Harker suddenly started as if a new light had dawned on him.
“The Duke!” he exclaimed. “You don't say so! My conscience!—now, I wonder if that can really be? Upon my word, I'd never thought of it!”
“Thought of what?” demanded Bryce.
“Never mind! tell you later,” said Harker. “At present, is there any chance of getting a look at them?”
“That's what I came for,” retorted Bryce. “I've been watching them, with young Bewery. He put me up to it. Come on! I want to see if you know the man who's a stranger.”
Harker crossed the room to a chest of drawers, and after some rummaging pulled something out.
“Here!” he said, handing some articles to Bryce. “Put those on over your boots. Thick felt overshoes—you could walk round your own mother's bedroom in those and she'd never hear you. I'll do the same. A stranger, you say? Well, this is a proof that somebody knows the secret of that scrap of paper besides us, doctor!”
“They don't know the exact spot,” growled Bryce, who was chafing at having been done out of his discovery. “But, they'll find it, whatever may be there.”
He led Harker back to Paradise and to the place where he had left Dick Bewery, whom they approached so quietly that Bryce was by the lad's side before Dick knew he was there. And Harker, after one glance at the ring of faces, drew Bryce back and put his lips close to his ear and breathed a name in an almost imperceptible yet clear whisper.
“Glassdale!”