“Take care,” the old man said with a rather melancholy smile.  “That a thing is possible and desirable, is no proof that it is true.  To search for that man seems to me like hunting the forest for last year’s leaves.  But here come friends of yours.”

Guy Bouverel came springing up the stair, Giovanni and Padraig close behind him.  When greetings had been exchanged, and Alan had told the others that he was in London only for a brief stay on his way to France, Tomaso addressed the young goldsmith.

“Guy,” he said, “did you ever ferret out anything more about those parchment scraps we found among the King’s coin?  You said that you should make some inquiries.”  “Bezants are bezants and tell no tales,” said Guy with a shrug.  “And if they did, they might lie, like so many of those who love them.  Why, you recall that I repacked that gold in my own chest because I thought one of the clerks was growing too fond of it.  I took it as it lay and never looked at the parchments.  I met the clerk one day in Chepe and questioned him.  He said that the gold was a part of that the King recovered from the London Templars—­you know, when he had to come with an armed guard to get his moneys that were stored in their house.  Gregory of Hildesheim had something to do with it, for he was very wroth when he found that I had got this particular chest.  But he could not have known what these scripts were or he would have kept them in a sealed packet under his own hand.”

“He could not have read most of them,” said Tomaso.  “Archiater usually wrote his diaries in cipher.  Who is this clerk?”

“Simon Gastard his name is.  He was very anxious to leave England when last I saw him.  He was at me to join in a scheme for digging gold out of the Harz mountains—­Padraig, what are you grinning at?”

“Only to see how keen is your nose for a thief,” Padraig chuckled.  “If Simon is after digging gold out of the ground with his hands ’tis the honestest plan he has had this long time.  Simon thinks gold is what heaven is made of.  He would look at the sunset and calculate what the gold would be worth in zecchins—­he would.  But why all this talk of the parchments?”

“Because I have a mind to see whether any more of Archiater’s work is to be found,” said Alan quietly.  “It may be a fool’s errand, but I could not rest till I had made a beginning.”

Three faces looked astonished, sympathetic and interested.  Alan had the hearty liking of his friends.  They could depend upon him as on the market cross.  But they would almost as soon have expected to see that cross set forth on pilgrimage as to find the quiet North Country glassmaker beginning any such weird journey as this.

Tomaso broke the little silence, leaning forward in his oaken chair, his finger-tips meeting.  “We may as well sift what evidence we have,” he said.  “If the manuscripts had been in the hands of any one who knew the cipher he must have done work so far beyond anything else in his craft that it would be heard of.  Archiater never made use of half his discoveries—­and he was always finding out secrets concerning the crafts.  He knew things about glassmaking, enamel-work, dyestuffs, and medicine, that no one else did.  He was occupied almost wholly with experiment and research.  There are not two such men in a century.