DENOUNCED 30

men,’ I said, ‘so you see he keeps the key here.’ I went
to the cabinet and put the key in. As I did so I said,
‘Took, gentlemen, someone has opened or tried to open
this desk. Here is a mark as if a knife had been thrust in
to shoot the bolt.’ They looked where I pointed, and Wil-
liam Peters said to Cockshaw, ‘It is as the man says.
Someone has been trying to force the lock—one of the
varlets probably who thought the knight might keep his
money here.’

“Tt can be of no importance one way or the other,’
Cockshaw said roughly.

“*Probably not, Mr. Cockshaw, but at the same time I
will make a note of it.’ I turned the key and pulled down
the door that makes a desk. They seemed to know all
about it, for without looking at the papers in the pigeon-
holes they pulled open the lower drawer, and took two
foreign-looking letters out from it. I will do them the
justice to say that they both looked sorry as they opened
them and looked at the writing.

“¢Tt ig too true,’ Peters said. ‘Here is enough to hang
a dozen men.’ They tumbled all the other papers into a
sack that one of the constables had brought with him.
Then they searched all the other furniture, but they evi-
dently did not expect to find anything. ‘Then they went
back into the hall. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ Sir Marmaduke
said, ‘have you found anything of a terrible kind?’

“We have found, I regret to say,’ John Cockshaw said,
‘the letters of which we were in search in your private
cabinet—letters that prove beyond all doubt that you are
concerned in a plot similar to that discovered three years
ago to assassinate his majesty the king.” Sir Marmaduke
sprang to his feet.

“Vou have found letters of that kind in my cabinet?’
he said, in a dazed sort of way. The magistrate bowed but
did not speak.