"But, Aubrey——"
"No; Arthur, we have already been sluggish and patient, we have lost time—time. It is for us now to put our powers brusquely to the test."
"I agree," said I: "let us put our powers to the test, let us act with a certain rigour. But how? I confess that I don't understand you. Tell me first how on earth you can know that Dees is not only still a prisoner, but in the north-west tower?"
"As to his being still a prisoner, that is on the surface of things," he answered: "the slightest criticism applied to the words and manner of Herr Tschudi would unveil the man's consciousness of that fact. He has even caught the contemptuous, frank trick of his master, and was hardly at the pains to be a hypocrite. When you said to him, 'but is Father Dees still a prisoner, if one may ask?' his answer was: 'surely one may ask; but all that was five long years ago, of course.' Very 'long' years—'of course.' No, he wouldn't have spoken at all like that if he had not had Dees' present captivity in his consciousness; he wouldn't have been stung to retort: 'surely one may ask,' but would have answered at once with a careless 'Oh no.' And all his manner and other words were in the same sense."
"You are no doubt quite right," said I.
"I am even sure of it," said he: "when I asked him as to the pieta, whether it was ancient, how off-hand was his answer, 'fifteenth-century, sir,' though he had previously called me a connoisseur, and might have known, if he had troubled to think, that I should see his statement to be untrue. The pieta is not at all in any of the moods of old Northern work, and it bears the initials of Max Dees, who most likely made it. But Herr Tschudi did not wish Dees to be a topic, and shunned his name even at the cost of an untruth; nor would he have acted at all like that, Arthur, if Dees had gone out of his life and care five 'long' years ago—unless, indeed, there were unseen ears listening somewhere to which Dees' name is ever a word forbidden in the castle."
"Well," said I, "let it be taken as settled that Dees is still there in prison; but how can you know that he is in the north-west tower?"
"You didn't read the words in raised letters on the base of the pieta?" he asked.
"No, I didn't read them."
"In what language do you imagine that they are?"