“How we shall dispose of the treasure is a matter we can only decide when we see what shape it takes.
“So much for the plan of action.
“What turns the whole thing from an exercise into a venture is the fact that Ellis knows. Whether we shall clash with him or not, we can’t possibly tell. I hardly think it’s likely myself. Sooner or later, of course, Wagensburg will draw Ellis as a magnet draws steel. ‘Where your treasure is,’ you know. But, when a man’s just done a murder, he usually lies pretty low: and, when he knows that somebody saw him do it, he lies lower still. For all that, what Ellis will not understand is why you haven’t gone to the police. That will make him think very hard. And, knowing that you overheard what the dead man said, he may attribute your silence to a wish to hide something which reference to the police would disclose. In which case we should clash … Because of this possibility we’ve got to move on our toes, always go the long way round and watch with both eyes. Remember this. Whether he knows it or not, we’re going to get in Ellis’s way. He may never know it. But if he does know it, well, you’ve seen what he does with people who get in his way—provided they give him the chance.”
That was as much as he said at that time: while I saw the force of most of it, I did not agree that there was anything to fear from Ellis, for, though, as I had reason to know, he was a desperate man, I could not believe that he would challenge six men at once and I was quite certain that if and when he did he would lose his match.
Then we found pencil and paper and, taking the well-digger’s statement, made a plan of the well and did what we could to place the chamber.
We were all agreed that it would be pleasanter to reach the chamber by digging than by way of the well. The shaft had been mostly full of water for some hundred and sixty years: the chamber had been sealed for the same period: and, if you must visit places so long abandoned to Nature, it is very much more agreeable to have the daylight at your back. But, though the prospect of inspecting them by lantern was not inviting, it was, I think, the unmistakable likeness which the plan bore to a trap that made us strive so hard to find out another way.
But we could not.
Without knowing the angle at which the shaft had been driven and the direction in which it left the well, we could make out no more than that the roof of the chamber must lie about twenty-five feet below ground and would most likely be encountered not more than twenty and not less than ten paces from the side of the well. This did not sound so formidable to Mansel and me, but, after a great deal of labour, George, who alone of us laid any claim to mathematical powers, demonstrated to our amazement that even that would leave some eight hundred square yards to be searched, and we gave up the attempt.
We studied the statement and the plan we had made until we knew them by heart, and we raked the former for inferences, until we had almost deduced the proportions of the Count: but it was not an unprofitable enterprise, for, by the time we had done, it was plain that, when we went abroad, statement and plan could both be left with some Bank, because, short of loss of reason, nothing could ever erase their particulars from our minds.
Then we discussed preparations and how soon we could start, and the getting of the servants, and what my uncle would say when told I was going to travel during the summer months. But we always came back to the treasure and the chamber and the great well.
It was two o’clock in the morning before Mansel sent us away, bidding us do nothing but get some serviceable clothes and hold our tongues.
Unless he summoned us, we were not to see him for a week, but then we were to dine with him in Cleveland Row. If all had gone well, he said, he saw no reason why we should not start a week from that day.
“One thing more,” he added, as we stood in his hall. “The dog or the collar may link you up with the crime. I think it unlikely. But at the first breath of trouble come straight to me.”
I needed no such instruction. Mansel had become the pillar of my state.
Indeed I had made up my mind to seek him the moment I found anywhere a report of the murder. But, though each day I searched the papers faithfully, there was no mention made of it.
Nor was there at any time, so far as I saw. I never read the French papers, but I often doubt that the murder was reported at all. The venue was lonely; the victim was foreign and had probably few friends; and, if no great search was made, the body may well have escaped notice, until there was little for an unpractised eye to find irregular.
The next day I visited the dog and found her in good hands. The home to which she had been taken was a famous establishment, with special quarters for dogs in quarantine, and from the condition and spirits of the many dogs I saw it was plain that everything possible was done to lighten their confinement.
The poor animal was delighted to see me, and, observing her pleasure, the kennel-man was quick to bring her some fresh food in the hope that she would now break the fast she had stubbornly maintained. To our relief she did
