As it chanced, they had not long to wait for an answer.

Presently a lantern-jawed notary in a frayed russet gown, who must have been watching their movements, approached them and asked them what had been their business at the Pope's palace.

Hugh told him, whereon the lawyer, finding that he was a person of high degree, became deferential in his manner.

Moreover, he announced that he was a notary named Basil of Tours and one of the legal secretaries of his Holiness, who just now was living without the gates of the palace by express command in order to attend to the affairs of suitors at the Papal Court during the Great Sickness.

He added, however, that he was able to communicate with those within, and that doubtless it might be in his power to forward the cause of the noble knight, Sir Hugh de Cressi, in which already he took much interest.
"There would be a fee ?" suggested Dick, looking at the man coldly.
Basil answered with a smirk that fees and legal affairs were inseparable; the latter naturally involved the former.