or a few
hours like that would never knock the nonsense on the head; most people
would never even hear of it, and those who did would say that one night
proved nothing. He showed me a much better way, which had been tried in
several cases where bogus miracles had been shown up. The thing to do
was to get the thing really believed everywhere as a miracle, and then
shown up everywhere as a sham miracle. I can't put all the arguments as
well as he did, but that was the notion, I think."

The doctor nodded, gazing silently at the sand; and the Squire resumed
with undiminished relish.

"We agreed that I should drop through the hole into the cave, and make
my way through the tunnels, where I often used to play as a boy, to
the railway station a few miles from here, and there take a train
for London. It was necessary for the joke, of course, that I should
disappear without being traced; so I made my way to a port, and put in
a very pleasant month or two round my old haunts in Cyprus and the
Mediterranean. There's no more to say of that part of the business,
except that I arranged to be back by a particular time; and here I am.
But I've heard enough of what's gone on round here to be satisfied that
I've done the trick. Everybody in Cornwall and most people in South
England have heard of the Vanishing Squire; and thousands of noodles
have been nodding their heads over crystals and tarot cards at this
marvelous proof of an unseen world. I reckon the Reappearing Squire will
scatter their cards and smash their crystals, so that such rubbish won't
appear again in the twentieth century. I'll make the peacock trees the
laughing stock of all Europe and America."

"Well," said the lawyer, who was the first to rearrange his wits, "I'm
sure we're all only too delighted to see you again, Squire; and I quite
understand your explanation and your own very natural motives in the
matter. But I'm afraid I haven't got the hang of everything yet. Granted
that you wanted to vanish, was it necessary to put bogus bones in the
cave, so as nearly to put a halter round the neck of Doctor Brown? And
who put it there? The statement would appear perfectly maniacal; but so
far as I can make head or tail out of anything, Doctor Brown seems to
have put it there himself."

The doctor lifted his head for the first time.

"Yes; I put the bones there," he said. "I believe I am the first son of
Adam who ever manufactured all the evidence of a murder charge ag