The Hunchback of Westminster by William le Queux

Had I ever been tempted, indeed, to think that the mission which Don Jose Casteno had confided to me was some small matter of a collector's gain, I should not have done so after the part I played as sole witness of this wordless drama. The very atmosphere of the room was pregnant with mysterious suggestion of the tremendous issues that were hanging then in the balance. I knew at last, with as much certainty as though I had read the documents themselves, that these manuscripts that had dropped so carelessly from the hands of a dead monk into all the hurly-burly of a commonplace auction room were precious records that affected the lives, the happiness, the fortunes of thousands.

Again the problem stated itself: Who would triumph? And again I had to wait, for neither Peter Zouche nor John Cooper-Nassington would make any sign.