"Well, Mr. Clinton Ziegler," said Forsyth, eager now to have done with the matter in the only possible way, "your appeal is dismissed with costs--on the higher scale. What does it matter to me what happens to you? If you had had your way you would have earned a legal hanging four times in the last week. If your friends save the common hangman the trouble, so much the better for all concerned, especially as they would thereby get themselves hanged also."
"Absolutely nothing; and now I'll trouble you to clear off the premises if you and your gentlemen outside don't want to be treated as ordinary burglars."
"What if I call them back and have you strangled?"
With the way of escape open behind him Forsyth laughed at the futile threat, and to the group outside in the Dutch garden it must have sounded like a friendly laugh of mutual satisfaction and farewell, for he gently pushed the old man before him to the garden door and shut it on him. Then, having carefully shot the heavy bolts, he groped his way back to the stone steps leading up into the house, triumphant, yet not wholly convinced. The ignominious collapse of Mr. Clinton Ziegler was almost too good to be true, and he was painfully conscious that such an astute antagonist was not likely to have thrown all his cards on to the table.
The fact, however, remained that the schemers had been deprived of their spurious bonds, without which their carefully planned design to obtain possession of the genuine ones fell to the ground.
"And their blood-feud against the poor chap will surely cease, now that there is no crime, past or contemplated, for which he can denounce them," Forsyth comforted himself as he stepped from the door at the head of the stone stairs and hastened along the dimly lit corridor, limping no longer. His destination was the smoking-room, where he guessed that the General would be eagerly awaiting news.
While Alec Forsyth was engaged in showing Ziegler out of the crypt, the Duke of Beaumanoir, in happy ignorance of the perilous effort his friend was making for him, sat in the dark muniment room, still as a cat, with his eyes on the door. He had drawn one of the oak chairs close to the safe in which Senator Sherman's genuine bonds reposed. He had established himself on guard, in case, trickery having failed, violent methods should be adopted at the last moment to obtain the huge plunder.