Lord Huddersfield was with him.
The Archbishop looked steadfastly at Hamlyn for a few seconds. His face was terrible.
In the presence of the great spiritual lord who is next to the royal family in the precedence of the realm, the famous scholar, the caustic wit, the utter force and power of intellect, the two champions were dumb. Hamlyn had never known anything like it before. The fellow's bounce and impudence utterly deserted him.
The Archbishop spoke. His naturally rather harsh and strident voice was rendered tenfold more penetrating and terrifying by his wrath.
"Sir," he said, in a torrent of menacing sound, "you have profaned the Eucharist, you have mocked the holy things of God, you have made the most sacred ordinance of our Lord a mountebank show. You boast that you have purloined the Consecrated Bread from church, you have exhibited it. Restore it to me, wretched man that you are. By the authority of God, I demand you to restore it; by my authority as head of the English Church, I order you."
Hamlyn shrank from the terrible old man clothed in the power of his great office and the majesty of his holy anger, shrank as a man shrinks from a flame.
With shaking hands he took a bunch of keys from his pocket. He dropped them upon the floor, unable to open the lock of the safe.
Young Hamlyn picked them up. He turned the key in the wards with a loud click and pulled at the massive door until it slowly swung open.
Lord Huddersfield knelt down.
Hamlyn took from a shelf a little box that had held elastic bands.