I said nothing, for I knew nothing of these subjects, and my brain was not clear enough to discuss the points then, for it was dazzled by our good fortune. The Prior and the Spaniard soon came back, too, to the matter in hand—how best to utilise these documents. After all, we had not forgotten that Lord Cyril Cuthbertson and Earl Fotheringay were close upon them, and that directly they got a suspicion where they were lodged they would leave absolutely no stone unturned, with the aid of poor, misguided Doris and her father, to recover possession of them. The hunchback, too, was sure to want a hand in the game as well as the Jesuits, so it, therefore, behoved us to proceed with the greatest caution, and not to give our plans away until they were too well laid to be upset.
But what were those plans to be?
Mr Cooper-Nassington was all in favour of action.
“Look here,” he said in that great purposeful way of his, “while you fellows have been going up and down the face of the earth after the hunchback, and doing yeoman service I will admit, I’ve been up at Whitby fitting out a yacht. The stores are on board. The crew is engaged. I’ve arranged with the ironstone mine manager to draft off a certain number of his miners to Mexico immediately I give the word. Now why shouldn’t we three slip off to the Great Northern terminus at King’s Cross and take the next express for York and Middlesborough and steam off? In a few weeks we can land in Mexico, and after we have located the lake we can take formal possession of it, and if anybody upsets us we can appeal to the British Government for aid.”
“That sounds right enough,” I conceded, “but it loses sight of certain very material facts. In the first place, you forget that we should be followed by all the different enemies we have as hard as steamers could carry them. In a lawless interior like Mexico they would have us all, more or less, at their mercy, and ten to one they’d raise up religious fanaticism against us amongst the tribes who live around the lake, and, after a stern fight, they’d steal a march upon us.”
“More than that, Prior,” interjected Casteno, “you forget that the lake does not really belong to us, any more than it does to President Diaz, not even as much. By what right should we seize it? Because it belongs to England? Well, we have no authority to act for England in a nice diplomatic matter like this—none at all. There would be an instant reference by the authorities in Mexico to the British Foreign Office. What would happen then? Would Lord Cyril Cuthbertson forgive you all the old enmities—the bad quarters of an hour he has suffered from you since he and you quarrelled? Not a bit of it. He would rejoice at your fate being delivered into his hands in this fashion, and he would instantly repudiate your rights, denounce your authority, and might even go so far as to leave us all subject to the Mexican law, to be tried and treated as traitors only one degree cleaner than the Jameson raiders.”
“Then what would be the most discreet step to take?” queried the Honourable Member rather helplessly. “We can’t sit down and wait for something opportune to happen. It seems to me that we must move, and move at once!”
“That’s so,” I replied after a moment’s pause. “But we need not go quite as far as you suggest. There are several vital matters to clear up before we can dare to appeal to the public with clean hands. For instance, that mystery of Whitehall Court must be sifted to the very bottom. The police have yet to discover who murdered the Foreign Office clerk.”
“You mean Bernard Delganni?” remarked Casteno.
“Delganni!” I echoed. “Was that his name? What! that’s the name also of your founder. Surely, then, they were related, and the crime had some connection with the brotherhood!”