In this emergency I decided to consult the Turmore archives, a priceless
collection of documents, comprising the records of the family from the
time of its founder in the seventh century of our era. I knew that among
these sacred muniments I should find detailed accounts of all the
principal murders committed by my sainted ancestors for forty
generations. From that mass of papers I could hardly fail to derive the
most valuable suggestions.

The collection contained also most interesting relics. There were
patents of nobility granted to my forefathers for daring and ingenious
removals of pretenders to thrones, or occupants of them; stars, crosses
and other decorations attesting services of the most secret and
unmentionable character; miscellaneous gifts from the world's greatest
conspirators, representing an intrinsic money value beyond computation.
There were robes, jewels, swords of honor, and every kind of
"testimonials of esteem"; a king's skull fashioned into a wine cup; the
title deeds to vast estates, long alienated by confiscation, sale, or
abandonment; an illuminated breviary that had belonged to Sir Aldebaran
Turmore de Peters-Turmore of accursed memory; embalmed ears of several
of the family's most renowned enemies; the small intestine of a certain
unworthy Italian statesman inimical to Turmores, which, twisted into a
jumping rope, had served the youth of six kindred generations--mementoes
and souvenirs precious beyond the appraisals of imagination, but by the
sacred mandates of tradition and sentiment forever inalienable by sale
or gift.

As the head of the family, I was custodian of all these priceless
heirlooms, and for their safe keeping had constructed in the basement of
my dwelling a strong-room of massive masonry, whose solid stone walls