The Duke of Trent had been passing the last two days at Osborne, in obedience to the archaic custom which required him to witness the Sovereign’s demise. Not less archaic in essence seemed to his eye the seditious manifesto which was brought to him by an agent of Scotland Yard, torn down from St. James’s Palace within half an hour of its being put up. Viewing it, as his character and intellectual limitations compelled him to view it, as an offensive practical joke, nevertheless he hastened back to town in a state of uneasiness bordering on alarm. He did not, of course, apprehend anything in the nature of violence, but he thought it quite possible that the authors of the Assertion might be preparing to interrupt the formal proclamation of the new Sovereign; and he had ordered the ceremony to be deferred till the police had had time to act. Privately he had another and still more serious cause of anxiety. He had not forgotten the Legitimist bazaar, and he feared that the investigations which had been immediately set on foot might show the name of his brother as figuring among the authors of the disgraceful jest. The task of the police did not prove a difficult one. Late in the afternoon of the day after the outrage the Chief Commissioner himself waited upon the Secretary of State at the Home Office to make his confidential report. The Duke received him alone, with an air of embarrassment which the Commissioner found it easy to understand. “I thought it best to come to your Grace myself, as the matter is one that seems to call for careful handling.” “What have you found out?” “The manifesto--they call it the Assertion--comes from the committee of a body styling itself the Legitimist Guild. The real instigator, I suspect, is a Frenchman, the Comte des Louvres, who is a sort of international agent. He is in the pay of the Duke of ----, the King of the ----, and even, I believe, of the Vatican.” The Home Secretary frowned. “What was his motive?” “Simply to show that he was earning his money, I expect. There may be some idea that if they can give trouble to our Royal Family, the influence of the English Court will be exerted on behalf of the Royalist cause in France--or the Pope’s temporal power.” “Well, what have you done?” “We had very little to do. As soon as the manifesto was found I guessed whom it came from, and sent a couple of detectives round to the Count’s house, where they seized the papers of the Guild. That seems to have frightened them, and within an hour or two more than half of the committee were round with us volunteering information, and anxious to be accepted as King’s evidence in case of a prosecution.” The Duke raised his eyes to the Commissioner’s face. “The King does not want a prosecution. He prefers that the whole thing should be hushed up. All we have to do is to give these fools a good fright, so that they will think twice before repeating their exploit. What are their names?”