As he reached the door of the great buildings where he lodged,
and climbed wearily out, the porter ran out, hat in hand, holding
a little green paper.

"Monsignor," he said, "this arrived an hour ago. We did not know
where you were."

He opened it there and then. It contained half a dozen words in
code. He took it upstairs with him, strangely agitated, and there
deciphered it. It bade him leave everything, come instantly to
Rome, and join the Cardinal.




CHAPTER II



(I)

There was dead silence on the long staircase of the Vatican,
leading up to the Cardinal Secretary's rooms, as Monsignor toiled
up within half an hour of his arrival at the stage outside the
city. A car was in waiting for him there, had whirled him first
to the old palace where he had stayed nine months ago with Father
Jervis; and then, on finding that Cardinal Bellairs had been
unexpectedly sent for to the Vatican, he had gone on there
immediately, according to the instructions that had been left