Beckett frowned. "This Cornwall?"

"An obnoxious man who comes from somewhere in the West. A good student, but a sullen one. He has no friends. He lives from hand to mouth. He stayed on after all his old classmates had left, satisfied with the education they had gotten. Principally he stays on, I think, because he is interested in the Old Ones."

"How interested in the Old Ones?"

"He thinks they still exist. He has studied their language or what purports to be their language. There are some books on it. He has studied them."

"Why has he an interest in the Old Ones?"

The monk shook his head. "I do not know. I do not know the man. I've talked to him only once or twice. Intellectual curiosity, perhaps. Perhaps something else."

"Perhaps he thought Taylor might have written of the Old Ones."

"He could have. Taylor could have. I have not read the book."

"Cornwall has the manuscript. By now he would have hidden it."

"I doubt it has been hidden. Not too securely, anyhow. He has no reason to believe that his theft of it is known. Watching him, I saw him do it. I let him leave. I did not try to stop him. He could not have known I was there."

"Would it seem to you, Sir Monk, that this studious, light-fingered friend of ours may have placed himself in peril of heresy?"

"That, Master Beckett, is for you to judge. All about us are signs of heresy, but it takes a clever man to tread the intricacies of definition."

"You are not saying, are you, that heresy is political?"

"It never crossed my mind."

"That is good," said Beckett, "for under certain, well-defined conditions, the university itself, or more particularly the library, might fall under suspicion because of the material that can be found on its shelves."