motto.”
“In robore fortuna,” said Dorothy.
“Ah, you know?” said the notary, surprised.
“Yes, Monsieur Delarue, yes, they are the same as those engraved on the gold medals, and those I discovered just now, half rubbed out, under the face of the clock.”
“We have here an indisputable connection,” said the notary, “which draws together the different parts of the affair and confers on it an authenticity—”
“Open the letter—open it, Monsieur Delarue,” said Dorothy impatiently.
Three of the seals were broken; the envelope was unfolded. It contained a large sheet of parchment, broken into four pieces which separated and had to be put together again.
From top to bottom and on both sides the sheet of parchment was covered with large handwriting with bold downstrokes, which had evidently been written in indelible ink. The lines almost touched and the letters were so close together that the whole had the appearance of an old printed page in a very large type.
“I’m going to read it,” murmured Monsieur Delarue.
“Don’t lose a second—for the love of God!” cried
