"By George! what a stupid I was not to think of that before? What a splendid idea! Of course, he has no love for them. It would be the most natural thing in the world for him to trick them. Look what careful preparations he made with Paul just before he left and how he hid those forged manuscripts in that steel box to throw every manner of inquiry off the scent! Why, he is the last man in the wurld not to burn to pay anybody out who gets the best of him. And yes!" he whispered, "I am certain he is lying to them. I can see it," and the Spaniard dragged me down level with the keyhole so that I, too, could follow what was happening in the interior of the chapel. "Don't you observe that very curious trick he is doing quite unconsciously--standing first on one foot and then on another and then rubbing the ankle of one with the toe of the other? Well, he always did that to customers in the old days when we were poor and he had not got such a fine sense of honour about the sale of a spurious antique as he had when times became more prosperous for us!" "Well, if you are satisfied, so am I," I returned. "We need not spy about this creepy old mansion any longer. We have discovered all we have set out to find, and now I propose we get back to the Green Dragon Hotel, whither, doubtless, he and Captain Sparhawk will return." "And how about Miss Napier?" queried Casteno slyly. "Oh! Miss Napier will probably come back with her uncle to the same place. He, doubtless, to keep up the deception that he is going straight now for England and English interests, will forgive her that piece of trickery which landed him right into Cuthbertson's net; and she, to see that he does keep straight, will let herself be deceived by him, and will watch him as far as she dare without exciting his suspicions. At all events, it is useless for me to think of making any move with regard to her just at this moment. In the first place, she has her hands full watching her prisoner, Sparhawk, and if I showed up now in this disguise she might put a bullet through the pair of us. Certainly she would raise an alarm, and there would be endless trouble and difficulties before we managed to explain, at all satisfactorily, what we were doing here without an invitation when so many vital national issues were being settled. In the second place, I can't make out her ignorance of the death of her father. Is it real, or assumed? Something very odd must have happened to make her behave like this at this mournful crisis in the family fortunes. Now, what can that be? So far as I can see there is only one source here in Shrewsbury which can possibly supply any sort of key to the mystery without asking the girl herself. That is, a Sunday special edition of one of the Sunday papers--the _People, Lloyd's_, or some journal like that. The only place where we can find that with any degree of certainty is the Green Dragon, so, naturally, I am all eagerness to hasten back there and to