‘Mr Brotherton!’ I began, but Sir Giles interposed.
‘Hush! hush!’ he said, and turned to his son. ‘My boy, you insult your father’s guest.’
‘I will at once prove to you, sir, how unworthy he is of any forbearance, not to say protection from you. Excuse me for one moment.’
He took up the candle, and opening the little door at the foot of the winding stair, disappeared. Sir Giles and I sat in silence and darkness until he returned, carrying in his hand an old vellum-bound book.
‘I dare say you don’t know this manuscript, sir,’ he said, turning to his father.
‘I know nothing about it,’ answered Sir Giles. ‘What is it? Or what has it to do with the matter in hand?’
‘Mr Close found it in some corner or other, and used to read it to me when I was a little fellow. It is a description, and in most cases a history as well, of every weapon in the armoury. They had been much neglected, and a great many of the labels were gone, but those which were left referred to numbers in the book-heading descriptions which corresponded exactly to the weapons on which they were found. With a little trouble he had succeeded in supplying the numbers where they were missing, for the descriptions are very minute.’
He spoke in a tone of perfect self-possession.
‘Well, Geoffrey, I ask again, what has all this to do with it?’ said his father.
‘If Mr Cumbermede will allow you to look at the label attached to the sheath in his hand—for fortunately it was a rule with Mr Close to put a label on both sword and sheath—and if you will read me the number, I will read you the description in the book.’