George A. Birmingham

“ Half an hour later, having finished their luncheon and smoked their pipes, Major Kent and Meldon started to scramble back. The tide had risen sufficiently to prevent any one not an experienced diver from getting into the hole. As they neared the pier they saw Sir Giles Buckley and his friend Langton rowing off to the Aureole in their punt.
"That's all right," said Meldon. "Now we can take it easy and think things over till to-morrow morning. They won't attempt to get down that cliff in the dark. Hullo! Here's Higginbotham coming out of his tin wigwam to meet us. ”

“ I wasn't listening to Higginbotham."
"Well, luckily enough I was. Euseby Langton got sacked from Trinity College Library. He had some sort of job there poking about among catalogues and things. Now you may not be aware, Major, of the fact that Trinity College Library is the biggest in the world. There are books in it that no man has ever read. Nobody could. I couldn't myself, even if I gave my whole time to nothing else. What's to hinder our friend Langton from picking up the tip about the place where the treasure is from some book in the library?" ”

“ It always strikes the outsider at first as a rigmarole. I needn't go into that again. What we have to deal with is fact—hard fact—and to get some sort of reasonable explanation of things as they are. It's quite evident that Sir Giles and Langton know that the treasure is in the hole under that cliff. It's also evident that Langton gave Sir Giles the tip. ”

“ I'm here acting for the National Board of Education, as I told you before, and I've made it my business to find out what Mary Kate knows and what she doesn't. You can't have taken the child the right way. I expect you've been trying to come the Government official over her, and it won't do. No child would stand it, especially a high-spirited little creature like Mary Kate. You ought to cultivate a more ingratiating manner. You mean well, I know; but good intentions aren't everything."
"The fact is——" said Higginbotham.
"Look here. I had a long talk this morning with Sir Giles Buckley. ”

“ Now and then Meldon glanced at the cliff opposite to assure himself that Sir Giles and Langton were still there. At last he said—
"It appears to me that Langton must be mixed up in the business somehow. Why did Sir Giles bring him? He isn't any good at sailing the boat. He doesn't look as if he'd be much good for anything. Depend upon it, he must have given the tip about the hole, but how he comes to be in the know I don't precisely see. ”

“ This man—this disreputable, disinherited son of the last Sir Giles—had of necessity been heir to Ballymoy House and the papers it contained. The situation became clear to Meldon. Here was a rival treasure-seeker, a man evidently possessed of information superior to that of Major Kent's grandfather, for he came straight to the very spot which Meldon had taken much pains to discover.
"I'm delighted to meet you," said Meldon. "Your father was always a liberal subscriber to the funds of the church in our parish. ”

“ Major, you're the Apostle Thomas and the Jew Apella and the modern scientific man rolled into one for invincible scepticism. Is it possible to convince you of anything? Tell me that."
For a time they ate in silence. ”

“ It follows that Langton must have found the thing out somewhere. I don't say for certain that he found it in a manuscript in the college library. I only say that, considering all the circumstances of the case, he's more likely to have found it there than anywhere else. That may not strike you as a very good hypothesis; but unless you have a better one to propose, it seems to me quite good enough to go on with. ”