Is there anywhere in literature an account of the subsequent career of
the thirty pieces?

The Capitol library, one of the most complete collections in the world,
offers unlimited facilities for research. There Barwood was to be found
some part of every day for months.

The writer has seen a list of the works consulted by him in his singular
investigation. It numbers some hundreds, and includes commentaries of
all sorts upon the Gospels, lives of the apostles, collections of
apocryphal Gospels and Scriptural traditions, the works of the early
fathers, chronicles of the Middle Ages, treatises upon Oriental life and
customs, histories of symbolism and Christian art, a great number of
works upon numismatics, and, finally, accounts of great crimes and
calamities. For Barwood took a new view of history: he looked to find
that the great treasons, briberies, betrayals of trust, murders from
mercenary motives, and perhaps financial troubles, had been set in
motion by this fatal money, made the instrument of divine vengeance.

"It has mown a swath through history," he said, "like a discharge of
grape."

He believed it would appear, if the truth were known, in the bank
accounts of Manuel Comnenus, of Egmont, Benedict Arnold, and the
Hungarian Gorgey.

His progress was by no means rapid. Much of the literature among which
he delved, musty with age, written in mediaeval Latin and in obsolete
characters, gave up its secrets with reluctance. Nevertheless he found
definite replies to the questions which he propounded to himself. A