“There was a rumor that Caesar had written instructions about it, on the flyleaf of a jeweled prayer book that was part of some ship’s loot.  But his heirs sold or hocked the prayer-book, at St. Augustine or Kingston or Havana, before this story reached them.  None of them could have read it, anyhow.  Then, last year, Rodney Hade happened upon that book, (with the jewels all pried out of the cover, long ago), in a negro cabin on Shirley Street, at Nassau, after hunting for it, off and on, for years.  The Government had been hunting for it, too, but he got to it a week ahead of us.  That was how we found who had it.  And that is why we decided to watch him ....  Do you want me to keep on prattling about these things, to convince you I’m what I say I am?  Or have you had enough?

“For instance, do you want me to tell you how Hade wound his web around a blundering fool whose help and whose hidden path and tunnel and caches he needed, in order to make sure of the treasure?  Or is it enough for me to say the dollars belong to the United States Government, and that Uncle Sam means to have them back?”

Standish still gaped at him, with fallen jaw and bulging eyes.  Gavin went on: 

“Knowing Hade’s record and his cleverness as I do, I can guess how he was going to swing the hoard when he finished transporting all of it to safety.  Probably, he’d clear up a good many thousand dollars by selling the coins, one at a time, secretly, to collectors who would think he was selling them the only 1804 dollar outside the three already known to be in existence.  When that market was glutted, he was due to melt down the rest of the dollars into bar silver.  Silver is high just now, you know.  Worth almost double what once it was.  The loot ought to have been much the biggest thing in his speckled career.  How much of it he was intending to pass along to you, is another question.  By the way—­the three canvas bags he left out by the kiosk ought to do much toward whetting the Caesars’ appetite for the rest.  It may even key them up to rushing the house before morning.”

“We’ll be ready for them!” spoke up Standish, harshly, as though glad to have a prospect of restoring his broken self-respect by such a clash.

“Quite so,” agreed Gavin, smiling at the man’s new ardor for battle.  “It would be a pleasant little brush—­if it weren’t for your sister.  Miss Standish has seen about enough of that sort of thing for one night.  If she weren’t a thoroughbred, with the nerves of a thoroughbred and the pluck as well, she’d be a wreck, from what has happened already.  More of it might be seriously bad for her.”

Standish glowered.  Then he lifted his bulky body from the low chair and crossed the hall to the telephone.  Taking the receiver from the hook, he said sulkily to Brice: 

“Maybe you’re right.  I have a couple of night watchmen patrolling the road, above and below.  I’ll phone to the agency to send me half a dozen more, to clear the grounds.  I’d phone the police about it, but I don’t like—­”