Archie coughed.
“More a relation than a friend, what? Son-in-law, don’t you know!”
Mr. Brewster’s amiability had vanished.
“What damned foolery have you been up to NOW?” he demanded. “Can’t I move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil did you bid?”
“We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme. We talked it over and came to the conclusion that it was an egg. Wanted to get hold of the rummy little object, don’t you know, and surprise you.”
“Who’s we?”
“Lucille and I.”
“But how did you hear of it at all?”
“Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it.”
“Parker! Didn’t he tell you that he had told me the figure was to be sold?”
“Absolutely not!” A sudden suspicion came to Archie. He was normally a guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the part played by Herbert Parker had become apparent. “I say, you know, it looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what? I mean to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off– Bill, you know–to go and bid for the thing.”
“Bill! Was Bill there?”
“Absolutely in person! We were bidding against each other like the dickens till we managed to get together and get acquainted. And then this bird–this gentleman–sailed in and started to slip it across us.”
Professor Binstead chuckled–the care-free chuckle of a man who sees all those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains untouched.
“A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method seems to have been simple but masterly. I have no doubt that either he or a confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the auctioneer, and then he ensured a good price for it by getting us all to bid against each other. Very ingenious!”
Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings. Then he seemed to overcome them and to force himself to look on the bright side.
“Well, anyway,” he said. “I’ve got the pair of figures, and that’s what I wanted. Is that it in that parcel?”
“This is it. I wouldn’t trust an express company to deliver it. Suppose we go up to your room and see how the two look side by side.”
They crossed the lobby to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr. Brewster’s brow as they stepped out and made their way to his suite. Like most men who have risen from poverty to wealth by their own exertions, Mr. Brewster objected to parting with his money unnecessarily, and it was plain that that twenty-three hundred dollars still rankled.
Mr. Brewster unlocked the door and crossed the room. Then, suddenly, he halted, stared, and stared again. He sprang to the bell and pressed it, then stood gurgling wordlessly.
“Anything wrong, old bean?” queried Archie, solicitously.
“Wrong! Wrong! It’s gone!”
“Gone?”
“The figure!”
The floor-waiter had manifested himself silently in answer to the bell, and was standing in the doorway.
“Simmons!” Mr. Brewster turned to him wildly. “Has anyone been in this suite since I went away?”
“No, sir.”
“Nobody?”
“Nobody except your valet, sir–Parker. He said he had come to fetch some things away. I supposed he had come from you, sir, with instructions.”
“Get out!”
Professor Binstead had unwrapped his parcel, and had placed the Pongo on the table. There was a weighty silence. Archie picked up the little china figure and balanced it on the palm of his hand. It was a small thing, he reflected philosophically, but it had made quite a stir in the world.
Mr. Brewster fermented for a while without speaking.
“So,” he said, at last, in a voice trembling with self-pity, “I have been to all this trouble–”
“And expense,” put in Professor Binstead, gently.
“Merely to buy back something which had been stolen from me! And, owing to your damned officiousness,” he cried, turning on Archie, “I have had to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for it! I don’t know why they make such a fuss about Job. Job never had anything like you around!”
“Of course,” argued Archie, “he had one or two boils.”