“Where is this church?”

“You don’t know?  Third turning to the left after passing the Olive Branch Saloon.”

“Leveson owns that too, doesn’t he?”

The clerk yawned.  “I dare say.  He owns most of the earth around here, and most of the people on it.”

I walked quickly back towards the town, wondering what took Leveson to the church.  No doubt he wanted to see if he were getting his money’s worth, to note the day’s work, perhaps to give the lie to the published statement that he built churches and never entered them.  Nearly half-an-hour had passed since I left Mrs. Panel.

When I reached the third turning to the left I saw the church, certainly the handsomest in San Lorenzo.  It stood in a large lot, littered with builders’ materials.  The workmen had left it at six.  The building had an indescribably lifeless aspect.  An hour before men had been busy within and without it, now not a soul was to be seen.  I had time to walk round it, to note that the doors were locked, to note also, quite idly, that the window of the vestry was open.  I could see no signs of Uncle Jap.

Coming round to the front, I saw in the distance a portly figure approaching, followed by a thin, dust-coloured wraith of a woman.  I slipped behind a tree and waited.  Leveson strolled up, bland and imposing.  He stood still for a moment, staring intently at the outside of his church now completed.  Then, taking a key from his pocket, he opened the vestry door and entered the building, closing the door behind him.  I went to meet Mrs. Panel.

“Seen Jaspar?”

“I haven’t.”

“What’s that feller,” she always spoke of Leveson as a ‘feller,’ “doin’ in a church?”

“It’s his church.  He built it.”

“Good Land o’ Peter!  What’s he doin’ in it anyway?”

“Not praying, I think.”

“Shush-h-h-h.”

Mrs. Panel touched my arm, thrusting out her lean face in an attitude of intense attention.  I strained my own ears, fairly good ones, but heard nothing.

“Jaspar’s in there,” said his wife.  “I hear his voice.”

She trembled with excitement.  Obviously, Jaspar had concealed himself somewhere in the vestry.  No time was to be lost.

Turning the north-east corner of the building, where the vestry is situated, I crawled under the window, followed by Mrs. Panel.  The two men were within a few feet of us.  Uncle Jap’s slightly high-pitched tones fell sharply upon the silence.

“This is a leetle surprise party, ain’t it?” he was saying.

Leveson answered thickly:  “What are you doing here, sir?”

Although I risked discovery at an inopportune moment, I could not resist the temptation to raise my eyes level with the sill of the window.  So did Uncle Jap’s Lily.  We both peered in.  Uncle Jap was facing Leveson; in his hand he held the long-barrelled six-shooter; in his eyes were tiny pin-point flashes of light such as you see in an opal on a frosty morning.  Terror had spread a grim mask upon the other; his complexion was the colour of oatmeal, his pendulous lips were quivering, his huge body seemed of a sudden to be deflated.  He might have been an empty gas bag, not a man.