“He’s so excited he doesn’t know what to do,” said Daphne.  “That’s clear.”

“Well, what the deuce is it?” said Berry.  “I’ve read the blinkin’ book, but I’ll swear there’s nothing in it about buried treasure.”

“Whatever it is,” said I, “it’s in that book.  I’ll get it to-morrow.  D’you really want any ice?”

Daphne shook her head.

“But I couldn’t stay there with that man another minute.”

Adele lifted up her sweet voice.

“I feel very guilty,” she said.  “I’ve upset you all, I’ve given everything away to your cousin with both hands, and I’ve——­”

“Nonsense, darling,” said Daphne.  “You did the natural thing.  How could you know——­”

Jonah interrupted her with a laugh.

“One thing’s certain,” he said.  “I’ll bet old Vandy’s cursing the day he rushed into print.”

* * * * *

Upon reflection it seemed idle for any one of us to journey to London and back merely to fetch a volume, so the next morning one of the servants was dispatched instead, armed with a note to the housekeeper at Cholmondeley Street, telling her exactly where the book would be found.

The man returned as we were finishing dinner, and The History of the Pleydell Family was brought to Berry while we sat at dessert.

Nuts and wine went by the board.

As my brother-in-law cut the string, we left our places and crowded about him....

Reference to the index bade us turn to page fifty-four.

As the leaves flicked, we waited breathlessly.  Then—­

“Here we are,” said Berry. “’WILLIAM PLEYDELL.  In 1652 Nicholas died, to be succeeded by his only child, William, of whom little is known.  This is perhaps as well, for such information as is to hand, regarding his life and habits, shows him to have been addicted to no ordinarily evil ways.  The lustre which his father and grandfather had added to the family name William seems to have spared no effort to tarnish.  When profligacy was so fashionable, a man must have lived hard indeed to attract attention.  Nevertheless, Samuel Pepys, the Diarist, refers to him more than once, each time commenting upon the vileness of his company and his offensive behaviour.  Upon one occasion, we are told, at the play-house the whole audience was scandalized by a loose drunken frolic, in which Mr. William Pleydell, a gentleman of Hampshire, played a disgraceful part.  What was worse, he carried his dissolute habits into the countryside, and at one time his way of living at the family seat White Ladies was so openly outrageous that the incumbent of Bilberry actually denounced the squire from the pulpit, referring to him as ‘a notorious evil-liver’ and ‘an abandoned wretch.’  If not for his good name, however, for the house and pleasure-gardens he seems to have had some respect, for it was during his tenure that the stables were rebuilt and the gardens decorated with statuary which has since disappeared. ‘A sundial’”—­the sensation which the word produced was profound, and Jill cried out with excitement—­“’a sundial, bearing the date 1663 and the cipher W.P., still stands in the garden of the old dower-house, which passed out of the hands of the family early in the nineteenth century.’”