"I think so. We'll go to that ninth hole at once. The police are continuing the excavations begun by our friends. I've had a talk to the professional at the golf club. They move the position of the holes on a green from time to time, you know, Wigan; and with the professional's help I think we shall be able to find out where it was a year last February. He is a methodical fellow. That will give us a different direction on the north bank of the creek. It was a natural oversight on the convict's part. Were I not a golfer I might not have thought of the solution."
We found the treasure a long way from where the other digging had been done. It consisted of jewels which, in the early part of the previous year, had been stolen from Fenton Hall, some two miles inland. The theft, which had taken place when the house was full of week-end visitors, had been quickly discovered, and the thief, finding it impossible to get clear away with his spoil, had buried it on the desolate bank of the creek, marking the spot by a mental line drawn through the chained pile and the flag on the golf course. He must have known the neighborhood, and knew this was the ninth hole, or link as he called it, or as the warder had written it down. For Quarles was right, a warder was missing from Portland, and was found dead in that aft cabin.
The yacht was known at Weymouth, and belonged to a retired seaman, a Captain Wells, who lived at a little hotel when he was in the town. He was often away--sometimes in his yacht, sometimes in London--and there was little doubt that his boat had often been used to take stolen property across to the Continent. Neither the captain nor his mate could be traced now, but it was some satisfaction that they had not secured the jewels.
As I have said, I did manage to get some moonlight walks with Zena, but not many, for a week after we had recovered the Fenton Hall jewels I was called back to town to interview Lord Leconbridge.
I never heard Lord Leconbridge address the House of Lords, but it has been said that every sentence he uttered required half a dozen marginal notes, that his speeches were the concentrated essence of his vast knowledge, and, without annotation, were quite incomprehensible to those who were less familiar with the subject. I understood the truth of this when I was brought in contact with him over the affair of the diamond necklace, a sensation which set fashionable London gossiping all the season, and, according to some people, has never been cleared up satisfactorily.