Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/429

 Dunbar, taking out his fountain-pen and tapping his teeth with it.

“I mean,” said Sowerby, “that someone connected with the gang must have located the site of these vaults from some very old map or book.”

“I think you said that the Reverend Somebody-or-Other avers that they were a crypt?”

“He does; and when he pointed out to me the way the pillars were placed, as if to support the nave of a church, I felt disposed to agree with him. The place where the golden dragon used to stand (it isn’t really gold, by the way!) would be under the central aisle, as it were; then there’s a kind of side aisle on the right and left and a large space at top and bottom. The pillars are stone and of very early Norman pattern, and the last three or four steps leading down to the place appear to belong to the original structure. I tell you it’s the crypt of some old forgotten Norman church or monastery chapel.”

“Most extraordinary!” muttered Dunbar. “But I suppose it is possible enough. Probably the church was burnt or destroyed in some other way; deposits of river mud would gradually cover up the remaining ruins; then in later times, when the banks of the Thames were properly attended to, the site of the place would be entirely forgotten, of course. Most extraordinary!”

“That’s the reverend gentleman’s view, at any rate,” said Sowerby, “and he’s written three books on the subject of early Norman churches! He even