Be that as it may, our preparations were complete, and we were to start on Thursday, that is, in two days’ time.
I will not set down his tale of the arrangements he had made, because they will presently appear, but will only say that the servants were to take our baggage to an hotel at Salzburg, that we were to travel to the same town by car, and that such as might desire to know our business were to be told that Mansel was a great trout-fisherman and that we were all three bound for the streams of Carinthia to see what could be done in that quarter.
And here I may say that anyone who was told this was shown one side of the truth, for Mansel was more fond of fishing than of almost anything else, and Hanbury and I learned our first lessons in the art of angling not very far from Wagensburg itself.
That his preparations had involved a certain outlay was clear, but, when we spoke of money and stammeringly asked to be allowed to contribute towards the expense, Mansel said that such matters could wait till the treasure was found: however, on our persisting, he promised to keep an account and to consider two-thirds of all that he was expending as our affair.
Then we gave him our passports, for he was to look them over and have them ordered to his liking.
After that he brought out the well-digger’s statement and the map we had made, and, when we had studied them both for as long as we pleased, he sealed them up in an envelope and asked me the name of my Bank. I told him. Then he wrote upon the envelope:
171016. This is the property of Richard William Chandos, and is lodged for safe custody with the Manager of the Pall Mall Branch of ⸻’s Bank,
and gave it to me.
“You must lodge that tomorrow,” he said, “and see that you get a receipt.”
This I promised to do.
Then, of course, we fell to talking of our venture, but, after telling us something of the country in the heart of which Wagensburg lay—for, though he did not know the castle, he had stayed in those parts for one summer before the War—Mansel began to speak of trout and trout-fishing and very soon had us engrossed in what he said, which, I think, was just what he wanted, for, if we were to set up for fishermen, it was as well that we should know something of the art. And from trout he led us to streams, and from streams to rivers, and thence, naturally, again to Oxford, and there we stayed very contentedly until it was time for us to go.
At ten on Thursday morning we were to meet again—an engagement which Hanbury and I would not have missed or exchanged for one of the very bags which the Count had borne down the well, for there we were to get into Mansel’s Rolls-Royce and drive with him to Dover and so, by France and Germany, clean into Carinthia.
Yet, as it happened, we did not keep that engagement, and the plans which Mansel had laid were unfulfilled: and the whole face of our adventure was changed in the twinkling of an eye, before it was ever begun. And all this, because I stopped in the street to look into a window.
II
The Way to Wagensburg
It was the next morning, when I was walking down St. James’s Street on my way to the Bank, that I stopped to glance at the maps which were spread in a shopwindow. I had done so many times before, for I often went by that way and, though I am no geographer, a map or a plan has for me some attraction to which I invariably yield. I had taken my look and was just about to pass on when I suddenly observed before me a map of Southern Austria, drawn to a large scale.
I was naturally most interested and at once began to look for Wagensburg, for so large was the scale that the property might well have been marked: but, though I soon saw Villach, most of the names were not at all easy to read, for the country was plainly very mountainous and the lettering was often lost against the heavy shading of the heights. For all that, if I could have gone closer I think I might soon have found the name I was seeking, but the map was some way from the glass, and I could not even stand fairly in front of it, because of another idler, who was standing before the window, regarding its wares. I waited a moment or two, expecting that he would pass on, but he did not, so I approached my face as close to the pane as I could without flattening my nose, in one last endeavour to locate the castle before I gave up the attempt. At this, the other seemed to notice my presence and turned to look at me, and, when instinctively I glanced at him, I saw that it was Ellis himself.
I do not know which of us was the more taken aback, but Ellis was the first to recover and turn away. For myself, I stood gaping and staring after him, as he walked rather jerkily away towards Piccadilly.
My first impulse was to follow him, though what good that would have done I do not know: and indeed I started uncertainly to hasten up the street in his wake; but what design I had was soon frustrated, for he entered a cab which was crawling close to the kerb and was instantly driven away.
I have often wondered what would have been his feelings if he had known of the statement which lay in my breast-pocket, while we were shoulder to shoulder before the window, and whether he would not have made some desperate attempt to possess himself of
