I sat down again. I saw that he was sincere and that indeed he was puzzled; and my anger went.
"Well," I said, "I suppose it may be difficult. Let me tell you the whole affair."
So I told him. I related the whole of my adventure in the inn, and how I got the paper, and tried to read it, and could not: then, how I took it to Hare Street and put it where he had described: then how I very nearly had asked a Jesuit priest if he had any skill in cypher; and then how, once more, it had all slipped my mind, and that, a long time having elapsed, even when Rumbald became prominent again, even then I had not remembered it.
"That is absolutely the whole tale," I said; "and I know no more than the dead what it is all about. What is it all about, Mr. Chiffinch?"
He drew a breath and then expelled it again, and, at the same time stood up, withdrawing his eyes from my face. I think it was then for the first time that he put away his doubts; for I had got my wits back again and could talk reasonably.
"Well," he said, "we had best be off at once, and see what they say."
"Where to?" asked I.
"Why to His Majesty's lodgings," he said. "I fetched him out to tell him. Did you not see me?"
"His Majesty!" I cried.
"Why yes; I thought it best. Else it would have meant your arrest, Mr.
Mallock."