It was Casteno, who, this time, was dressed in an ordinary Roman
cassock, and carried a biretta.
"I'm glad that you have come so quickly," he said in those smooth, even
tones, motioning me to a chair on the opposite side to one in which he
sat close to the fireplace. "As I wired you, I was at the auction. I
saw you had failed."
"Then why ever didn't you bid for the manuscripts yourself?" I cried in
amazement. "Why did you let them go without a protest?"
"I didn't," he answered quietly. "As a matter of fact, I was the man
who was got up to personate you, and I stopped the mad rush of bids, for
I was satisfied, when I saw beyond all doubt that it was the Hunchback
of Westminster into whose hands those precious documents would fall, we
should win our way through in the end. At first I feared it would be
the other man."
"Fotheringay?" I asked.
He nodded.
"But they are intimate friends. They are acting together, hand and
glove."
"They may now, but they won't long," he returned significantly, fixing
his eyes in a dreamy way upon the fire.
Then he roused himself with an effort.
"Look here," he went on quickly, as though he had suddenly arrived at a
momentous decision, "don't let's beat about the bush. Let me come at
once to business. Don't bother me with a lot of questions. I can now
see that you are simply exploding to put a lot of interrogatories to me,
beginning with a demand for the reason why I came to you at all; how I
dared to dress myself up exactly like yourself; what on earth has
Colonel Napier to do with this business; and ending with a perfectly
legitimate request for my true reasons for having so strong and deadly a
hatred against this man Fotheringay, whom I know, before he went out big
game shooting, you always believed was your most firm and ardent friend.
"Well, just don't ask me, that's all. If you do, I can't answer you.
If you persist it will inevitably mean that you and I will have to part.
In the latter case you will never get any nearer the solution of that
mystery of lot eighty-two--the three manuscripts which were found in the
effects of the dead Father Alphonse Calasanctius--than you are to-night.
"As a matter of fact, I want your aid in deeds, not words. Now, say at
once--are you prepared to trust me, and to help me, and not to bother me
for a lot of utterly needless explanations that will really--take my
word for it--leave you in a bigger fog than ever, or do you feel that
you absolutely must have my confidence or turn up the work now, at once?
Speak out quite plainly. Don't be influenced by the thought of cash.
Consider the seven-fifty I have handed to you as yours--whatever
happens. Now, bed-rock fact!"
For a moment I reflected. My enthusiasm was stirred by his speech, and
in turn I mentally defied Doris, the colonel, and even the weird old
hunchback.
"I am prepared to trust you," I answered, holding out my hand, which he
clasped with the firm touch of a straightforward, honest man.
"Then take this letter for me," he said, fumbling in the pocket of his
cassock and producing therefrom a formidable-looking document done up
with big splashes of red legal-looking wax. "Go to the House of Commons
with it, and do not open it until you reach the hall in which Members of
Parliament meet any strangers who desire to speak to them. Then read
the instructions you will find therein and--" and all at once he stopped
and looked confused.
"And what?" I queried, rising from my seat and fixing his eyes with
mine.
"Well--you will see," he answered, with a strange smile, touching a
bell, which warned me that our interview was at an end.