"One wishful to see Master Robert Catesby."
"Why come to this back door, then? Why not approach the house by the front way, like an honest man?"
Cuthbert was rather taken aback by this question. He answered with a touch of sharpness:
"I came the way I was bidden to come. If I am in fault, the blame lies with him who sent me."
"And who is that?"
"Father Urban."
At the sound of that name the door was cautiously opened a little further, and Cuthbert felt himself confronted by a man whose face still remained in deep shadow.
"You come from Father Urban, and with a message to Robert Catesby?"
"Not a message; a packet which methinks contains papers. I was bidden to deliver them into no hand but his, and to destroy both them and myself sooner than let them fall into alien hands."
At that the door opened wider yet, and Cuthbert could look along a dark stone passage, at the end of which glowed a light. His companion's first suspicions now appeared laid to rest.