Читать книгу Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic онлайн

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“It sounds charmingly mysterious, my dear Mr. Crum,” I interrupted. “Now, you aren’t going to tell me that the secret still remains unfathomed?”

“My lord, my lord,” said the old fellow entreatingly, “you must allow me to tell you the thing methodically, or not at all. If I’m hurried I shall forget some detail, and I have given time and effort to memorize the matter completely.”

I apologized humbly, settling myself back in my chair resignedly to hear the thing out with no further interruption. Crum continued in his slow, modulated tones.

“I think that it was the sight of that hoard, when your uncle saw it at his accession to the title, which first woke in him the craze for collecting. He no doubt reflected that here was the nucleus of an exceedingly fine numismatic museum, and from that day he set himself steadily to add to it, with an increasing knowledge of his subject, of which you are now reaping the benefit. But those two unknown coins were always a sore mystery to him. Many a time have I seen him take them up—he used to visit me two or three times every year to place what he had possessed himself of in that time with the rest—and turn them over and over in his fingers wistfully, studying every line and figure as if there must be some concealed clue which he had missed. But it was only last year that he gained the trace which put him on the road to success, and also, as it has unfortunately turned out, to death as well.”