at that turn where the old-time shoring is.  The shoring hides a little door.  And we never dared move the props because we thought it held up the tunnel-roof.  It’s all part of the old Indian-shelter stunts that this house’s builders were so daft about, a hundred years ago.  Hade must have blundered on it or studied it out, one of those times when he used to go poking around in the tunnel, all by himself.  And—­”

“Did Mr. Brice find him?” interposed Claire.

“Not he!” said Milo, less buoyantly.  “Rodney had a good ten minutes start of us.  And with a start like that, they’ll never lay hands on him again.  He’s got too much cleverness and he knows too many good hiding places.  But Brice found the next best thing.  You’d never guess!  Rodney’s secret cache for the treasure was that walled-up cellar.  It’s half full of canvas bags.  Right under our feet, mind you, and we never knew a thing about it.  I supposed he was shipping it North in some way.  Roke says that Rodney kept it there because, when he got it all, he was going to foreclose and kick us out, and then dispose of it at his leisure.  The swine!”

“Oh!”

“The crypt seems to have been a part of our own cellar till it was walled off.  It—­”

“But how in the world did Roke?”

“He was with the crew.  Rodney and he went together to the yacht for them.  The Secret Service men didn’t get him, in the round-up.  He crept as close to the house as he dared.  And he heard Rodney sounding the signal alphabet they had worked up, on the violin.  He got into the tunnel and so to the cellar, and then sneaked up, and took Rodney’s place at fiddling.  He seems to have been as willing to sacrifice himself for his master as any dog would have been.  Or else he counted on Brice’s not having any evidence to hold him on.

“By the way, do you remember that conch, Davy, over at Roustabout Key?  Brice says he’s a Secret Service man.  He and Brice used to fish together, off the keys, when they were boys.  Davy volunteered for the war.  And Brice made good use of him, over there, and got him into the Secret Service when they came back.  It’s all so queer—­so—!”

“Is Mr. Brice still downstairs?” interrupted Claire, her eyes straying involuntarily toward the door of the room.

“No.  He had to go.  He left his good-byes for you.  His work here is done.  And he has to start for Washington on the 2 A.M. train from Miami.  By the way, the best part of it all is that he says a fugitive from justice can’t bring legal proceedings in a civil court.  So Rodney can never foreclose on us or take up those notes of mine.  Lord, but that chap, Brice, is a wonder!”

Vital as was the news about the notes and the mortgage, Claire scarce heard it.  In, her ears, and through the brain and heart of her, rang drearily the words: 

“He had to go.  He left his good-byes for you.  His work here is done.”