Salt swelled like a small balloon, and his jaw was tight. “No, thank you, Mr. Pendleton. I’m not having any.”
I heard Aire’s suppressed exclamation behind me: “Of course not!”
“What do you mean?” I demanded, turning to the dark, outlandish face that came only to my shoulder.
“Why, Salt wants the manuscript because he wants the man who wrote it: someone, probably, who has lived here or been here before, knew the book, knew the Welsh language, and, particularly, whose penmanship is that of the paper.”
Crofts, crestfallen, was still urging the original parchment. “At any rate, Superintendent, take charge of this. The burning must have been an accident; perhaps the sheet fell in the fire. And you can have another trans—”
Salt took, or rather snatched, the sheep-skin from Crofts, as much as to say, “Better this than nothing,” and he did say, “I don’t want any translation; I want that particular one.”
“That’s right,” murmured Aire. “Whoever wrote that paper is Parson Lolly!”
¹ It may be necessary, in view of the occurrence later in the evening when Mr. Bannerlee read this paper by an unknown hand, to state that the translation here included is both correct and substantially the same as that which he read. (V. Markham.) [↩︎]
XVII.
Lancelot’s Ultimatum
October 6. 11.25 A.M.