“I had a phone message saying that he was coming over in the morning. He wants me to sign some documents in connection with Leslie’s estate. Good fellow, Arthur.”

“Very,” said Dick, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

“Yes, I owe a lot to Arthur.” Harry looked up through his horn-rimmed spectacles and nodded as he spoke. “I shouldn’t have met Leslie, and certainly I shouldn’t have had any idea of marrying,” he went on naïvely, “but Arthur was very keen to get a husband for her who wasn’t a fortune-hunter. And, of course, the money will be useful.”

Dick listened patiently to this disjointed excuse for the forthcoming marriage. He had heard it before in identically the same terms.

“Why do you want to marry money at all?” he asked. “We’re not paupers.”

Harry Chelford shrugged his thin shoulders.

“I suppose we’re not,” he said indifferently. “I never bother about the money side. You’re such a clever old bird, Dick, that I’m spared that. By heavens, I don’t know where I should be if it wasn’t for you. Do you get all you want yourself, Dicky?”

Dick Alford nodded.

“A nice girl,” his brother went on, “and, as I say, a sensible girl. I wish you’d get her over to dinner one night; there are several things I want to talk about to Arthur. There’s the Doncaster estate, for example. I had a letter from somebody the other day, saying that they were willing to pay a very big price for Creethorpes. I don’t see any reason in the world why we shouldn’t sell.”

“But I do,” said Dick, puffing slowly at his pipe. “I also have had the offer, and when I get one that approximates in my eyes as being near the Creethorpes value, we may sell. But the price that has been offered is ludicrous.”

“A hundred and twenty thousand pounds?” murmured Lord Chelford, shaking his head disparagingly. “I don’t see how you can improve on that, Dick.”

“We can try,” said Dick.

His eyes were roaming the desk, and after a while he saw a book which was seldom far away from his brother’s hand, and, getting up, he reached over and took it, Chelford watching with a triumphant smile.

“It’s got you, has it, old man?” he asked. “I thought it would sooner or later. You’re too sensible to dismiss the Chelford treasure as a myth.”

Dick turned the old pages covered with pale writing: the diary of that Lord of Chelford who had suffered for his disloyalty at the hands of the common headsman.