"I was right, you see, Jon! I was always sure there was a treasure... and I'll tell you another thing, if you haven't thought of it... This scrap of paper is what Mr. Grandon wants... This is what he's looking for... These are the mysterious papers. You'll see that old Uncle Charles is right. Other people are after this..."

She whirled round, with her back to the window and with her elbows on his knees and her chin on her clenched fists went on, "You promised we'd be in this together, didn't you, Jon? Just the two of us. You'll share everything, won't you, until we find it? You swear, Jon, don't you?"

He rumpled her red head.

"Of course I do. I can't do this by myself, Newpenny. Get up! You're hurting my knees!"

They went back to the table and looked at the muddle.

"Thirsty work," Jon said. "Will you go down and get some tea and I'll put the kettle on here and tidy up a bit, and then we'll settle down to this clue."

When the dirty tea things had been pushed up the table to join those still remaining from lunch, Jon took out the parchment again; but the longer they looked at it the less sense it made. Penny suggested that "nt" might be a place marked on the map, but they could not find any separate letters or figures there when they searched.

"The date is clear enough, anyway," Jon said at last. "I wonder if it refers to a letter in one of those bundles in the box?"

"It isn't clear at all," Penny argued. "It might be the 8th of April 1857, 1867, 1877 or 1907 or 1927 or 1937, or it might be April 7th with just an 8 in front to make it more difficult. And I don't see how one of those letters could be anything to do with it because Uncle Charles said that he'd collected those from all over the place... Any-way, there's no connection between the clue and the letter that I can see."

Jon nodded gloomily. "And this 'nt' beats me. It might be somebody's initials. I believe I've got a brainwave, Penny. It might be... Look! Uncle said he put my letter in the Bible for 'a reason that may be plain to you'. Do you think that 'nt' could mean New Testament? P'raps that's as far as he got with the clue himself, but it might mean that he put the letter inside the Bible just to start us off?"

Penny looked at him admiringly.

"Of course you're right, Jon. Find the New Testament - but I can't think what April 8th has got to do with it."

Jon undid the clasp of the great Bible again and opened it on the table.

"Find the page where it starts off Matthew, Mark, Luke and John," Penny said brightly, "and all the rest of the books come after with Revelation at the end, which is easy to remember."