“I went to the cabinet, and put the key in.  As I did so I said: 

“’Look, 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 William 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.’

“‘It 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 pigeonholes, 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.

“‘It is 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 evidently 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.

“‘You have found letters of that kind in my cabinet?’ he said, in a dazed sort of way.

“The magistrate bowed, but did not speak.

“‘Then, sir,’ Sir Marmaduke exclaimed, ’you have found letters that I have never seen.  You have found letters that must have been placed there by some scoundrel, who plotted my ruin.  I assert to you, on the honour of a gentleman, that no such letters have ever met my eye, and that, if such a proposition had been made to me, I care not by whom, I would have struck to the ground the man who offered me such an insult.’

“‘We are sorry, Sir Marmaduke Carstairs,’ Mr. Peters said, ’most sorry, both of us, that it should have fallen to our duty to take so painful a proceeding against a neighbour; but, you see, the matter is beyond us.  We have received a sworn information that you are engaged in such a plot.  We are told that you are in the habit of locking up papers of importance in a certain cabinet, and there we find papers of a most damnatory kind.  We most sincerely trust that you may be able to prove your innocence in the matter, but we have nothing to do but to take you with us, as a prisoner, to Lancaster.’

“Sir Marmaduke unbuckled his sword, and laid it by.  He was quieter than I thought he could be, in such a strait, for he has always been by nature, as you know, choleric.