Then all the company awaited in expectant silence for Mr. Reginald Talbot’s narrative.
‘What Mr. Wallis has said is quite right,’ said that young gentleman, with unnecessary affability. ‘I did use to think that there was something amiss with those Shakespeare papers. I had an idea that Mr. William Henry Erin yonder was playing tricks, so I made it my business to watch him. I hung about his chambers in the New Inn—they are on the ground floor, though pretty high up—and with a short ladder I have made shift to see what was going on when he was alone in his room, and little suspected it.’
William Henry, standing apart with folded arms, listened to this confession of his former friend with a contemptuous smile. If it was a revelation to him, he displayed the indifference of a North American Indian.
‘For days and days I watched him and discovered nothing. Then I dogged his steps to the city, where he went every afternoon; on two occasions he turned, as if to see whether he was followed, and I think he saw me.’
William Henry shook his head.
‘Well, at all events I thought he did, and gave it up. The third time, walking on the other side of the street, and very careful to leave a safe distance between us, I tracked him to a staircase in the Temple. He stopped at a door on the first floor, and entered without knocking. I waited a bit and then followed him. An old gentleman was seated in the room alone, in an armchair, reading; he looked up from his book in great astonishment, and inquired very curtly who I was.
‘I said that I came upon business of importance, after young Mr. Erin. He rose, and opening an inner door, exclaimed: “Here is a friend of yours, sir: what is the meaning of his intrusion here?“ He spoke very angrily, but I felt that he had some reason for it, and when Erin came out and said, “Talbot, you have ruined me,“ I felt sorry for what I had done. There was nothing for it but to make a clean breast of it, and with many apologies, of which not the slightest notice was taken, I explained that curiosity, and a suspicion that the world was being gulled by these pretended discoveries, had induced me to look into the matter myself.
‘“You are a spy, then,“ cried the old gentleman. I thought for a moment that he was going to throw me out of the window; but his rage instantly subsided. “Take him into the next room, Erin, and show him all,“ he said. He took me accordingly, and there I saw an immense quantity of old manuscripts strewed about the floor; I should say whole cartfuls of them. I was so sorry and so ashamed of myself that I never spoke a word till Erin let me out again.
‘“I am sorry I came,“ I said; “but I am quite satisfied, sir, that Erin spoke the truth.”