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reputed from time to time to have harboured.

5
     
    Charles Digitt found himself giving considerable thought to that small Budleigh Salterton occasion. It had several aspects that left him guessing. Was it conceivable that in Adrian Digitt there lurked a little gold mine? Although almost forgotten about in the family now (except, indeed, by his great-granddaughter), he had probably been something of a legend in it once. And about legendary relations the most exaggerated stories are likely to start up, and to flourish for a time. The business, for example, of his associations with Wordsworth and Coleridge – names even more tremendous than those of Shelley and Byron – might well be an instance of this. Unknown poems and an unknown unfinished tragedy! Charles, although he had no particular interest in literary scholarship, knew that such things would create a small sensation if discovered, and that publishing them would be a profitable enterprise for somebody. And he also knew, as he had hinted to Miss Digitt, that there was a quite mad market for original manuscripts of such a kind. Quite irrationally, such objects, if recently unearthed, would fetch far more money than if they had been known for a long time. The fact was an absurdity. But there would be nothing absurd about profiting from the knowledge of it. Then again, what about Adrian’s own ‘remains’? Suppose that, over a long period of years, he had kept diaries as good as, or better than, say Henry Crabb Robinson’s? Yesterday afternoon a long and interesting conversation with William Blake . That sort of thing. The sky would be the limit. Or if not the sky, at least something well up in a financial stratosphere.
    Vague thoughts of this sort had been with Charles ever since he had heard of the current goings-on at Treskinnick. But now there was something new and imponderable in the situation. Almost casually (or had it been that?) Deborah Digitt had intimated that she herself possessed a considerable body of family papers. Even if the treasure of Treskinnick proved to be a mare’s nest it was conceivable that the treasure of Budleigh Salterton would richly reward some vigorous spade-work. And whereas numerous learned persons had received at least a whiff of what might be so bizarrely concealed in that absurd tower, and the Ampersands themselves might almost be described as in full cry after it, the possible secret of Budleigh Salterton appeared to be at present shared between himself and Miss Deborah Digitt alone. Or had Archie got wind of it? Miss Digitt had given no hint of this – and Lord Skillet, moreover, despite the occasional attentions he had paid her, seemed not to stand high in Miss Digitt’s regard.
    But Archie – Charles felt sure – was very capable of playing a deep game. He was quite clever in his not too pleasant way. Certainly he ought to be sounded – although with the greatest circumspection, no doubt. Even some sort of alliance with him was a possibility. Having arrived at this thought, Charles wasted no time. The eighth marquess-to-be rang up the seventh in his flat in town and suggested that it might be agreeable to have a meal together. Archie said it was a delightful idea. He didn’t sound surprised. But perhaps he was.
    The cousins met in what purported to be a Spanish restaurant near Trafalgar Square. It had been Archie’s choice, but this didn’t appear to mean that Archie proposed to play host. Indeed, he hastened even to exclude the possibility that they might go Dutch. Like his father (and a greater nobleman, a Duke of Argyle, as described by Dr. Johnson) he was narrow in his quotidian expenses.
    ‘Nice of you to invite me,’ he said easily, as he scanned a dubious bill of fare. ‘And I thought it would be an appropriate place.’
    ‘Appropriate?’ Charles was remembering how much he disliked Archie. ‘How so?’
    ‘I’d avoid the paella , old boy. Oh! Because of all this at Treskinnick. The treasure