Quite by chance, of course, the Provost of Paris happened to be playing at cards with the Bishop and the French Ambassador, whilst Luis de Paz and other friends looked on. The banging of the crowd at the closed door of the great hall, the terror-stricken cries of the criminal, and the tramping of the servants on the stair, brought out the Bishop and his friends to ask indignantly the cause of the uproar. Andrea on his knees at the door begged for protection and mercy. Captain Masino had beaten him, he said, some days ago, and he had fired a shot at him and missed him, so no harm was done, but still the captain wanted to kill him. Calming the clamour, the Bishop asked whether the shot had been fired inside or outside of Durham {278} Place. "At the gate!" they said, and the boy had only entered when pursued, to save his life. "Then," said the Bishop to Bernabe Mata, his majordomo, "turn him out by the water-gate." By mere chance again a boat was in waiting, hired by the Provost of Paris, who slipped outside himself to see the assassin safely off, gave him ten crowns, and whilst the crowd still battered and stormed at the door of the great hall, Andrea was carried to Gravesend as fast as strong oars could propel him. But he was captured next day, and under torture told the whole story. The Provost himself was closely imprisoned in Alderman Chester's house, whence he carried on for weeks an interesting correspondence with his friends outside, written with onion juice on the inside lining of the breeches of a servant. This attempted murder was the opportunity for which Cecil had long been waiting. Strong hints about treachery founded on the secretary's information, galling interference with attendance at Mass, flouts and insults, had been more or less patiently borne by the Bishop at his master's behest, but harbouring a criminal was an infraction of the ordinary law of the land, and if it could be brought home to the Ambassador the Queen would have a good excuse for taking her house away from a tenant who put it to so bad a use. The news was not long travelling from the Strand to Whitehall; Cobham and a posse of the Queen's guard came straight to Durham Place, and in the name of the law demanded the surrender of the criminal. They were told he was not there, but had left by the water-gate, and, this reply being unsatisfactory, they came back again directly with the Queen's command {279} that the keys of the water-gate, as well as those of the Strand entrance, should be given up to the English custodian, in order that he might render an account of all those who went in and out. The Bishop writes to Philip:--