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270 The lock plate bore the arms of Arden, and the door was not to be shaken.

"We must get a locksmith," said Lord Arden.

"The big key with the arms on it!" cried Elfrida; "one of those in the iron box. Mightn't that?" One flew to fetch it.

A good deal of oil and more patience were needed before the key consented to turn in the lock, but it did turn—and the low passage was disclosed. It hardly seemed a passage at all, so thick and low hung the curtain of dusty cobwebs. But with brooms and lanterns and much sneezing and choking, the whole party got through to the door of the treasure room. And the other key unlocked that. And there in real fact was the treasure just as the children had seen it—the chests and the boxes and the leathern sacks and the bundles done up in straw and in handkerchiefs.

The lawyer, who had come on a bicycle, went off on it, at racing speed, to tell the Bank at Cliffville to come and fetch the treasure, and to bring police to watch over it till it should be safe in the Bank vaults.

"And I'm child enough," he said before he went, "as well as cautious enough, to beg you not to bring any of it out till I come back, and not to leave guarding the entrance till the police are here."

So when the treasure at last saw the light of day it saw it under the eyes of policemen and Bank managers and all the servants and all the family and the Beales and True, and half