They would have forced the door, but it was of unexpected strength, and Moon lived within a stone’s throw. A hasty consultation was held; the officer rode on to demand the key in the King’s name; and in a quarter of an hour he had returned with Matthew Moon himself, clad in his shirt and breeches.
“Good-morning, Mr. Moon, good-morning,” giggled Cope. “I fear I have disturbed your rest.—Come, lose no time.”
Then Matthew Moon began an extraordinarily loud altercation. He would see Mr. Cope’s warrant. If Mr. Cope had no warrant he should answer this. Let him see the warrant. Cope produced it. It was signed by Parker, and Moon stormed. A search-warrant on Horwick premises signed by a Ford magistrate! Was that legal? Was that in due form?
“Ask your friend Emmason,” Cope returned, and the merchant continued his clamour. A very clever man might have supposed he was making a disturbance for the purpose of warning somebody inside the warehouse, and Cope was a clever man. He chuckled, and the merchant grew violent.
“I’ve warned ye, ye clammy, filthy hell-toad!” he vociferated; and Cope turned away. Already the officer was flinging back the bar of the door. They entered, a couple of soldiers following them.
The ground floor of the warehouse was little more than an office, with pieces of grey cloth ranged methodically on racks all round it, and a long counter running down the middle. The ledgers were in a locked cupboard, and for the present Cope contented himself with setting a seal on the lock. There was no cellar, no fireplace, or chimney; the floor was of stone flags, and the ceiling of beams and boards without underdrawing. Moon obstructed the men at every turn, swearing outrageously, and Cope’s thick-lidded eyes never for a fraction of an instant left his face. “You make a deal of noise, Mr. Moon,” he remarked ironically. “The next floor, gentlemen, I think.”
The first floor was cumbered with bales and wicker skeps, and had double crane doors, through the chink of the back pair of which a vertical glimpse of trees and daylight showed. “It will be necessary to disturb your stock,” Cope observed, still watching the merchant unwinkingly, and the two soldiers began to move the heavy bales from the walls, examining every foot for a possible communication with the adjoining warehouse. They found none. The whole building was no more than a shell, and Moon could not have moved a muscle of his face without Cope observing it. Then all at once Cope took the taper and wax and seal from the soldier and began himself to seal the padlocks of the crane doors. He bent over a padlock, and Moon continued to rail behind him.
Then happened a very quick piece of work. Like a flash Cope turned from his sealing, to surprise any change in Moon’s expression. How the merchant had known that he would turn at that moment he could hardly have told, save that not until then had the supervisor ceased to watch him. And though Moon’s brow was moist and beaded with sweat, his lips were twitched into something like a smile. Cope’s hand shook on the seal, but the merchant thought he knew now where they were. He kicked one of the bales.
“There’s almost room for a man in one of these,” he said mockingly.
“Upstairs,” ordered Cope curtly, and they passed up the dark, dusty staircase to the garret.