“You’ll admit that, when I discovered this to be the case, I felt pretty uneasy about Sir Nigel’s innocence.  But a still further search brought to light another passage, which ran straight into the study of Withersby Hall, occupied by the Brelliers, and was hidden under the square rug in front of the fireplace.  A nice convenient little spot for our friend here to carry on his good work.  Just a few words to say that he didn’t want to be disturbed in his study, a locked door, a rug moved, and—­there you are!  He was free from all prying eyes to investigate the way things were going, and to personally supervise the hiding of the gold.  While outside upon the Fens men were being killed like rats, because one or two of them chose to use their intelligence, and wanted to find out what the flames really were.  They found out all right, poor devils, and their widows waited for them in vain.

“And what does he do with all this gold, you ask?  Why, ship it, by using an electrical factory where he makes tubings and fittings—­and a good deal of mischief, to boot.  The sovereigns are hidden as you have seen, and are shipped out at night in fishing boats, loaded below the water mark—­I’ve helped with the loading myself, so I know—­en route for Belgium, where his equally creditable brother, Adolph, receives the tubes and invariably ships them back as being of the wrong gauge.  Look here—­” He stopped speaking for a moment and, stepping forward, lifted up another tubing from the table, and unfastened it at one of the joints.  Then he held it up for all to see.

“See that stuff in there?  That’s tungsten.  Perhaps you don’t all know what tungsten is.  Well, it’s a valuable commodity that is mined from the earth, and which is used expressly in the making of electric lamps.  Our good friend Adolph, like his brother, has the same twist of brain.  Instead of keeping the tubes, he returns them with the rather thin excuse that they are of the wrong gauge, and fills them with this tungsten, from the famous tungsten mines for which Belgium holds first place in the world.  And so the stuff is shipped in absolutely free of duty, while our friend here unloads it, supplies the raw material to one or two firms in town, trading under the name of Jonathan Brent (you see I’ve got the whole facts, Brellier), and uses some himself for this factory, which is the ‘blind’ for his other trading ideas.  Very clever, isn’t it?”

The judge nodded.

“I thought you would agree so, my Lord.  Even crime can have its clever side, and more often than not the criminal brain is the cleverest which the world produces.