Before the next day was two hours old they had reason to congratulate themselves on their celerity; for before Monjoy’s house in the Fullergate there stood an empty chaise and a score of redcoats with muskets. Monjoy’s door stood open. He had not slept there, however, and presently there issued from the door Cope--the same waddling, blinking, imbecile Cope--and an officer. Except for his burins, his sandbag and engraver’s globe of water, they had found nothing indicative of Monjoy’s trade, and a soldier stepped forward and set a seal on the lock of the door. Cope hoisted himself into the chaise, the officer gave orders, and the party swung off down the Fullergate. It was half-past five in the morning. They halted opposite Matthew Moon’s warehouse, and Cope lowered himself from the chaise again. 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.”