"There's not much chance of any one doing that--look, the altar-step goes right across the tombstone. I wonder what they _would_ find, if they _did_ move the stone." "Nothing, madam," said a voice behind her--"nothing human, that is." She turned to face a tall, gaunt man in loose, ill-fitting clothes with a despatch-case in one hand and three or four note-books in the other. "Excuse my joining in," he said, "but I couldn't help hearing what you said. Whatever there is in that tomb, there is not the body of the man Shakespeare. Manuscripts there may be, but no corpse." "What makes you think so?" she asked. "Evidence, madam, evidence. The evidence of facts as well as of ciphers." "Oh," she said, and smiled brilliantly, "you must be a Baconian. How very interesting!" Now she had received all Edward's criticisms of Shakespearian legend with a growing and visible impatience. Yet for this stranger she had nothing but sympathy and interest. "It _is_ interesting," said the stranger. "There's nothing like it. I've spent eighteen years on it, and I know now how little I know. It isn't only Bacon and Shakespeare; it's a great system--a great cipher system extending through all the great works of the period." "But what is it that you hope to find out in the end?" she asked. "Secrets of state, or the secret of the philosopher's stone, or what?" "The truth," he said, simply. "There's nothing else worth looking for. The truth, whatever it is. To follow truth, no matter where it leads. I'd go on looking, even if I thought that at the end I should find that that Stratford man did write the plays." He looked up contemptuously at the smug face of the bust. "It's a life's work," said Mr. Basingstoke, "and I should think more than one life's work. Do you find that you can bring your mind to any other kind of work?" "I gave up everything else," said the stranger. "I was an accountant, and I had some money and I'm living on it. But now . . . now I shall have to do something else. I've got a situation in London. I'm going there next week. It's the end of everything for me." "There ought to be some endowment for your sort of research," said Edward. "Of course there ought," said the man, eagerly, "but people don't care. The few who do care don't want the truth to come out. They want to keep that thing"--he pointed to the bust--"to keep that thing enthroned on its pedestal forever. It pays, you see. Great is Diana of the Ephesians." "I suppose it wouldn't need to be a very handsome endowment. I mean that sort of research work can be done at museums. You don't have to buy the books," Edward said. "A lot can be done with libraries, of course. But I have a few books--a good few. I should like to show them to you some day--if you're interested in the subject." "I am," said Edward, with a glance at the girl, "or I used to be. Anyhow, I should like very much to see your books. You have a Du Bartas, of course?"