Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.Introduces the Hunchback.I left St. Bruno’s and made as hard as my motor would go for Westminster. Under the new rules I knew that the House of Commons did practically no business at all on Saturdays, so that if I missed the opportunity afforded me that night I realised that I should have to wait until Monday afternoon before I broke the seal.Luckily, the streets about that hour were practically free from traffic, and my Panhard went pounding along at a pace which, if it were horribly illegal, was certainly mightily pleasant and exhilarating so that by the time I was tearing through Westminster all my doubts as to the strangeness of my reception by this queer-looking monk had vanished and I was quite keen to put this new mission through with rapidity and success.Now, as most people are aware, the House of Commons is about the most easy place in the world of access if any man or woman has the most flimsy pretext of business with any one of its six hundred or so solemn and dignified members. I sprang from my car, handed it over to the care of a loafer who quickly hurried up, and simply nodded to the constables in the entrance. Then I marched up that long passage, peopled with the statues of dead and gone Parliamentarians, with head erect and heart that beat high with anticipation at some good and sensational development.As arranged, I stopped in the big hall, where some forty or fifty persons were waiting either for admission to the strangers’ gallery or intent on interviews; and, slipping on to one of the leather-covered lounges in a corner, I drew the precious missive from my pocket and broke the heavy seals with which it had been fastened.As I expected, the package did not all at once yield up its secret. The outer wrapper, of a stout linen cloth similar to those used by the post-office for registered envelopes, merely fell off and revealed two other envelopes, also carefully stamped with red wax. On the top one was written in printed characters, as though the writer were afraid that his handwriting might be recognised:“To John Cooper-Nassington, Esq, MP, St. Stephen’s, Westminster, SW.”“The Bearer waits.”On the other, to my astonishment, I discovered no less an address than this:Urgent.Private.“To the Most Hon. Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.”“Only to be delivered by Mr Hugh Glynn in case Mr Cooper-Nassington should decline.”For a second, I confess, I felt too astonished to say, or to do, or even to think of anything at all. I sat, with these big legal-looking letters in front of me, gazing into space, trying vainly to interpret the meaning of all these extraordinary manoeuvres on the part of a youthful Spaniard who might, it was true, be really a most important envoy of some far-off foreign state, but equally might be also, and with more apparent reason it seemed to me, absolutely nobody at all.For Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, as all England was aware (in common with our foreign enemies, no matter how big they might be or bullying in tone or aggressive), was the very last man to be trifled with. He it was who, when Lord Garthdown fell, told Germany so sharply to keep out of an African negotiation we had on hand just then or he would apply an English form of the Monroe doctrine to the entire continent of Africa and never allow them to acquire there another foot of space. He had also, when the United States raised some futile question about boundaries that ought to have been fixed up a century ago, told America that he had settled the matter in his own mind; their claim was preposterous; and that, if they wished to enforce it, they had the remedy common to all nations; but he should advise them to remember that once they put foot into European complications they couldn’t lift it out. And they, too, I recollect very well, promptly busied themselves about troubles elsewhere.Not a nice man, perhaps—not even a courteous man—but, at all events, a man whom the House and the country feared, and on whom nobody dared play any game or trick.Yet here was evidently an urgent private communication to him from Don José Casteno. What was at the bottom of it?—a secret of State or of life?Like a man in a dream I arose and approached one of those sturdy, well-fed constables who stand ever at the barriers that mark off the sacred corridors of the House from the vulgar footstep of the unelect public.“Please give that to Mr Cooper-Nassington,” I said in a voice that I think had not the slightest resemblance to my natural tones.My mood now was one of absolute indifference. Whatever happened, I recognised now that I was in for something extraordinary, and I felt I might as well get it over at once as sit on a lounge in that close, stuffy, noisy hall and speculate about a mystery to which I had no clue.Even John Cooper-Nassington, millionaire, was no small legislative lion to tackle. In the days when South American industries were booming on the Stock Exchange he had appeared with the most wonderful options for railways in the different states—here, there, everywhere—and in three years he had emerged from the pit of speculation with hands cleaner and pockets heavier than most. Ever since he had been regarded as a great authority on things South American. Whenever Chili and Peru had a set-to, which they did regularly once in two years, or Venezuela grew offensive to its friends, or Mexico wanted to swell itself a little, John Cooper-Nassington was sent for by one side or the other; yet, alas, his enemies said he had more pleasure in putting down half-a-million to pay the expenses of a revolution in which five or six thousand innocent varlets were burnt or blown into eternity than he had in subsequently floating a costly war loan, three parts of which usually meandered into his own pocket.Still, John Cooper-Nassington, when all was said and done, was but a penny pictorial paper kind of Boanerges compared with the quick, Napoleonic qualities of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson who, by the way, had a curious personal resemblance to the First Consul, and was certainly not more than thirty-five years of age. Nassington, now, was a big, heavy-jawed man of about fifty, with a head and beard of iron-grey hair and a brawny, hairy, massive fist that would have felled a man at a blow; yet, as he suddenly projected himself through the swing doors that divided the lobby from the hall to meet me, I saw that he was carrying the letter I had sent carefully closed in his hands still but that his face was white and his looks strangely agitated.“Ah, Mr Glynn,” he said as I advanced to meet him, handing him my card, “this is an extraordinary business, isn’t it?” And he wrung my hand with a vigour that suggested a high degree of excitement and nervous tension.“I am but an ambassador, sir,” I replied, falling into step with his, and commencing to pace up and down the corridor that led into the street. “I have no knowledge of the contents of the communication which I handed to you.”“Quite so. Quite so,” he returned hurriedly. “I gathered as much from what was said by the writer to me. Still, I am told I can make what use of you I think fit, and, truth to say, that is one of the things that puzzle me. Shall I take you with me or shall I send you back?”“Does that, sir, mean you decline?” I queried, remembering the superscription on the other envelope I was treasuring in a secret pocket within my vest.“Good heavens, man, no!” he thundered. “Do you think I am a born fool or idiot, or what? Why, that terrible man Cuthbertson would give five years of his life, or one of his hands, to have a magnificent chance of a sensationalcoupsuch as this may prove to be if we are right and have a quarter of an ounce of luck. Just get this clear, will you? I accept—I accept—I accept.” And he enforced his words with a grip on my arm that almost crushed the flesh into the bones.A pause followed; and then, stopping dead, he fixed me with his eyes. I could see that, shrewd, clever man of the world as he was, he was taking my measure before he came to any deliberate resolution, and I met his gaze with a glance as steadfast and as fearless as his own. After all, what had I to be ashamed of in six feet of lithe, clean figure, an athletic step, and features that my worst friends would say, although my mouth was hidden by a heavy black moustache like a cavalryman’s, were honest-looking and reliable?“All right,” he said in that sharp, decisive way of his; “I won’t beat about the bush any longer. You shall go with me, and if, between us, we don’t make some of these fiends sit up, and do a fine stroke of business for the old flag, I’ll sit down and let that man I hate so cordially—Lord Cyril Cuthbertson—have a shot at it. But I won’t—I won’t—I won’t.” And once again he stretched out that vice-like hand of his to enforce his words on my over-slow imagination. But this time I was too quick for him—I slipped on one side—and he broke into a hearty laugh.“You’ll do,” he said admiringly, giving me a hearty slap on the back. “Just meet me at the main entrance to the House in thirty minutes, will you? Then we’ll go straight on.”But as he hastened back I could not help two questions recurring to me with startling distinctness: What “fiends” were those we had got to face?And why should an insignificant-looking fellow like José Casteno so well understand the bitter personal rivalries that spring up between strong men on the same party side in the British Houses of Parliament as to be able to play what looked like a game of childish see-saw between two such redoubtable antagonists as Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and John Cooper-Nassington, uncrowned Emperor of Greater South America?Both problems, however, were destined to be answered much more rapidly and sensationally than ever I expected when I left the House that night. I drove my Panhard at break-neck rate back to its garage in St. Martin’s Lane, Charing Cross, snatched a hurried meal, and tore back in a hansom to St. Stephen’s.One thing was soon evident—Cooper-Nassington was a man of his word. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t been waiting three minutes by those large and imposing gates that mark the main entrance to the Houses of Parliament before hiscoupéand handsome pair of bays clattered across the courtyard, and pulled up with a jerk close to the kerb, and he thrust his head out of the carriage and bade me enter.In response, I took a vacant seat beside him, and without a word being exchanged between footman and master, the servant mounted the box again, and the carriage was driven rapidly away.Now did I confess here that I was anxious as to our destination, worried as to what would happen, timid as to the safety of myself and my companion even after my grim and provoking experiences in the auction mart, I should not put down what was the fact. In truth, I never felt less concerned about the issue of any adventure in the whole course of my career. Indeed, one had only to be in the company of Cooper-Nassington to catch some of the wonderful vitality, assurance, and resource of this most extraordinary individual. The very presence of the man braced up the nerves, and insensibly one acquired some of that strong, masterful habit of mind and that breadth of outlook which seemed to make him feel that, whatever mischances befell some of God’s creatures, he, at least, was one destined to pass on—ever successful, always victorious.As it happened, the journey we went was in itself short. Barely had we passed half-way along Millbank Street than we made a sharp turn to the left, and before I had time to utter an expression of recognition, the carriage drew up with a jerk outside the old, dingy curiosity shop in Tufton Street in which I had earlier in the day been imprisoned,—the retreat of that uncanny man, Peter Zouche, the Hunchback of Westminster.Choking down any feeling of surprise I had on the subject, I meekly descended from the brougham at the heels of my companion and without a word of protest heard him tell his coachman: “Home.” It seemed to me then that we were both walking into the lion’s den together, and that, if anything untoward happened, much the same fate would befall us both.The carriage rolled away, and as its red lights disappeared round the bend of the street, which seemed strangely silent and deserted, I was rather startled to hear my companion muffle something uncommonly like a sigh of regret. To think, of course, that he was a bit nervous about the upshot of our mission was nothing short of treason. None the less, as he advanced to the side door, and gave three peculiar taps on the woodwork, I found my hand travelling instinctively to that small pocket of mine in which rested a revolver.Almost instantly his summons was answered, and there appeared, framed in the entrance, the grotesque figure of the hunchback, a man about four feet high, with a tiny head and face that instinctively recalled the profile of an eagle. He was carrying a candle in a heavy brass candlestick, and as he raised this above his head the light streamed full upon our features.For a second he paused, uncertain what to do. Then a derisive smile curled around his toothless gums, and, with a sneer that I knew only too well from old and bitter experiences meant mischief, he said:“Oh, it’s you, Nassington, also Glynn—is it? Well, come in. It’s as cheap inside as out, and not so deuced unpleasant.” And he backed up against the wall as we picked our way through the passage into a tiny parlour at the back of the shop.The hunchback closed, locked, and bolted the door and followed us into the room, placing the candle, with great deliberation, on the mantelpiece. Then, rubbing his hands together and still sneering, he turned and faced us.“And now, gentlemen,” he said, never attempting to ask us to be seated, “perhaps you will be as good as to tell me to what I owe the honour of this visit? Myself, I should have thought that my young friend here, Hugh Glynn, had had enough of Peter Zouche and his shop and of his way of paying out silly fellows who try to upset his plans.”Cooper-Nassington took a step forward and interposed his big brawny frame between myself and the hunchback.“Look here, Zouche,” he said in that strong, masterful way of his, “leave those tricks of nastiness for children, who may, perhaps, fly into a temper over them, and lose sight of the object of their visits, but we sha’n’t.” And he flung his hat deliberately on the table, and, dragging forward the most comfortable chair in the room, he coolly seated himself therein, pulled out a cigar case, extracted a weed therefrom, and began to smoke.“As for you, Glynn,” he cried to me in a pause between the puffs, “you make yourself at home too. Have a cigar,” handing me the case and a box of vestas, “but don’t let that old scoundrel, Zouche, have one. It all depends on his behaviour whether we ever leave him again now we’ve taken up our quarters in this musty old den of his.” And he reached for a decanter of whiskey and a glass which were standing near, but the hunchback, who was now pallid with rage, made a grab for him and dragged them out of his grasp.“You brute!” he hissed. “The same old brute too. Tell me your business, and get you gone.”“Ah, now you’re talking sense,” said my companion, whose object evidently had been to get the hunchback into a rage, “and I’ll repay your compliment by emulating your example and talking to the point too. As you guess, I have come about those three old manuscripts which you purchased at the sale of the effects of a certain Father Alphonse Calasanctius. You have had time to decipher them since, and you know they are of precious importance to the gentleman who is employing Mr Glynn here, to that young idiot, Lord Fotheringay, and, also incidentally, to myself. Now, what did they contain?”And he fixed Peter Zouche with those terrible eyes of his.To me, a plain onlooker, it was, of course, obvious that there must be some strong, secret bond between the hunchback and the millionaire. Nobody else, I was certain, would have dared to defy Peter Zouche like this, for, whatever might be his faults, the old curio dealer lacked neither position in the world, the respect of his fellows, nor wealth, that was sometimes spoken of as almost fabulous. True, he had all that petty spite, that malevolence, that ache for sinister mischief that somehow one almost always finds with people who have been deformed from birth, but that night none of these obvious defects were uppermost. His attitude, on the contrary, suggested a man who had been brought to bay much against his will—that of one who was faced by two dread alternatives—either to fight to the bitter end an associate of old who had some most uncanny and far-reaching hold over him, or to meekly yield up some secret which he valued almost as highly as his life.Who would triumph?One—two—three—four—five minutes went by. Half instinctively I watched the clock on the mantelpiece; and still the hunchback made no sign, but stood half huddled over the fire, his gaze obstinately fixed on the flames.I remember now how breathlessly I watched that terrific conflict between those two men of extraordinary position, influence, and power,—and I remember, too, thinking how it was all the more deadly and impressive because it was all so silent. One heard nothing, absolutely nothing, in that old back parlour but the steady tick-tick of antique clocks in the shop adjacent, the puff of the MP’s cigar, and the quick, laboured breathing of the grotesque figure poised near the fender.

I left St. Bruno’s and made as hard as my motor would go for Westminster. Under the new rules I knew that the House of Commons did practically no business at all on Saturdays, so that if I missed the opportunity afforded me that night I realised that I should have to wait until Monday afternoon before I broke the seal.

Luckily, the streets about that hour were practically free from traffic, and my Panhard went pounding along at a pace which, if it were horribly illegal, was certainly mightily pleasant and exhilarating so that by the time I was tearing through Westminster all my doubts as to the strangeness of my reception by this queer-looking monk had vanished and I was quite keen to put this new mission through with rapidity and success.

Now, as most people are aware, the House of Commons is about the most easy place in the world of access if any man or woman has the most flimsy pretext of business with any one of its six hundred or so solemn and dignified members. I sprang from my car, handed it over to the care of a loafer who quickly hurried up, and simply nodded to the constables in the entrance. Then I marched up that long passage, peopled with the statues of dead and gone Parliamentarians, with head erect and heart that beat high with anticipation at some good and sensational development.

As arranged, I stopped in the big hall, where some forty or fifty persons were waiting either for admission to the strangers’ gallery or intent on interviews; and, slipping on to one of the leather-covered lounges in a corner, I drew the precious missive from my pocket and broke the heavy seals with which it had been fastened.

As I expected, the package did not all at once yield up its secret. The outer wrapper, of a stout linen cloth similar to those used by the post-office for registered envelopes, merely fell off and revealed two other envelopes, also carefully stamped with red wax. On the top one was written in printed characters, as though the writer were afraid that his handwriting might be recognised:

“To John Cooper-Nassington, Esq, MP, St. Stephen’s, Westminster, SW.”

“The Bearer waits.”

On the other, to my astonishment, I discovered no less an address than this:

Urgent.Private.

“To the Most Hon. Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.”

“Only to be delivered by Mr Hugh Glynn in case Mr Cooper-Nassington should decline.”

For a second, I confess, I felt too astonished to say, or to do, or even to think of anything at all. I sat, with these big legal-looking letters in front of me, gazing into space, trying vainly to interpret the meaning of all these extraordinary manoeuvres on the part of a youthful Spaniard who might, it was true, be really a most important envoy of some far-off foreign state, but equally might be also, and with more apparent reason it seemed to me, absolutely nobody at all.

For Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, as all England was aware (in common with our foreign enemies, no matter how big they might be or bullying in tone or aggressive), was the very last man to be trifled with. He it was who, when Lord Garthdown fell, told Germany so sharply to keep out of an African negotiation we had on hand just then or he would apply an English form of the Monroe doctrine to the entire continent of Africa and never allow them to acquire there another foot of space. He had also, when the United States raised some futile question about boundaries that ought to have been fixed up a century ago, told America that he had settled the matter in his own mind; their claim was preposterous; and that, if they wished to enforce it, they had the remedy common to all nations; but he should advise them to remember that once they put foot into European complications they couldn’t lift it out. And they, too, I recollect very well, promptly busied themselves about troubles elsewhere.

Not a nice man, perhaps—not even a courteous man—but, at all events, a man whom the House and the country feared, and on whom nobody dared play any game or trick.

Yet here was evidently an urgent private communication to him from Don José Casteno. What was at the bottom of it?—a secret of State or of life?

Like a man in a dream I arose and approached one of those sturdy, well-fed constables who stand ever at the barriers that mark off the sacred corridors of the House from the vulgar footstep of the unelect public.

“Please give that to Mr Cooper-Nassington,” I said in a voice that I think had not the slightest resemblance to my natural tones.

My mood now was one of absolute indifference. Whatever happened, I recognised now that I was in for something extraordinary, and I felt I might as well get it over at once as sit on a lounge in that close, stuffy, noisy hall and speculate about a mystery to which I had no clue.

Even John Cooper-Nassington, millionaire, was no small legislative lion to tackle. In the days when South American industries were booming on the Stock Exchange he had appeared with the most wonderful options for railways in the different states—here, there, everywhere—and in three years he had emerged from the pit of speculation with hands cleaner and pockets heavier than most. Ever since he had been regarded as a great authority on things South American. Whenever Chili and Peru had a set-to, which they did regularly once in two years, or Venezuela grew offensive to its friends, or Mexico wanted to swell itself a little, John Cooper-Nassington was sent for by one side or the other; yet, alas, his enemies said he had more pleasure in putting down half-a-million to pay the expenses of a revolution in which five or six thousand innocent varlets were burnt or blown into eternity than he had in subsequently floating a costly war loan, three parts of which usually meandered into his own pocket.

Still, John Cooper-Nassington, when all was said and done, was but a penny pictorial paper kind of Boanerges compared with the quick, Napoleonic qualities of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson who, by the way, had a curious personal resemblance to the First Consul, and was certainly not more than thirty-five years of age. Nassington, now, was a big, heavy-jawed man of about fifty, with a head and beard of iron-grey hair and a brawny, hairy, massive fist that would have felled a man at a blow; yet, as he suddenly projected himself through the swing doors that divided the lobby from the hall to meet me, I saw that he was carrying the letter I had sent carefully closed in his hands still but that his face was white and his looks strangely agitated.

“Ah, Mr Glynn,” he said as I advanced to meet him, handing him my card, “this is an extraordinary business, isn’t it?” And he wrung my hand with a vigour that suggested a high degree of excitement and nervous tension.

“I am but an ambassador, sir,” I replied, falling into step with his, and commencing to pace up and down the corridor that led into the street. “I have no knowledge of the contents of the communication which I handed to you.”

“Quite so. Quite so,” he returned hurriedly. “I gathered as much from what was said by the writer to me. Still, I am told I can make what use of you I think fit, and, truth to say, that is one of the things that puzzle me. Shall I take you with me or shall I send you back?”

“Does that, sir, mean you decline?” I queried, remembering the superscription on the other envelope I was treasuring in a secret pocket within my vest.

“Good heavens, man, no!” he thundered. “Do you think I am a born fool or idiot, or what? Why, that terrible man Cuthbertson would give five years of his life, or one of his hands, to have a magnificent chance of a sensationalcoupsuch as this may prove to be if we are right and have a quarter of an ounce of luck. Just get this clear, will you? I accept—I accept—I accept.” And he enforced his words with a grip on my arm that almost crushed the flesh into the bones.

A pause followed; and then, stopping dead, he fixed me with his eyes. I could see that, shrewd, clever man of the world as he was, he was taking my measure before he came to any deliberate resolution, and I met his gaze with a glance as steadfast and as fearless as his own. After all, what had I to be ashamed of in six feet of lithe, clean figure, an athletic step, and features that my worst friends would say, although my mouth was hidden by a heavy black moustache like a cavalryman’s, were honest-looking and reliable?

“All right,” he said in that sharp, decisive way of his; “I won’t beat about the bush any longer. You shall go with me, and if, between us, we don’t make some of these fiends sit up, and do a fine stroke of business for the old flag, I’ll sit down and let that man I hate so cordially—Lord Cyril Cuthbertson—have a shot at it. But I won’t—I won’t—I won’t.” And once again he stretched out that vice-like hand of his to enforce his words on my over-slow imagination. But this time I was too quick for him—I slipped on one side—and he broke into a hearty laugh.

“You’ll do,” he said admiringly, giving me a hearty slap on the back. “Just meet me at the main entrance to the House in thirty minutes, will you? Then we’ll go straight on.”

But as he hastened back I could not help two questions recurring to me with startling distinctness: What “fiends” were those we had got to face?

And why should an insignificant-looking fellow like José Casteno so well understand the bitter personal rivalries that spring up between strong men on the same party side in the British Houses of Parliament as to be able to play what looked like a game of childish see-saw between two such redoubtable antagonists as Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and John Cooper-Nassington, uncrowned Emperor of Greater South America?

Both problems, however, were destined to be answered much more rapidly and sensationally than ever I expected when I left the House that night. I drove my Panhard at break-neck rate back to its garage in St. Martin’s Lane, Charing Cross, snatched a hurried meal, and tore back in a hansom to St. Stephen’s.

One thing was soon evident—Cooper-Nassington was a man of his word. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t been waiting three minutes by those large and imposing gates that mark the main entrance to the Houses of Parliament before hiscoupéand handsome pair of bays clattered across the courtyard, and pulled up with a jerk close to the kerb, and he thrust his head out of the carriage and bade me enter.

In response, I took a vacant seat beside him, and without a word being exchanged between footman and master, the servant mounted the box again, and the carriage was driven rapidly away.

Now did I confess here that I was anxious as to our destination, worried as to what would happen, timid as to the safety of myself and my companion even after my grim and provoking experiences in the auction mart, I should not put down what was the fact. In truth, I never felt less concerned about the issue of any adventure in the whole course of my career. Indeed, one had only to be in the company of Cooper-Nassington to catch some of the wonderful vitality, assurance, and resource of this most extraordinary individual. The very presence of the man braced up the nerves, and insensibly one acquired some of that strong, masterful habit of mind and that breadth of outlook which seemed to make him feel that, whatever mischances befell some of God’s creatures, he, at least, was one destined to pass on—ever successful, always victorious.

As it happened, the journey we went was in itself short. Barely had we passed half-way along Millbank Street than we made a sharp turn to the left, and before I had time to utter an expression of recognition, the carriage drew up with a jerk outside the old, dingy curiosity shop in Tufton Street in which I had earlier in the day been imprisoned,—the retreat of that uncanny man, Peter Zouche, the Hunchback of Westminster.

Choking down any feeling of surprise I had on the subject, I meekly descended from the brougham at the heels of my companion and without a word of protest heard him tell his coachman: “Home.” It seemed to me then that we were both walking into the lion’s den together, and that, if anything untoward happened, much the same fate would befall us both.

The carriage rolled away, and as its red lights disappeared round the bend of the street, which seemed strangely silent and deserted, I was rather startled to hear my companion muffle something uncommonly like a sigh of regret. To think, of course, that he was a bit nervous about the upshot of our mission was nothing short of treason. None the less, as he advanced to the side door, and gave three peculiar taps on the woodwork, I found my hand travelling instinctively to that small pocket of mine in which rested a revolver.

Almost instantly his summons was answered, and there appeared, framed in the entrance, the grotesque figure of the hunchback, a man about four feet high, with a tiny head and face that instinctively recalled the profile of an eagle. He was carrying a candle in a heavy brass candlestick, and as he raised this above his head the light streamed full upon our features.

For a second he paused, uncertain what to do. Then a derisive smile curled around his toothless gums, and, with a sneer that I knew only too well from old and bitter experiences meant mischief, he said:

“Oh, it’s you, Nassington, also Glynn—is it? Well, come in. It’s as cheap inside as out, and not so deuced unpleasant.” And he backed up against the wall as we picked our way through the passage into a tiny parlour at the back of the shop.

The hunchback closed, locked, and bolted the door and followed us into the room, placing the candle, with great deliberation, on the mantelpiece. Then, rubbing his hands together and still sneering, he turned and faced us.

“And now, gentlemen,” he said, never attempting to ask us to be seated, “perhaps you will be as good as to tell me to what I owe the honour of this visit? Myself, I should have thought that my young friend here, Hugh Glynn, had had enough of Peter Zouche and his shop and of his way of paying out silly fellows who try to upset his plans.”

Cooper-Nassington took a step forward and interposed his big brawny frame between myself and the hunchback.

“Look here, Zouche,” he said in that strong, masterful way of his, “leave those tricks of nastiness for children, who may, perhaps, fly into a temper over them, and lose sight of the object of their visits, but we sha’n’t.” And he flung his hat deliberately on the table, and, dragging forward the most comfortable chair in the room, he coolly seated himself therein, pulled out a cigar case, extracted a weed therefrom, and began to smoke.

“As for you, Glynn,” he cried to me in a pause between the puffs, “you make yourself at home too. Have a cigar,” handing me the case and a box of vestas, “but don’t let that old scoundrel, Zouche, have one. It all depends on his behaviour whether we ever leave him again now we’ve taken up our quarters in this musty old den of his.” And he reached for a decanter of whiskey and a glass which were standing near, but the hunchback, who was now pallid with rage, made a grab for him and dragged them out of his grasp.

“You brute!” he hissed. “The same old brute too. Tell me your business, and get you gone.”

“Ah, now you’re talking sense,” said my companion, whose object evidently had been to get the hunchback into a rage, “and I’ll repay your compliment by emulating your example and talking to the point too. As you guess, I have come about those three old manuscripts which you purchased at the sale of the effects of a certain Father Alphonse Calasanctius. You have had time to decipher them since, and you know they are of precious importance to the gentleman who is employing Mr Glynn here, to that young idiot, Lord Fotheringay, and, also incidentally, to myself. Now, what did they contain?”

And he fixed Peter Zouche with those terrible eyes of his.

To me, a plain onlooker, it was, of course, obvious that there must be some strong, secret bond between the hunchback and the millionaire. Nobody else, I was certain, would have dared to defy Peter Zouche like this, for, whatever might be his faults, the old curio dealer lacked neither position in the world, the respect of his fellows, nor wealth, that was sometimes spoken of as almost fabulous. True, he had all that petty spite, that malevolence, that ache for sinister mischief that somehow one almost always finds with people who have been deformed from birth, but that night none of these obvious defects were uppermost. His attitude, on the contrary, suggested a man who had been brought to bay much against his will—that of one who was faced by two dread alternatives—either to fight to the bitter end an associate of old who had some most uncanny and far-reaching hold over him, or to meekly yield up some secret which he valued almost as highly as his life.

Who would triumph?

One—two—three—four—five minutes went by. Half instinctively I watched the clock on the mantelpiece; and still the hunchback made no sign, but stood half huddled over the fire, his gaze obstinately fixed on the flames.

I remember now how breathlessly I watched that terrific conflict between those two men of extraordinary position, influence, and power,—and I remember, too, thinking how it was all the more deadly and impressive because it was all so silent. One heard nothing, absolutely nothing, in that old back parlour but the steady tick-tick of antique clocks in the shop adjacent, the puff of the MP’s cigar, and the quick, laboured breathing of the grotesque figure poised near the fender.

Chapter Six.The Sacred Secret.Had I ever been tempted, indeed, to think that the mission which Don José Casteno had confided to me was some small matter of a collector’s gain, I should not have done so after the part I played as sole witness of this wordless drama. The very atmosphere of the room was pregnant with mysterious suggestion of the tremendous issues that were hanging then in the balance. I knew at last, with as much certainty as though I had read the documents themselves, that these manuscripts that had dropped so carelessly from the hands of a dead monk into all the hurly-burly of a commonplace auction room were precious records that affected the lives, the happiness, the fortunes of thousands.Again the problem stated itself: Who would triumph? And again I had to wait, for neither Peter Zouche nor John Cooper-Nassington would make any sign.Suddenly, though, the dwarf stood up and fixed his eager, burning, avaricious eyes on me. “You, Mr Glynn,” he snapped, “are a man who knows as much about old manuscripts as most folks. I have seen your collection, and, for one who has had no means to speak of, you have done exceedingly well. Why don’t you tell this big, bullying, aggressive friend of ours what those three deeds contained? You were employed by some peculiar people to get possession of them, no matter what the cost might be. You received very explicit instructions about them. You made a clever fight for them.”“And,” I broke in sternly, “you, sir, filled the room with a ‘knock out’ of dirty, hungry aliens from Whitechapel; and, when I grew dangerous, you and your friends did not scruple to hound me down and kidnap me. That was the way you put me out of competition and snatched your beggarly triumph, but you know as well as I do that I am ignorant of the precise contents or qualities of the documents which I was employed to make such a strenuous battle for.”“But, sir,” he sneered, rolling back his lips and showing his toothless gums, “think of that beautiful sign outside your office: ‘Mr Hugh Glynn, Secret Investigator!’ why, nothing should be hidden from you!” And he threw out his hands with a gesture of infinite comprehensiveness and burst into a loud and offensive mocking laugh.“Nor will this thing be a mystery to me long,” I retorted boldly, rising and striking the top of the table with my clenched fist. “You, Peter Zouche, understand that! At present I am merely a private soldier obeying the orders of a superior officer, but, by heaven! if it were not so, and I were free to handle this affair in the manner that suited me best, do you fancy you would be able to play with me like you did at the auction mart in Covent Garden, that I would walk meekly out of your shop after I had been kicked and buffeted and imprisoned, and that I would come here almost immediately afterwards and let you do your level best to jeer at me and sneer at me and treat me as a dolt or a child? No!” I thundered, “ten thousand thousand times no!“Luckily,” I went on in a more subdued voice, “fate has given me a share in this mystery, and as soon as I am free of all the honourable obligations which I have undertaken you may be sure I shall be here to be reckoned with. Sooner or later I will make you bitterly regret this cheap scoffing of yours at my qualifications as a professional detective. I know that wonderful secrets about buried treasures and compacts between states and churches and individuals, lie hidden in those old manuscript deeds that are often left kicking about as so much idle lumber in garret and cellar and office. Nobody in London, indeed, knows better; and I will track this precious secret of yours down—”“Enough,” struck in Cooper-Nassington in his most terrible tones. “You, Glynn, have now justified yourself. It’s the hunchback’s turn. Once again I demand of him: What has he deciphered from those three queer-looking manuscripts which he purchased this afternoon?”Peter Zouche faltered; to my astonishment I saw that he had been conquered.“You know well enough what they contain,” he snarled, “or you would not be here at this hour, and in this mood!”“And so do you, you wicked old cripple,” roared my friend, “or you would never have spent all that money on packing that auction mart with your gang of foreign mercenaries to effect a knock-out of the manuscripts; you are not the kind of philanthropist who throws away two or three thousand pounds on the relatives of a poor Spanish priest whom you have never set eyes on. So speak out without any more fuss. Are they what I have been led to expect?”“They are,” the hunchback muttered, licking his dry and feverish lips; “but it will take me two or three weeks to decode them. I was looking at them when you came and knocked at the door with that cursed all-compelling signal of yours. Why the deuce didn’t you leave me in peace for a time?”“Because I wanted to be sure I had been correctly informed, of course,” retorted the Member of Parliament gaily, rising and brushing the cigar ash off his waistcoat. “In fact, in a word, I shall assume now that you have got possession of the documents that give the key to the position and the drainage of the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano, which was for centuries the depository of the treasures of the original tribes of Mexico, and which has been believed always, upon quite credible evidence, to contain gold and precious stones to the amount of many millions sterling.”“Yes; that is so,” conceded Zouche, with a sigh.“What!” I cried, unable to stifle my excitement at hearing this extraordinary piece of news. “Do you mean to say there has been discovered at last that wonderful Mexican lake over which England nearly went to war with Spain in the days of Elizabeth, a secret that was supposed to be known only to the Jesuits, who lost in some miraculous fashion all the documents bearing on the subject nearly three hundred years ago?”“I do,” replied the hunchback. “What did you think when I took such extraordinary precautions at the auction this afternoon?—that I was simply playing up for some quaint and curious cryptogram? Bah! men of my reputation don’t fling one thousand eight hundred pounds about for childish puzzles like those.”“So I might have guessed,” I added to myself a little bitterly. “I ought to have realised something of the sort was afoot, but, as you know, we collectors of manuscripts have known so long about these wonderful missing records that we have actually grown tired of looking out for them, and some of the best and wisest of us have gone so far as to doubt their very existence.”“Well, you need not,” observed the Member of Parliament genially, fixing his hat upon his head firmly. “Prescott, in his ‘Conquest of Mexico,’ sets out the facts about the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano with great clearness. I remember, very well, he explains that it must be somewhere about the centre of the uninhabited portion of Mexico and that its dimensions are not too formidable to tackle for unwatering, being about only one thousand two hundred feet long by one thousand feet wide on the surface, but the greatest depth has not been fathomed. It is known to stand at a height of about ten thousand feet above sea level. Indeed, its depths are reputed to have been regarded as sacred to their gods by a numerous aboriginal population long before the appearance of the Jesuits in that part of the world.”“But why,” I queried, “is the value of its treasure always so firmly insisted on?”“Because,” replied he, “in connection with their religious rites the aboriginals habitually made offerings to the deities of the lake in the form of gold dust, golden images, and emeralds, the most famous emerald mines of the world being situated in the heart of Mexico. Indeed, Prescott says that this particular gem was held as sacred by the early tribes inhabiting Mexico as being the emblem of the sun, they themselves being sun-worshippers. More than that, their king, who was also their pontiff, was in the habit of being completely covered with gold dust so applied as to cause him to shine with great lustre like the rays of the sun. In brief, he was the real ‘El Dorado’ of whom we have heard so much and seen so little; and, as his principal religious ceremony, he was wont to perform his ablutions from a raft in the centre of the lake, until the whole of the precious metal was washed away. This accomplished, the king, and the chiefs who were with him, made a rule of throwing costly offerings into the water.”“Better than that,” struck in the hunchback, almost with enthusiasm, “I have just been turning over an article in theSouth American Journalon this very subject, and I read there that the multitude of worshippers, thereupon, likewise cast in their humbler contributions in the midst of singing and dancing and to the sound of such musical instruments as were available. When the ‘bearded men’ reached the country it is stated that the Indians, to put their treasure beyond the power of the ruthless invaders, threw it into the waters of the lake to a vast value; and, indeed, an attempt was made by the Spaniards to unwater it, so as to get at the submerged accumulation of gold dust and precious stones. They were not able to reach the bottom, but succeeded in lowering the water to such an extent as to expose a portion of the margins of the lake, whence they obtained sufficient to pay to the Spanish Government one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, equivalent to three per cent, on a total recovered of five millions six hundred thousand dollars. There were also emeralds, one of which realised seventy thousand dollars in Madrid. Further progress was arrested by the sides of the cutting on the lip of the lake-cup falling in with a tremendous crash. The water poured into the mouth of an adjacent volcano, and a terrible earthquake resulted, before which the Spaniards and their Jesuit friends fled in terror. A proper record was, however, made later on of the exact position of the lake, but, as Mr Cooper-Nassington explained, it was lost.”“And you have recovered it,” I burst out.“That is so; but although repeated expeditions were made to the district, which is largely of volcanic origin, to discover it without the key I possess, they all failed; and as the years slipped on they grew fewer and fewer in number until, as you have heard for yourself, the whole thing has just become a will-o’-the-wisp of the manuscript hunter who, of course, has mostly grown to feel he is as likely to discover the missing documents as he is to find the title-deeds of the temple of David.“But,” said the hunchback, suddenly changing his tone and confronting my companion with an angry look, “none of this is to the point. It is, in a way, all so much ancient history and as familiar to men like yourself, who rule Mexico through the Stock Exchange or our British Foreign Office, as your alphabet. What I want to know is: What business is it of yours what I have bought and what I have discovered? You have no share in this find. You have no right to information. By what right do you come here demanding to know what I have learned, and shall learn, with infinite patience, expense, and labour?”“All that in good time, my dear sir,” calmly returned Cooper-Nassington. “For the present it must be sufficient for you that I have a very real and vital stake in what you have found, and you had better treat me well over the business when I come to you again after you have deciphered the manuscripts, or you’ll live to regret the day I was born.”For a second the two men stood glaring at each other in angry defiance, but again I saw that the millionaire won. Whatever was the mysterious hold he had over the hunchback there was no doubt but that it was a very potent and a very effective one, and that, however much Zouche might kick and threaten, in the end he was bound to come to the other’s heel.“All right. Come to me in a fortnight’s time,” he growled, “and I’ll see then what can be done. Don’t fancy, though, that this business is simply fitting out a yacht with a party of Cornish miners and engineers and going to take possession of the loot.”“I don’t,” said the Member of Parliament coolly; “there are the Jesuits to reckon with.”“Yes; but that’s not the worst,” retorted Zouche; “there are others.”“Others!” cried the man in astonishment. “What do you mean?”“Well, first, who was the man that put you on the track of my discovery, eh? What, for instance, is the name or position of Mr Glynn’s employer?”In spite of myself I flushed and started. Should I now hear who Don José Casteno really was, if he were really a friend of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, and why he was a resident at that home of mystery, St. Bruno’s. Alas! no. I was doomed to disappointment.“We decline to tell you,” said my companion with great firmness.“I shall find out for myself,” roared the dwarf.“Do, if you can,” returned the man coolly. “For the present, stick to the point we are discussing. Who else have we to fear?”“The cut-throats who did this,” snarled the hunchback, stepping quickly across the room and taking down a cloak from the walls. Then he spread the garment out on the table and indicated certain bullet holes in the back. “They did this to me this afternoon as I walked homeward,” he added. “The shots came just as I was crossing Westminster Bridge. I searched everywhere for a sight of the man, who must have done it with some new-fangled air-gun. I could find none at all.“Nor is that all,” he proceeded the next moment; “just cast a glance in this direction, will you?” He stumbled across the parlour to a point where stood an old oaken chest about two feet high, the lid of which he threw back with a bang. “Do you see that fine mastiff in there?” pointing to the shadowy form of a huge dog in the depths of the chest. “Well, an hour ago he was poisoned. By whom? For what? I have lived here in this house, in this neighbourhood, for five and forty years and nothing of the sort has ever occurred before.“Ten minutes before your carriage rattled up I had another weird experience. Explain it if you can—I can’t. I was seated at this very table poring over one of those precious manuscripts, which I hide in a place practically inaccessible to anybody except myself, when I became conscious I was not alone. Somebody, I felt certain, had come mysteriously on the scene and was watching me intently. I glanced up suddenly, and found there, at that small casement window which opens on the street, and which is usually guarded by the shutter you now see placed in position, the face of a man. ‘What do you want?’ I cried angrily, and darted across the room to fling the shutter back into position with all the force I could exert. But he was much too swift for me. With incredible rapidity he flung an envelope through the opening and darted off, and the shutter and window slammed together, as I intended, but with an empty bang. The scoundrel had escaped!“Well, by that time I was accustomed to surprises, and so I took up the envelope, which was of a cheap, inferior make, similar to those sold by small stationers in poor districts. It had no address upon it, but it was sealed. I tore it open, and found inside a piece of paper bearing this message.” After fumbling behind an ornament on the mantelpiece he produced a slip that had been evidently torn out of some child’s exercise book, and upon which was written in feigned handwriting to resemble a schoolboy’s:“Your secret is known. At the right moment I shall come to you and claim it for its lawful owner. Meanwhile, breathe not a word to a soul as you value your property and your life.”“Of course,” added the hunchback, with a shrug of the shoulders, “all this sounds the merest melodrama, and so it may be. But you and I know quite enough of the importance of those manuscripts to understand how many rich and extraordinary personages in England, in Spain, in Mexico have the keenest interest in their contents, their recovery, and their translation. Your Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, for one,” shot out Zouche, glancing at the millionaire with eyes full of meaning, yet bright with the springs of his own hidden resentment.The Member of Parliament bit his lip. “Maybe, maybe,” he said, but I could see the shot went home and that inwardly he was much perturbed. “Still, you must do your best, that’s all. Personally, I should say it is your friend, Lord Fotheringay, who feels he can’t trust you, but, really, it is your lookout. Come along, Glynn.” And he led the way impatiently down the passage, and, before the dwarf could say another word, he had hurried me out into Tufton Street, which seemed still to be as deserted as the grave.As we stepped out we heard the door close behind us; and, remembering the mysterious letter which Don José had instructed me to hand to Lord Cuthbertson in the case of certain eventualities, I resolved on a bold step of my own.“Why,” said I suddenly to my companion, “do you fear the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs getting wind of this discovery of yours?”Never shall I forget the effect of this apparently innocent question of mine!Never!

Had I ever been tempted, indeed, to think that the mission which Don José Casteno had confided to me was some small matter of a collector’s gain, I should not have done so after the part I played as sole witness of this wordless drama. The very atmosphere of the room was pregnant with mysterious suggestion of the tremendous issues that were hanging then in the balance. I knew at last, with as much certainty as though I had read the documents themselves, that these manuscripts that had dropped so carelessly from the hands of a dead monk into all the hurly-burly of a commonplace auction room were precious records that affected the lives, the happiness, the fortunes of thousands.

Again the problem stated itself: Who would triumph? And again I had to wait, for neither Peter Zouche nor John Cooper-Nassington would make any sign.

Suddenly, though, the dwarf stood up and fixed his eager, burning, avaricious eyes on me. “You, Mr Glynn,” he snapped, “are a man who knows as much about old manuscripts as most folks. I have seen your collection, and, for one who has had no means to speak of, you have done exceedingly well. Why don’t you tell this big, bullying, aggressive friend of ours what those three deeds contained? You were employed by some peculiar people to get possession of them, no matter what the cost might be. You received very explicit instructions about them. You made a clever fight for them.”

“And,” I broke in sternly, “you, sir, filled the room with a ‘knock out’ of dirty, hungry aliens from Whitechapel; and, when I grew dangerous, you and your friends did not scruple to hound me down and kidnap me. That was the way you put me out of competition and snatched your beggarly triumph, but you know as well as I do that I am ignorant of the precise contents or qualities of the documents which I was employed to make such a strenuous battle for.”

“But, sir,” he sneered, rolling back his lips and showing his toothless gums, “think of that beautiful sign outside your office: ‘Mr Hugh Glynn, Secret Investigator!’ why, nothing should be hidden from you!” And he threw out his hands with a gesture of infinite comprehensiveness and burst into a loud and offensive mocking laugh.

“Nor will this thing be a mystery to me long,” I retorted boldly, rising and striking the top of the table with my clenched fist. “You, Peter Zouche, understand that! At present I am merely a private soldier obeying the orders of a superior officer, but, by heaven! if it were not so, and I were free to handle this affair in the manner that suited me best, do you fancy you would be able to play with me like you did at the auction mart in Covent Garden, that I would walk meekly out of your shop after I had been kicked and buffeted and imprisoned, and that I would come here almost immediately afterwards and let you do your level best to jeer at me and sneer at me and treat me as a dolt or a child? No!” I thundered, “ten thousand thousand times no!

“Luckily,” I went on in a more subdued voice, “fate has given me a share in this mystery, and as soon as I am free of all the honourable obligations which I have undertaken you may be sure I shall be here to be reckoned with. Sooner or later I will make you bitterly regret this cheap scoffing of yours at my qualifications as a professional detective. I know that wonderful secrets about buried treasures and compacts between states and churches and individuals, lie hidden in those old manuscript deeds that are often left kicking about as so much idle lumber in garret and cellar and office. Nobody in London, indeed, knows better; and I will track this precious secret of yours down—”

“Enough,” struck in Cooper-Nassington in his most terrible tones. “You, Glynn, have now justified yourself. It’s the hunchback’s turn. Once again I demand of him: What has he deciphered from those three queer-looking manuscripts which he purchased this afternoon?”

Peter Zouche faltered; to my astonishment I saw that he had been conquered.

“You know well enough what they contain,” he snarled, “or you would not be here at this hour, and in this mood!”

“And so do you, you wicked old cripple,” roared my friend, “or you would never have spent all that money on packing that auction mart with your gang of foreign mercenaries to effect a knock-out of the manuscripts; you are not the kind of philanthropist who throws away two or three thousand pounds on the relatives of a poor Spanish priest whom you have never set eyes on. So speak out without any more fuss. Are they what I have been led to expect?”

“They are,” the hunchback muttered, licking his dry and feverish lips; “but it will take me two or three weeks to decode them. I was looking at them when you came and knocked at the door with that cursed all-compelling signal of yours. Why the deuce didn’t you leave me in peace for a time?”

“Because I wanted to be sure I had been correctly informed, of course,” retorted the Member of Parliament gaily, rising and brushing the cigar ash off his waistcoat. “In fact, in a word, I shall assume now that you have got possession of the documents that give the key to the position and the drainage of the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano, which was for centuries the depository of the treasures of the original tribes of Mexico, and which has been believed always, upon quite credible evidence, to contain gold and precious stones to the amount of many millions sterling.”

“Yes; that is so,” conceded Zouche, with a sigh.

“What!” I cried, unable to stifle my excitement at hearing this extraordinary piece of news. “Do you mean to say there has been discovered at last that wonderful Mexican lake over which England nearly went to war with Spain in the days of Elizabeth, a secret that was supposed to be known only to the Jesuits, who lost in some miraculous fashion all the documents bearing on the subject nearly three hundred years ago?”

“I do,” replied the hunchback. “What did you think when I took such extraordinary precautions at the auction this afternoon?—that I was simply playing up for some quaint and curious cryptogram? Bah! men of my reputation don’t fling one thousand eight hundred pounds about for childish puzzles like those.”

“So I might have guessed,” I added to myself a little bitterly. “I ought to have realised something of the sort was afoot, but, as you know, we collectors of manuscripts have known so long about these wonderful missing records that we have actually grown tired of looking out for them, and some of the best and wisest of us have gone so far as to doubt their very existence.”

“Well, you need not,” observed the Member of Parliament genially, fixing his hat upon his head firmly. “Prescott, in his ‘Conquest of Mexico,’ sets out the facts about the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano with great clearness. I remember, very well, he explains that it must be somewhere about the centre of the uninhabited portion of Mexico and that its dimensions are not too formidable to tackle for unwatering, being about only one thousand two hundred feet long by one thousand feet wide on the surface, but the greatest depth has not been fathomed. It is known to stand at a height of about ten thousand feet above sea level. Indeed, its depths are reputed to have been regarded as sacred to their gods by a numerous aboriginal population long before the appearance of the Jesuits in that part of the world.”

“But why,” I queried, “is the value of its treasure always so firmly insisted on?”

“Because,” replied he, “in connection with their religious rites the aboriginals habitually made offerings to the deities of the lake in the form of gold dust, golden images, and emeralds, the most famous emerald mines of the world being situated in the heart of Mexico. Indeed, Prescott says that this particular gem was held as sacred by the early tribes inhabiting Mexico as being the emblem of the sun, they themselves being sun-worshippers. More than that, their king, who was also their pontiff, was in the habit of being completely covered with gold dust so applied as to cause him to shine with great lustre like the rays of the sun. In brief, he was the real ‘El Dorado’ of whom we have heard so much and seen so little; and, as his principal religious ceremony, he was wont to perform his ablutions from a raft in the centre of the lake, until the whole of the precious metal was washed away. This accomplished, the king, and the chiefs who were with him, made a rule of throwing costly offerings into the water.”

“Better than that,” struck in the hunchback, almost with enthusiasm, “I have just been turning over an article in theSouth American Journalon this very subject, and I read there that the multitude of worshippers, thereupon, likewise cast in their humbler contributions in the midst of singing and dancing and to the sound of such musical instruments as were available. When the ‘bearded men’ reached the country it is stated that the Indians, to put their treasure beyond the power of the ruthless invaders, threw it into the waters of the lake to a vast value; and, indeed, an attempt was made by the Spaniards to unwater it, so as to get at the submerged accumulation of gold dust and precious stones. They were not able to reach the bottom, but succeeded in lowering the water to such an extent as to expose a portion of the margins of the lake, whence they obtained sufficient to pay to the Spanish Government one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, equivalent to three per cent, on a total recovered of five millions six hundred thousand dollars. There were also emeralds, one of which realised seventy thousand dollars in Madrid. Further progress was arrested by the sides of the cutting on the lip of the lake-cup falling in with a tremendous crash. The water poured into the mouth of an adjacent volcano, and a terrible earthquake resulted, before which the Spaniards and their Jesuit friends fled in terror. A proper record was, however, made later on of the exact position of the lake, but, as Mr Cooper-Nassington explained, it was lost.”

“And you have recovered it,” I burst out.

“That is so; but although repeated expeditions were made to the district, which is largely of volcanic origin, to discover it without the key I possess, they all failed; and as the years slipped on they grew fewer and fewer in number until, as you have heard for yourself, the whole thing has just become a will-o’-the-wisp of the manuscript hunter who, of course, has mostly grown to feel he is as likely to discover the missing documents as he is to find the title-deeds of the temple of David.

“But,” said the hunchback, suddenly changing his tone and confronting my companion with an angry look, “none of this is to the point. It is, in a way, all so much ancient history and as familiar to men like yourself, who rule Mexico through the Stock Exchange or our British Foreign Office, as your alphabet. What I want to know is: What business is it of yours what I have bought and what I have discovered? You have no share in this find. You have no right to information. By what right do you come here demanding to know what I have learned, and shall learn, with infinite patience, expense, and labour?”

“All that in good time, my dear sir,” calmly returned Cooper-Nassington. “For the present it must be sufficient for you that I have a very real and vital stake in what you have found, and you had better treat me well over the business when I come to you again after you have deciphered the manuscripts, or you’ll live to regret the day I was born.”

For a second the two men stood glaring at each other in angry defiance, but again I saw that the millionaire won. Whatever was the mysterious hold he had over the hunchback there was no doubt but that it was a very potent and a very effective one, and that, however much Zouche might kick and threaten, in the end he was bound to come to the other’s heel.

“All right. Come to me in a fortnight’s time,” he growled, “and I’ll see then what can be done. Don’t fancy, though, that this business is simply fitting out a yacht with a party of Cornish miners and engineers and going to take possession of the loot.”

“I don’t,” said the Member of Parliament coolly; “there are the Jesuits to reckon with.”

“Yes; but that’s not the worst,” retorted Zouche; “there are others.”

“Others!” cried the man in astonishment. “What do you mean?”

“Well, first, who was the man that put you on the track of my discovery, eh? What, for instance, is the name or position of Mr Glynn’s employer?”

In spite of myself I flushed and started. Should I now hear who Don José Casteno really was, if he were really a friend of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, and why he was a resident at that home of mystery, St. Bruno’s. Alas! no. I was doomed to disappointment.

“We decline to tell you,” said my companion with great firmness.

“I shall find out for myself,” roared the dwarf.

“Do, if you can,” returned the man coolly. “For the present, stick to the point we are discussing. Who else have we to fear?”

“The cut-throats who did this,” snarled the hunchback, stepping quickly across the room and taking down a cloak from the walls. Then he spread the garment out on the table and indicated certain bullet holes in the back. “They did this to me this afternoon as I walked homeward,” he added. “The shots came just as I was crossing Westminster Bridge. I searched everywhere for a sight of the man, who must have done it with some new-fangled air-gun. I could find none at all.

“Nor is that all,” he proceeded the next moment; “just cast a glance in this direction, will you?” He stumbled across the parlour to a point where stood an old oaken chest about two feet high, the lid of which he threw back with a bang. “Do you see that fine mastiff in there?” pointing to the shadowy form of a huge dog in the depths of the chest. “Well, an hour ago he was poisoned. By whom? For what? I have lived here in this house, in this neighbourhood, for five and forty years and nothing of the sort has ever occurred before.

“Ten minutes before your carriage rattled up I had another weird experience. Explain it if you can—I can’t. I was seated at this very table poring over one of those precious manuscripts, which I hide in a place practically inaccessible to anybody except myself, when I became conscious I was not alone. Somebody, I felt certain, had come mysteriously on the scene and was watching me intently. I glanced up suddenly, and found there, at that small casement window which opens on the street, and which is usually guarded by the shutter you now see placed in position, the face of a man. ‘What do you want?’ I cried angrily, and darted across the room to fling the shutter back into position with all the force I could exert. But he was much too swift for me. With incredible rapidity he flung an envelope through the opening and darted off, and the shutter and window slammed together, as I intended, but with an empty bang. The scoundrel had escaped!

“Well, by that time I was accustomed to surprises, and so I took up the envelope, which was of a cheap, inferior make, similar to those sold by small stationers in poor districts. It had no address upon it, but it was sealed. I tore it open, and found inside a piece of paper bearing this message.” After fumbling behind an ornament on the mantelpiece he produced a slip that had been evidently torn out of some child’s exercise book, and upon which was written in feigned handwriting to resemble a schoolboy’s:

“Your secret is known. At the right moment I shall come to you and claim it for its lawful owner. Meanwhile, breathe not a word to a soul as you value your property and your life.”

“Of course,” added the hunchback, with a shrug of the shoulders, “all this sounds the merest melodrama, and so it may be. But you and I know quite enough of the importance of those manuscripts to understand how many rich and extraordinary personages in England, in Spain, in Mexico have the keenest interest in their contents, their recovery, and their translation. Your Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, for one,” shot out Zouche, glancing at the millionaire with eyes full of meaning, yet bright with the springs of his own hidden resentment.

The Member of Parliament bit his lip. “Maybe, maybe,” he said, but I could see the shot went home and that inwardly he was much perturbed. “Still, you must do your best, that’s all. Personally, I should say it is your friend, Lord Fotheringay, who feels he can’t trust you, but, really, it is your lookout. Come along, Glynn.” And he led the way impatiently down the passage, and, before the dwarf could say another word, he had hurried me out into Tufton Street, which seemed still to be as deserted as the grave.

As we stepped out we heard the door close behind us; and, remembering the mysterious letter which Don José had instructed me to hand to Lord Cuthbertson in the case of certain eventualities, I resolved on a bold step of my own.

“Why,” said I suddenly to my companion, “do you fear the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs getting wind of this discovery of yours?”

Never shall I forget the effect of this apparently innocent question of mine!

Never!

Chapter Seven.In Stanton Street.“Why am I afraid that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs may get wind of the discovery of those manuscripts which locate the exact whereabouts of the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Mexico?” repeated the Member of Parliament fiercely; and he came to a dead stop at the corner of the turning into Peter Street.“For the best of all reasons,” he snapped. “He is the one man in the world I hate with all the force I am capable of. He has proved himself my evil genius. In politics, in preferment, in marriage he has beaten me every time we have come into conflict; and if he could only recover this possession for England—for, as you will find, this lake really belongs to this country and not to Mexico or to Spain or to the Jesuits—he would make himself that great, popular hero he is ever striving to become. How? you ask. In the most simple fashion. He would merely use all those millions that are to be recovered from its depths as baits for the electors, baits for payers of income-tax, men who drink spirits, enthusiasts about old-age pensions, better houses for the poor. Indeed, there is no end to the crazy ambition of this pinchbeck Napoleon. He lives simply to become the idol of the mob in such a way as England’s history with all her Gladstones, her Beaconsfields, and other political leaders of real note, has never known—never. Even the popularity of the throne is not safe with so terrible a pride as his! He cares nothing for any personage or any institution. His one colossal lust is to lift himself so high that no man shall be his equal, but that his word shall travel through the Empire with a power which Bismarck never aimed at and even the German Emperor has never felt competent to aspire to.“I know the man like nobody else does in the House. Once we were friends—before appeared the inevitable woman. I was his one confidant. We occupied the same house; we sat side by side, night after night, over the dinner-table, building the same castles in the air; but, as we laid our plans, and he waxed strong, the power to will and to achieve in this muddy, political life of England came also to me. Hence, while we quarrelled and hated like only one-time bosom companions can, we have ever carried on a terrific underground fight which has been all the more deadly because it was hidden. Few expected it; and none of the fools around me ever realised that a humble, insignificant member like myself was hugging the idea of the eventual overthrow of this wonderful strong man, who had risen up, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a dismembered and distrusted party in the State and had brought back to Parliament the misty legend of a leader who directed the attack by the sheer magic of his own inherent will.“But there!” added Mr Cooper-Nassington, suddenly changing his tone as, away in the distance, he caught the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. “I am sure I don’t know why I ramble on like this—to you. After all, those manuscripts are the real object of our expedition, aren’t they? and in regard to them I suppose we have done the best that could be done in such a bewildering set of circumstances. You had better return now to the man who sent you and report to him all that has transpired since you fetched me out of the House. He will understand, particularly if you add two words to your narrative.”“Yes,” said I eagerly; “and what must those be?””‘In reparation,’” he returned, ”‘in reparation.’” And, signalling to a belated hansom, he held out his hand to me.“Good-night, Mr Glynn,” he said; “I have trusted you to-night more than anybody else in my life. I can’t tell you why, but I have, and I am sure you will not make use of anything I have said to my disadvantage. Doubtless, we shall meet again over this strange, wild quest. If we do—nay, whatever happens—remember I am your friend; but for your actual employer I repeat I have only one message, ‘in reparation!’” And, squeezing my hand, he sprang into the cab, crying to the driver: “Ashley Gardens.” The next instant the cab had gone and I had started to find my way home on foot.Unfortunately, that was not destined to be the last of my adventures that night, although I was tired and worn by the stirring scenes I had passed through. I don’t think Mr Cooper-Nassington had left me a minute before I was conscious of that ugly sensation of being followed. At first I tried to believe it was a mere phantom of my imagination—that my nerves had got a trifle upset by the things which the hunchback had shown to us in the way of tricks that had been played upon him since he had obtained those manuscripts.Thus I didn’t attempt to look behind me, but went on my way whistling merrily, making the pavements re-echo with my noisy steps, for by that time the streets were practically empty. All the same, I couldn’t rid myself of my suspicion that I was being shadowed, and, finally, feeling that the chase was getting intolerable, I decided on a rather curious ruse. I had reached Westminster Bridge, and, walk to near the centre, suddenly stopped and turned my face towards the swirling waters that were eddying past the buttresses beneath.Next instant I staggered back in the fickle light of the lamp, and, throwing my coat off my shoulders, cried in a muffled, stifled kind of voice: “Ah! I can bear it no longer. I must do it. Good-bye, good-bye.” And with a frantic bound I leaped on to the parapet by the aid of a lamp-post and threw my arms upward with a wild, convulsive movement, as though the next second must be my last, and that I had but to take one downward glance to hurl myself into the turgid torrent beneath.Just as I expected, my pursuer rushed pell-mell into the trap that I had baited for him. No sooner did he catch a glimpse of what he thought were my preparations for a sudden and effective suicide than he instantly abandoned all pretence of concealing his presence, darted out of the shadows in which he had been lurking, and raced as swiftly as a greyhound towards me and caught me by the sleeve and dragged me backward.“You fool,” he cried, “what are you up to now?” And in a flash I recognised who it was—Detective-Inspector Naylor.With a quick spring I reached the pavement again and turned a face full of merriment towards the officer.“Ah,” said I, picking up my coat, “so it was you who was stalking me, was it? I thought my little trick would fetch you much more rapidly and effectively than if I had turned round and tried to pick you up. Now, what’s your game dogging my footsteps, eh? You don’t think I’m a young monk who has got spoiled in the making, do you? No; you’ve some deeper, deadlier design than that, so you might as well own up at once.”“I can’t,” he returned, and his face, now he realised how I had duped him, was a study in rage and mortification. “I—I am out on business just as much as you are. You play your hand, I’ll play mine. Only take care what you are up to—that’s all. When we at Scotland Yard take up a case we usually make some inquiries into the good faith and past history of our clients. It’s a pity you don’t do the same. Good-night.” And with a nod full of meaning he strolled off towards the embankment, leaving me to digest his enigmatic remark in silence and alone.With a good-humoured laugh I took my way homeward and tried to shake off the effects of his ominous words, which, I own, caused me a certain amount of disquietude, for, after all, I hadn’t a ghost of an idea then as to the real identity or object of Don José Casteno. For a time, I own, I felt rather fearful. But first one thing and then another engaged my attention. For instance, I had to find out whether I was still being followed. I decided I was not. I had also to dodge the human night-bird of London intent on rows or alms. Finally, by the time I had reached Trafalgar Square the ill effects of the detective’s warning had quite disappeared. All I thought of was a good night’s rest, to be followed by another ride on my motor car to Hampstead, and another entrance to that mysterious home of the Order of St. Bruno.When, however, I reached the street in which my offices were situate I was surprised to see the thoroughfare presented anything but its usual drab and sombre appearance. Something extraordinary was certainly in progress therein. Instead of the place being deserted and silent like the neighbouring streets, no fewer than three carriages with flashing lamps and horses in glittering harness were drawn up by one side of the curb, and near a door stood quite a group of footmen, and loafers and policemen drawn thither by the unusual assemblage.As I got nearer I was even more surprised to find that this strange gathering was centred round the door of my own offices, which I was stupefied to see were brilliantly lit up. “What on earth can have happened?” I gasped, and, quickening my steps, I half ran towards the tiny crowd gathered round the door, which seemed somehow to be expecting me, and gave way instinctively at my approach.Another moment and I had thrust open my office door. The place was half filled by tobacco smoke, but through the mist I was astounded to see three persons had calmly seated themselves in my room to await my return—Lord Fotheringay, Colonel Napier, and a stranger who, as he turned his determined but forbidding looking features upon me, I recognised instantly as Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.“You must excuse us, Glynn,” Fotheringay began almost at once. “I own I had no right to come here at all at this hour and open your office. Most of all, I oughtn’t to have put on your hearth two friends without your consent. Only, as perhaps you guessed from the scene at the auction, we live in rather stirring times just now, and we had no margin left in which we could observe the ordinary courtesies. With Colonel Napier you are, of course, well acquainted. Let me introduce to you another distinguished man.” And he made a movement in the direction of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, who rose and bowed.“Pray be seated,” I hastened to exclaim as I took the chair at my desk and faced the trio. “I mustn’t say, of course, I expected this honour, because, after the way Fotheringay sprang at me in the auction market, I certainly got the impression he had no particular friendliness for me left—but—”“But that is precisely what we have come about,” interposed the earl eagerly. “Those three old manuscripts which we made so terrific a fight over—”My lips closed, and a new look of resolution came into my face.“I see,” I replied. “Then, as it is a matter of business, I beg you tell me what you desire in a plain, business-like fashion.”There was an awkward pause; and then Lord Cyril began: “I understand, Mr Glynn,” he said in his most seductive tones, “from no less an authority than the earl here, that you have been retained to get possession of three historical documents that were found among the effects of a certain dead refugee priest who called himself Alphonse Calasanctius. Now, are you aware to what those deeds relate?”I nodded, and the two men exchanged a quick look of intelligence. “That being so,” proceeded Lord Cuthbertson, “you will doubtless realise how important it is that His Majesty’s Government, and not an enemy of this country, should obtain possession of them.”“Quite,” I returned, determining to meet the statesman’s strategy with diplomacy as far-reaching as his own.“And may I take it that you are prepared, as far as lies in your power, to assist His Majesty’s Government in this direction?”“That is hardly necessary,” I said, with a smile. “I have not got the documents at all. They are in the hands of a man with whom I am but little acquainted—Mr Zouche. Wouldn’t it be better if pressure were placed on him?”“I can hardly agree in that,” said the Foreign Secretary softly, and I saw I had countered but not defeated him. “In the first place, Mr Zouche is not an English subject, like yourself. He is Spanish, with all the absurd notions of the average Spaniard as to the future glories and magnificence of Spain. In the second place, he and Lord Fotheringay have had this very point over between them, and the hunchback has absolutely refused to assist us or the earl, who really put him on the track of the documents, and who is now trying, in vain, unfortunately, to frighten him out of them.”“In other words,” I remarked sternly, “Lord Fotheringay first of all threw in his lot with the hunchback, who went off with the plunder, and won’t divide it. Thereupon he bethought himself of his patriotism, and has said to you: ‘Here is a matter of the honour and fair fame and fortune of England. Come, let us sink all our personal greed and differences and recover those deeds in the name and for the sake of our common brotherhood of kin and blood.’ My lord, it won’t answer with me. When I wanted help Fotheringay would not raise a finger for me, but rather studied how he could throw me back. Now he’s in trouble, let him get out of it; but let him be a man over it, and don’t let him bleat about the needs of England when he really means his own greed.”“There’s a good deal in what you say,” remarked Lord Cuthbertson, “but not everything. Bear with me a minute, and I will explain. I have no doubt you are under the impression that when Fotheringay went to Mexico he went simply because he’d got a lot of spare cash, and wanted a change, and to bag some big game. As a matter of fact, he had no thought of the sort. He went as a special and a private spy of the Foreign Office; and his business was, under the harmless guise of an enthusiastic sportsman, to investigate certain rumours we had heard as to the discovery of these Jesuit plans of the sacred Lake of Treasure which really belongs to England. Well, he did so, and so cleverly did he manage that he penetrated the very monastery in which they were hidden, and he got at the very prior of the Order—a member of which had held them in his possession. A certain bargain was struck between the prior and himself, but before the Foreign Office could send the big sum of money required to ratify it this Father Alphonse Calasanctius ran away with the documents to England, but was, we have reason to believe, poisoned on his arrival by some compatriot or relative who knew nothing of the value of the manuscripts, and thought only of the forced sale of the goods which you and the earl attended. Therefore I beg you don’t judge your old companion unfairly and harshly. We all of us do many things for England in our public capacity that we should not dare, or even wish, to do for ourselves in our own private business. His sole blunder was to get Zouche to help him, because Zouche is really a villain who would dare any crime or fraud to help his country, Spain. So it, of course, has happened as might have been expected. Zouche has repudiated the earl, and unless you can give us a hand England is going to lose this sacred lake and its millions and Zouche.”“He may not necessarily triumph,” I answered.“There are probably other people hot on the track of those manuscripts. To-day there have been one or two attempts to make Zouche disgorge from a source which is truly bold and daring and resourceful; I’ll assume, after what you say, it is the earl. Well, let the earl continue his pressure. He may frighten him out of them, but I doubt it—I doubt it very much. Then there is my employer.”“You must give that man up, Hugh,” cut in Colonel Napier, who had not hitherto spoken. “He’s a scoundrel of the first water. I know all about him. He escaped from that Mexican monastery at the same time as Father Alphonse Calasanctius, but not before he killed Earl Fotheringay’s companion, young Sutton.”“That is false,” suddenly interrupted a strange voice, “and the police of London and Mexico know it, for the deed was done by Calasanctius himself, and not by the novice at all.” And to everybody’s astonishment the doors of my big cupboard were flung open, and there stepped therefrom no less a personage than Don José Casteno himself.

“Why am I afraid that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs may get wind of the discovery of those manuscripts which locate the exact whereabouts of the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Mexico?” repeated the Member of Parliament fiercely; and he came to a dead stop at the corner of the turning into Peter Street.

“For the best of all reasons,” he snapped. “He is the one man in the world I hate with all the force I am capable of. He has proved himself my evil genius. In politics, in preferment, in marriage he has beaten me every time we have come into conflict; and if he could only recover this possession for England—for, as you will find, this lake really belongs to this country and not to Mexico or to Spain or to the Jesuits—he would make himself that great, popular hero he is ever striving to become. How? you ask. In the most simple fashion. He would merely use all those millions that are to be recovered from its depths as baits for the electors, baits for payers of income-tax, men who drink spirits, enthusiasts about old-age pensions, better houses for the poor. Indeed, there is no end to the crazy ambition of this pinchbeck Napoleon. He lives simply to become the idol of the mob in such a way as England’s history with all her Gladstones, her Beaconsfields, and other political leaders of real note, has never known—never. Even the popularity of the throne is not safe with so terrible a pride as his! He cares nothing for any personage or any institution. His one colossal lust is to lift himself so high that no man shall be his equal, but that his word shall travel through the Empire with a power which Bismarck never aimed at and even the German Emperor has never felt competent to aspire to.

“I know the man like nobody else does in the House. Once we were friends—before appeared the inevitable woman. I was his one confidant. We occupied the same house; we sat side by side, night after night, over the dinner-table, building the same castles in the air; but, as we laid our plans, and he waxed strong, the power to will and to achieve in this muddy, political life of England came also to me. Hence, while we quarrelled and hated like only one-time bosom companions can, we have ever carried on a terrific underground fight which has been all the more deadly because it was hidden. Few expected it; and none of the fools around me ever realised that a humble, insignificant member like myself was hugging the idea of the eventual overthrow of this wonderful strong man, who had risen up, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a dismembered and distrusted party in the State and had brought back to Parliament the misty legend of a leader who directed the attack by the sheer magic of his own inherent will.

“But there!” added Mr Cooper-Nassington, suddenly changing his tone as, away in the distance, he caught the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. “I am sure I don’t know why I ramble on like this—to you. After all, those manuscripts are the real object of our expedition, aren’t they? and in regard to them I suppose we have done the best that could be done in such a bewildering set of circumstances. You had better return now to the man who sent you and report to him all that has transpired since you fetched me out of the House. He will understand, particularly if you add two words to your narrative.”

“Yes,” said I eagerly; “and what must those be?”

”‘In reparation,’” he returned, ”‘in reparation.’” And, signalling to a belated hansom, he held out his hand to me.

“Good-night, Mr Glynn,” he said; “I have trusted you to-night more than anybody else in my life. I can’t tell you why, but I have, and I am sure you will not make use of anything I have said to my disadvantage. Doubtless, we shall meet again over this strange, wild quest. If we do—nay, whatever happens—remember I am your friend; but for your actual employer I repeat I have only one message, ‘in reparation!’” And, squeezing my hand, he sprang into the cab, crying to the driver: “Ashley Gardens.” The next instant the cab had gone and I had started to find my way home on foot.

Unfortunately, that was not destined to be the last of my adventures that night, although I was tired and worn by the stirring scenes I had passed through. I don’t think Mr Cooper-Nassington had left me a minute before I was conscious of that ugly sensation of being followed. At first I tried to believe it was a mere phantom of my imagination—that my nerves had got a trifle upset by the things which the hunchback had shown to us in the way of tricks that had been played upon him since he had obtained those manuscripts.

Thus I didn’t attempt to look behind me, but went on my way whistling merrily, making the pavements re-echo with my noisy steps, for by that time the streets were practically empty. All the same, I couldn’t rid myself of my suspicion that I was being shadowed, and, finally, feeling that the chase was getting intolerable, I decided on a rather curious ruse. I had reached Westminster Bridge, and, walk to near the centre, suddenly stopped and turned my face towards the swirling waters that were eddying past the buttresses beneath.

Next instant I staggered back in the fickle light of the lamp, and, throwing my coat off my shoulders, cried in a muffled, stifled kind of voice: “Ah! I can bear it no longer. I must do it. Good-bye, good-bye.” And with a frantic bound I leaped on to the parapet by the aid of a lamp-post and threw my arms upward with a wild, convulsive movement, as though the next second must be my last, and that I had but to take one downward glance to hurl myself into the turgid torrent beneath.

Just as I expected, my pursuer rushed pell-mell into the trap that I had baited for him. No sooner did he catch a glimpse of what he thought were my preparations for a sudden and effective suicide than he instantly abandoned all pretence of concealing his presence, darted out of the shadows in which he had been lurking, and raced as swiftly as a greyhound towards me and caught me by the sleeve and dragged me backward.

“You fool,” he cried, “what are you up to now?” And in a flash I recognised who it was—Detective-Inspector Naylor.

With a quick spring I reached the pavement again and turned a face full of merriment towards the officer.

“Ah,” said I, picking up my coat, “so it was you who was stalking me, was it? I thought my little trick would fetch you much more rapidly and effectively than if I had turned round and tried to pick you up. Now, what’s your game dogging my footsteps, eh? You don’t think I’m a young monk who has got spoiled in the making, do you? No; you’ve some deeper, deadlier design than that, so you might as well own up at once.”

“I can’t,” he returned, and his face, now he realised how I had duped him, was a study in rage and mortification. “I—I am out on business just as much as you are. You play your hand, I’ll play mine. Only take care what you are up to—that’s all. When we at Scotland Yard take up a case we usually make some inquiries into the good faith and past history of our clients. It’s a pity you don’t do the same. Good-night.” And with a nod full of meaning he strolled off towards the embankment, leaving me to digest his enigmatic remark in silence and alone.

With a good-humoured laugh I took my way homeward and tried to shake off the effects of his ominous words, which, I own, caused me a certain amount of disquietude, for, after all, I hadn’t a ghost of an idea then as to the real identity or object of Don José Casteno. For a time, I own, I felt rather fearful. But first one thing and then another engaged my attention. For instance, I had to find out whether I was still being followed. I decided I was not. I had also to dodge the human night-bird of London intent on rows or alms. Finally, by the time I had reached Trafalgar Square the ill effects of the detective’s warning had quite disappeared. All I thought of was a good night’s rest, to be followed by another ride on my motor car to Hampstead, and another entrance to that mysterious home of the Order of St. Bruno.

When, however, I reached the street in which my offices were situate I was surprised to see the thoroughfare presented anything but its usual drab and sombre appearance. Something extraordinary was certainly in progress therein. Instead of the place being deserted and silent like the neighbouring streets, no fewer than three carriages with flashing lamps and horses in glittering harness were drawn up by one side of the curb, and near a door stood quite a group of footmen, and loafers and policemen drawn thither by the unusual assemblage.

As I got nearer I was even more surprised to find that this strange gathering was centred round the door of my own offices, which I was stupefied to see were brilliantly lit up. “What on earth can have happened?” I gasped, and, quickening my steps, I half ran towards the tiny crowd gathered round the door, which seemed somehow to be expecting me, and gave way instinctively at my approach.

Another moment and I had thrust open my office door. The place was half filled by tobacco smoke, but through the mist I was astounded to see three persons had calmly seated themselves in my room to await my return—Lord Fotheringay, Colonel Napier, and a stranger who, as he turned his determined but forbidding looking features upon me, I recognised instantly as Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

“You must excuse us, Glynn,” Fotheringay began almost at once. “I own I had no right to come here at all at this hour and open your office. Most of all, I oughtn’t to have put on your hearth two friends without your consent. Only, as perhaps you guessed from the scene at the auction, we live in rather stirring times just now, and we had no margin left in which we could observe the ordinary courtesies. With Colonel Napier you are, of course, well acquainted. Let me introduce to you another distinguished man.” And he made a movement in the direction of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, who rose and bowed.

“Pray be seated,” I hastened to exclaim as I took the chair at my desk and faced the trio. “I mustn’t say, of course, I expected this honour, because, after the way Fotheringay sprang at me in the auction market, I certainly got the impression he had no particular friendliness for me left—but—”

“But that is precisely what we have come about,” interposed the earl eagerly. “Those three old manuscripts which we made so terrific a fight over—”

My lips closed, and a new look of resolution came into my face.

“I see,” I replied. “Then, as it is a matter of business, I beg you tell me what you desire in a plain, business-like fashion.”

There was an awkward pause; and then Lord Cyril began: “I understand, Mr Glynn,” he said in his most seductive tones, “from no less an authority than the earl here, that you have been retained to get possession of three historical documents that were found among the effects of a certain dead refugee priest who called himself Alphonse Calasanctius. Now, are you aware to what those deeds relate?”

I nodded, and the two men exchanged a quick look of intelligence. “That being so,” proceeded Lord Cuthbertson, “you will doubtless realise how important it is that His Majesty’s Government, and not an enemy of this country, should obtain possession of them.”

“Quite,” I returned, determining to meet the statesman’s strategy with diplomacy as far-reaching as his own.

“And may I take it that you are prepared, as far as lies in your power, to assist His Majesty’s Government in this direction?”

“That is hardly necessary,” I said, with a smile. “I have not got the documents at all. They are in the hands of a man with whom I am but little acquainted—Mr Zouche. Wouldn’t it be better if pressure were placed on him?”

“I can hardly agree in that,” said the Foreign Secretary softly, and I saw I had countered but not defeated him. “In the first place, Mr Zouche is not an English subject, like yourself. He is Spanish, with all the absurd notions of the average Spaniard as to the future glories and magnificence of Spain. In the second place, he and Lord Fotheringay have had this very point over between them, and the hunchback has absolutely refused to assist us or the earl, who really put him on the track of the documents, and who is now trying, in vain, unfortunately, to frighten him out of them.”

“In other words,” I remarked sternly, “Lord Fotheringay first of all threw in his lot with the hunchback, who went off with the plunder, and won’t divide it. Thereupon he bethought himself of his patriotism, and has said to you: ‘Here is a matter of the honour and fair fame and fortune of England. Come, let us sink all our personal greed and differences and recover those deeds in the name and for the sake of our common brotherhood of kin and blood.’ My lord, it won’t answer with me. When I wanted help Fotheringay would not raise a finger for me, but rather studied how he could throw me back. Now he’s in trouble, let him get out of it; but let him be a man over it, and don’t let him bleat about the needs of England when he really means his own greed.”

“There’s a good deal in what you say,” remarked Lord Cuthbertson, “but not everything. Bear with me a minute, and I will explain. I have no doubt you are under the impression that when Fotheringay went to Mexico he went simply because he’d got a lot of spare cash, and wanted a change, and to bag some big game. As a matter of fact, he had no thought of the sort. He went as a special and a private spy of the Foreign Office; and his business was, under the harmless guise of an enthusiastic sportsman, to investigate certain rumours we had heard as to the discovery of these Jesuit plans of the sacred Lake of Treasure which really belongs to England. Well, he did so, and so cleverly did he manage that he penetrated the very monastery in which they were hidden, and he got at the very prior of the Order—a member of which had held them in his possession. A certain bargain was struck between the prior and himself, but before the Foreign Office could send the big sum of money required to ratify it this Father Alphonse Calasanctius ran away with the documents to England, but was, we have reason to believe, poisoned on his arrival by some compatriot or relative who knew nothing of the value of the manuscripts, and thought only of the forced sale of the goods which you and the earl attended. Therefore I beg you don’t judge your old companion unfairly and harshly. We all of us do many things for England in our public capacity that we should not dare, or even wish, to do for ourselves in our own private business. His sole blunder was to get Zouche to help him, because Zouche is really a villain who would dare any crime or fraud to help his country, Spain. So it, of course, has happened as might have been expected. Zouche has repudiated the earl, and unless you can give us a hand England is going to lose this sacred lake and its millions and Zouche.”

“He may not necessarily triumph,” I answered.

“There are probably other people hot on the track of those manuscripts. To-day there have been one or two attempts to make Zouche disgorge from a source which is truly bold and daring and resourceful; I’ll assume, after what you say, it is the earl. Well, let the earl continue his pressure. He may frighten him out of them, but I doubt it—I doubt it very much. Then there is my employer.”

“You must give that man up, Hugh,” cut in Colonel Napier, who had not hitherto spoken. “He’s a scoundrel of the first water. I know all about him. He escaped from that Mexican monastery at the same time as Father Alphonse Calasanctius, but not before he killed Earl Fotheringay’s companion, young Sutton.”

“That is false,” suddenly interrupted a strange voice, “and the police of London and Mexico know it, for the deed was done by Calasanctius himself, and not by the novice at all.” And to everybody’s astonishment the doors of my big cupboard were flung open, and there stepped therefrom no less a personage than Don José Casteno himself.

Back to IndexNext