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going to allow that to happen. His whole purpose in buying the scroll is to destroy it, to make sure that mankind never gets to know what is written in it—expert, scholar or ordinary man in the street, or more importantly to him, perhaps, man-in-the-pew.”
    “What about Mr. Garrett? What does he think it is, and what does he want it for?” Monty asked.
    “I don’t know who he is, but I have an absurd guess, for which I doubt my own sanity. The reason he wants it, I believe, is to reverse the verdict of history.”
    “What can we do?” Monty asked, searching Hank’s clear blue eyes.
    “Tell the men we know of who want it to meet us at Roger’s house, and we will hold an auction there, privately for the three of them.”
    “I don’t know how to contact them,” Monty pointed out.
    “ Times personal column,” Hank said simply. “Although they may have some way of knowing anyway. Funny they should be so wrong about where the scroll was, though.”
    “What? Oh … you mean … in Roger’s house? Why did they think that? Why did they kill him? He didn’t even know about it?”
    “Was the crate with the scroll in it addressed to him?”
    Monty had a sudden vivid picture of the address label in his mind’s eye.
    “Yes. Yes it was …”
    “Then that may be the answer. At that time they did not realize Roger was sick and not coming in to the bookshop. They assumed he would take it home.”
    “How did they know about it at all?” Monty pursued.
    “That is something I can’t answer,” Hank admitted. “I don’t believe in your ghosts, all of whom have a logical explanation in either fact or hysteria. But I will admit that there are things I can’t explain, and I am prepared to allow that they could have to do with a more than ordinary evil … albeit a highly powerful human one, with manifestations we don’t yet understand.”
    “Generous of you,” Monty said with a touch of sarcasm, the sharper because he was afraid.
    Hank ignored him. “Put an advertisement in the personal column of the Times : ‘Gentleman wishes to auction ancient scroll. Regret photocopies impossible. Auction to be held at 7:00 p.m. at home of now deceased owner of shop. Replies unnecessary.’ That should reach those with an interest.”
    Monty’s throat was dry, his tongue practically sticking to the roof of his mouth.
    “Then what?” he croaked.
    “Then we lock up the scroll here and go to Roger’s house to wait,” Hank answered, but he too was pale and there was knowledge of fear in his eyes.
    At seven in the evening Hank and Monty were in Roger’s sitting room, too restless to occupy the armchairs. Hank was by the window looking over the back garden and Monty paced from the center of the room to the front windows and back again. The acrid smell of smoke was still sharp in the air. The electric lights were not working since the fire, and as the room grew darker with the fading sun Hank struck a match and lit the hurricane lamp they had brought.
    “They’re not going to come,” Monty said at quarter past seven. “We didn’t give them enough time. Or else they’ve gone to the shop, and they’ll break into the safe and steal it while we’re here. We shouldn’t have come.”
    “If they were going to steal it they’d have done so anyway,” Hank pointed out. “It was there every night, wasn’t it?”
    “Then why didn’t they?” Monty demanded.
    “I don’t know. Perhaps they need some legitimacy—or maybe they just aren’t good at safe cracking. It’s a pretty good safe, isn’t it?”
    “Yes …”
    The hurricane lamp burned up, sending its glow into the corners of the room and showing the dark outline of an old man with a child beside him, a fair-haired girl of about eight, whose brilliant, ice-cool eyes gleamed almost luminously.
    Monty felt the sweat break out on his skin and run down his body, cold within seconds. He turned to Hank, and instead saw in the doorway the robed and implacable figure of