Suddenly Casteno roused himself and sat upright, and with him went quite
irrevocably all opportunity of taking the three fatal manuscripts from
him by stealth during that journey up to Paddington. For his hunger was
infectious and the meal he had provided excellent, and so it came about
that in quite a few moments the pair of us were devouring roast chicken
and ham and pledging each other in glasses of quite passable
railway-station claret. Indeed, the tedium of the ride vanished like
magic, and before we had finished the commonplaces of conversation we
found ourselves back again in dear old smoke-begrimed London. That
night we slept at Paddington Hotel, for we had had an exciting day, and
did not feel inclined for a further journey to Stanton Street. Whence
next day Chantry Road, Hampstead, was reached in an incredibly short
time, and once again I found myself standing at the tiny door in the
wall with its suggestive peep-hole. Only this time there seemed to be
no delay in answering our summons, and we passed with great rapidity
from the public street into the courtyard that shut the home of St
Bruno's off the porter's box at the entrance, and then we made our way,
without any black-robed guide, to the huge hall with its great
flower-decked statue of a woman, heroic in size but incommunicably fair.
Somehow I was conscious that our arrival had caused quite a thrill of
excitement through the community, even in the various offices of the
house itself. As Casteno and I stood there and waited for the prior,
for whom he had asked immediately we had crossed the threshold, various
figures of men and youths of various ages flitted in and out on obvious
and childish pretexts to snatch the opportunity of a whispered word or
handshake with my companion, who seemed to me a most popular personage,
and whose return now began to take the form of a kind of triumphal
progress. All these visitors, however, wore the same habit, and all had
the same peculiar way of looking at one, like the members of some
brotherhood that held the same tie very closely in common, and by
practice and method had grown to resemble each other more nearly than do
many members of the same families in our great, cheating, bustling world
outside.
What could these monks be?
In vain I looked about the hall in the hope that it would give some clue
to their practice or their faith. I could discover nothing to help me
more than one would find in the refectory of some large public college
except this same beautiful statue I have spoken of, with its floral
offerings and candles. All the same, the expression on this sculptured
woman's face was not one of benignity or of sweetness at all but of a
remote passionless beauty for beauty's sake, as it were--something that
had been wrought without any ethical ideal behind it or hope of moral
change or influence in the beholder. Soon I decided quite finally that
there was no religious tie at St Bruno's--none at all. Their secret of
organisation was not, I was persuaded, one of a common faith or of
devotion to a concrete and well-defined Church. They had some other
bond which might be as strong as death, but it had nothing to do with
the hereafter.
Now was that bond good or evil?
Abruptly I was aroused from my meditations by the arrival of the Prior,
a powerful-looking, hooded figure in a robe of black, whose face at
first was kept carefully concealed, but who wore around his neck one
mark of distinction not possessed by his fellows--a thin chain of gold,
at the end of which dangled a compass set around with some gold
ornamentation, on which was inscribed a well-worn truism: "I point
always to the north."
"Welcome, Mr Glynn," he said in a voice which somehow had a familiar
ring in it but which I could not then recognise. "Our mutual friend,
Jose Casteno, has kept us of St Bruno's well posted as to the earnest
way in which you have laboured for the rightful recovery of the
documents relating to the whereabouts of the Lake of Sacred Treasure in
Tangikano, and I am glad to see you here--to thank you."
I bowed, and in return murmured something conventional--that the
pleasure was mutual. Inwardly I was assailed with one question: "Where
had I heard that voice before?"
"You are, of course, quite a free agent," the Prior proceeded, "and any
moment you choose to leave or to set about other business you are at
liberty to do so. Personally, however, I hope you will stay with us
whilst we decipher these documents. You are, I understand, quite a
palaeographic expert yourself, and it may well happen that your
experience or your knowledge may prove of infinite value to us."
"I am quite at your service," I returned coldly.
"Indeed, the understanding between us is," broke in Jose eagerly, "that
he shall have our full confidence over this matter. I have promised him
that we shall do nothing in the dark. Every step we take shall be
accompanied by him."
"Quite so, quite so," exclaimed the Prior vaguely, but rather
impatiently I thought. "But there is much to be done before we can say
that anything wonderful will happen in regard to these discoveries.
Now, Mr Glynn," he said, turning to me as though he were anxious to
bring an awkward development of the conversation to an end, "shall I
show you your rooms?"
But I threw my shoulders back and stood my ground. I was not, I felt, a
pawn on their chessboard, to be pushed forward as a mere gambit to cover
other and more subtle forms of attack. "Excuse me, Prior," I said
firmly, "but have we not met before?"
The figure in front of me shook either with merriment or with annoyance,
whilst Jose himself averted his face lest there I should discover too
much.
"Yes," he said, after a pause, in painfully noncommittal tones; "we
have."
"Where?" I queried.
"Can't you recollect?"
"No; I can't."
"Think."
"I have--I cannot."
The man took a step forward and threw back his hood.
He was no other than the man whom Casteno had sent me that night to
consult in the House of Commons--John Cooper-Nassington.