There were wrought-iron balconies, of which the window embrasures were so deep that the shutters folded sideways into the wall instead of swinging back as in houses of which the walls were of normal thickness.
The friar was probably accustomed to seeing the Palacio Sarrion rigidly shut up.

He never, in his quick, humble scrutiny of his surroundings glanced up at it.

And, therefore, he never saw a man sitting quietly behind the curiously wrought railings, smoking a cigarette--a man who had witnessed the whole incident from beginning to end.

Who had, indeed, seen more than the friar or the two quiet men-servants.

For he had seen a stick--probably a sword-stick, such as nearly every Spanish gentleman carries in his own country--fly from the hand of Don Francisco de Mogente at the moment when he was attacked, and fall into the gutter on the darker side of the street, where it lay unheeded.