“You must excuse us, Glynn,” Fotheringay began almost at once. “I own I had no right to come here at all at this hour and open your office. Most of all, I oughtn’t to have put on your hearth two friends without your consent. Only, as perhaps you guessed from the scene at the auction, we live in rather stirring times just now, and we had no margin left in which we could observe the ordinary courtesies. With Colonel Napier you are, of course, well acquainted. Let me introduce to you another distinguished man.” And he made a movement in the direction of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, who rose and bowed.
“Pray be seated,” I hastened to exclaim as I took the chair at my desk and faced the trio. “I mustn’t say, of course, I expected this honour, because, after the way Fotheringay sprang at me in the auction market, I certainly got the impression he had no particular friendliness for me left—but—”
“But that is precisely what we have come about,” interposed the earl eagerly. “Those three old manuscripts which we made so terrific a fight over—”
My lips closed, and a new look of resolution came into my face.
“I see,” I replied. “Then, as it is a matter of business, I beg you tell me what you desire in a plain, business-like fashion.”
There was an awkward pause; and then Lord Cyril began: “I understand, Mr Glynn,” he said in his most seductive tones, “from no less an authority than the earl here, that you have been retained to get possession of three historical documents that were found among the effects of a certain dead refugee priest who called himself Alphonse Calasanctius. Now, are you aware to what those deeds relate?”
I nodded, and the two men exchanged a quick look of intelligence. “That being so,” proceeded Lord Cuthbertson, “you will doubtless realise how important it is that His Majesty’s Government, and not an enemy of this country, should obtain possession of them.”
“Quite,” I returned, determining to meet the statesman’s strategy with diplomacy as far-reaching as his own.
“And may I take it that you are prepared, as far as lies in your power, to assist His Majesty’s Government in this direction?”
“That is hardly necessary,” I said, with a smile. “I have not got the documents at all. They are in the hands of a man with whom I am but little acquainted—Mr Zouche. Wouldn’t it be better if pressure were placed on him?”