_ CHAPTER VII. THE TRUTHFUL AUCTIONEER
At a little before ten on the following morning, Burton stood upon the pavement outside, looking with some amazement at the house in Wenslow Square. The notices "To Let" had all been torn down. A small army of paper-hangers and white-washers were at work. A man was busy fastening flower boxes in the lower windows. On all hands were suggestions of impending occupation. Burton mounted the steps doubtfully and stood in the hall, underneath a whitewasher's plank. The door of the familiar little room stood open before him. He peered eagerly in. It was swept bare and completely empty. All traces of its former mysterious occupant were gone.
"Is this house let?" he inquired of a man who was deliberately stirring a pail of shiny whitewash.
The plasterer nodded.
"Seems so," he admitted. "It's been empty long enough."
Burton looked around him a little vaguely.
"You all seem very busy," he remarked.
"Some bloke from the country's taken the 'ouse," the man grumbled, "and wants to move in before the blooming paint's dry. Nobody can't do impossibilities, mister," he continued, "leaving out the Unions, which can't bear to see us over-exert ourselves. They've always got a particular eye on me, knowing I'm a bit too rapid for most of them when I start."
"Give yourself a rest for a moment," Burton begged. "Tell me, what's become of the rugs and oddments of furniture from that little room opposite?"
The man produced a pipe, contemplated it for a moment thoughtfully, and squeezed down a portion of blackened tobacco with his thumb.
"Poor smoking," he complained. "Got such a family I can't afford more than one ounce a week. Nothing but dust here."
"I haven't any tobacco with me," Burton regretted, "but I'll stand a couple of ounces, with pleasure," he added, producing a shilling.
The man pocketed the coin without undue exhilaration, struck a vilely smelling match, and lit the fragment of filth at the bottom of his pipe.
"About those oddments of furniture?" Burton reminded him.
"Stolen," the man asserted gloomily,--"stolen under our very eyes, as it were. Some one must have nipped in just as you did this morning, and whisked them off. Easy done with a covered truck outside and us so wrapped up in our work, so to speak."
"When was this?" Burton demanded, eagerly.
"Day afore yesterday."
"Does Mr. Waddington know about it?"
The man removed his pipe from his teeth and gazed intently at his questioner.
"Is this Mr. Waddington you're a-speaking of a red-faced gentleman--kind of auctioneer or agent? Looks as though he could shift a drop?"
Burton recognized the description.
"That," he assented, "is Mr. Waddington."
The workman replaced the pipe in the corner of his mouth and nodded deliberately.
"He knows right enough, he does. Came down here yesterday afternoon with a friend. Seemed, from what I could hear, to want to give him something to eat out of that room. I put him down as dotty, but my! you should have heard him when he found out that the stuff had been lifted!"
"Was he disappointed?" Burton asked.
Words seemed to fail the plasterer. He nodded his head a great many times and spat upon the floor.
"That may be the word I was looking for," he admitted. "Can't say as I should have thought of it myself. Anyway, the bloke never stopped for close on five minutes, and old Joe--him on the ladder there--he came all the way down and listened with his mouth open, and he don't want no laming neither when there's things to be said. Kind of auctioneer they said he was. Comes easy to that sort, I suppose."
"Did he--did Mr. Waddington obtain any clue as to the whereabouts of the missing property?" Burton asked, with some eagerness.
"Not as I knows on," the plasterer replied, picking up his brush, "and as to the missing property, there was nowt but a few mouldy rugs and a flower-pot in the room. Some folks does seem able to work themselves up into a fuss about nothing, and no mistake! Good morning, guvnor! Drop in again some time when you're passing."
Burton turned out of Wenslow Square and approached the offices and salesrooms of Messrs. Waddington & Forbes with some misgiving. Bearing in mind the peculiar nature of the business conducted by the firm, he could only conclude that ruin, prompt and absolute, had been the inevitable sequence of Mr. Waddington's regrettable appetite. He was somewhat relieved to find that there were no evidences of it in the familiar office which he entered with some diffidence.
"Is Mr. Waddington in?" he inquired.
A strange young man slipped from his stool and found his questioner gazing about him in a bewildered manner. There was much, indeed, that was surprising in his surroundings. The tattered bills had been torn down from the walls, the dust-covered files of papers removed, the ceilings and walls painted and papered. A general cleanliness and sense of order had taken the place of the old medley. The young man who had answered his inquiry was quietly dressed and not in the least like the missing office-boy.
"Mr. Waddington is at present conducting a sale of furniture," he replied. "I can send a message in if your business is important."
Burton, who had always felt a certain amount of liking for his late employer, was filled now with a sudden pity for him. Truth was a great and marvelous thing, but the last person who had need of it was surely an auctioneer engaged in the sale of sham articles of every description! It was putting the man in an unfair position. A vague sense of loyalty towards his late chief prompted Burton's next action. If help were possible, Mr. Waddington should have it.
"Thank you," he said, "I will step into the sales-room myself. I know the way."
Burton pushed open the doors and entered the room. To his surprise, the place was packed. There was the usual crowd of buyers and many strange faces; the usual stacks of furniture of the usual quality, and other lots less familiar. Mr. Waddington stood in his accustomed place but not in his accustomed attitude. The change in him was obvious but in a sense pathetic. He was quietly dressed, and his manner denoted a new nervousness, not to say embarrassment. Drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead. The strident note had gone from his voice. He spoke clearly enough, but more softly, and without the familiar roll.
"Gentlemen--ladies and gentlemen," he was saying as Burton entered, "the next item on the catalogue is number 17, described as an oak chest, said to have come from Winchester Cathedral and to be a genuine antique."
Mr. Waddington leaned forward from his rostrum. His tone became more earnest.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he continued, "I am bound to sell as per catalogue, and the chest in question is described exactly as it was sent in to us, but I do not myself for a moment believe either that it came from Winchester or that it is in any way antique. Examine it for yourselves--pray examine it thoroughly before you bid. My impression is that it is a common oak chest, treated by the modern huckster whose business it is to make new things look like old. I have told you my opinion, ladies and gentlemen. At what shall we start the bidding? It is a useful article, anyhow, and might pass for an antique if any one here really cares to deceive his friends. At any rate, there is no doubt that it is--er--a chest, and that it will--er--hold things. How much shall we say for it?"
There was a little flutter of conversation. People elbowed one another furiously in their desire to examine the chest. A dark, corpulent man, with curly black hair and an unmistakable nose, looked at the auctioneer in a puzzled manner.
"Thay, Waddington, old man, what'th the game, eh? What have you got up your sleeve that you don't want to thell the stuff? Blow me if I can tumble to it!"
"There is no game at all," Mr. Waddington replied firmly. "I can assure you, Mr. Absolom, and all of you, ladies and gentlemen, that I have simply told you what I believe to be the absolute truth. It is my business to sell whatever is sent to me here for that purpose, but it is not my business or intention to deceive you in any way, if I can help it."
Mr. Absolom re-examined the oak chest with a puzzled expression. Then he strolled away and joined a little knot of brokers who were busy discussing matters. The various remarks which passed from one to another indicated sufficiently their perplexed condition of mind.
"The old man's dotty!"
"Not he! There's a game on somewhere!"
"He wants to buy in some of the truck!"
"Old Waddy knows what he's doing!"
Mr. Absolom listened for a while and then returned to the rostrum.
"Mr. Waddington," he asked, "ith it the truth that there are one or two pieces of real good stuff here, thent in by an old farmer in Kent?"
"Quite true," Mr. Waddington declared, eagerly. "Unfortunately, they all came in together and were included with other articles which have not the same antecedents. You may be able to pick out which they are. I can't. Although I am supposed to be in the business, I never could tell the difference myself."
There was a chorus of guffaws. Mr. Waddington mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.
"It is absolutely true, gentlemen," he pleaded. "I have always posed as a judge but I know very little about it. As a matter of fact I have had scarcely any experience in real antique furniture. We must get on, gentlemen. What shall we say for lot number 17? Will any one start the bidding at one sovereign?"
"Two!" Mr. Absolom offered. "More than it'th worth, perhaps, but I'll rithk it."
"It is certainly more than it's worth," Mr. Waddington admitted, dolefully. "However, if you have the money to throw away--two pounds, then."
Mr. Waddington raised his hammer to knock the chest down, but was met with a storm from all quarters of the room.
"Two-ten!"
"Three!"
"Three-ten!"
"Four!"
"Four-ten!"
"Five!"
"Six pounds!"
"Seven!"
"Seven-ten!"
"Ten pounds!"
Mr. Absolom, who so far had held his own, hesitated at the last bid. A gray-haired old gentleman looked around him fiercely. The gentleman was seemingly opulent and Mr. Absolom withdrew with a sigh. Mr. Waddington eyed the prospective buyer sorrowfully.
"You are quite sure that you mean it, sir?" he asked. "The chest is not worth the money, you know."
"You attend to your business and I'll attend to mine!" the old gentleman answered, savagely. "Most improper behavior, I call it, trying to buy in your own goods in this bare-faced manner. My name is Stephen Hammonde, and the money's in my pocket for this or anything else I care to buy."
Mr. Waddington raised his hammer and struck the desk in front of him. As his clerk entered the sale, the auctioneer looked up and caught Burton's eye. He beckoned to him eagerly. Burton came up to the rostrum.
"Burton," Mr. Waddington exclaimed, "I want to talk to you! You see what's happened to me?" he went on, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.
"Yes, I see!
"It's that d--d bean!" Mr. Waddington declared. "But look here, Burton, can you tell me what's happened to the other people?"
"I cannot," Burton confessed. "I am beginning to get an idea, perhaps."
"Stand by for a bit and watch," Mr. Waddington begged. "I must go on with the sale now. Take a little lunch with me afterwards. Don't desert me, Burton. We're in this together."
Burton nodded and found a seat at a little distance from the rostrum. From here he watched the remainder of the morning's sale. The whole affair seemed to resolve itself into a repetition of the sale of the chest. The auctioneer's attempts to describe correctly the wares he offered were met with mingled suspicion and disbelief. The one or two articles which really had the appearance of being genuine, and over which he hesitated, fetched enormous prices, and all the time his eager clients eyed him suspiciously. No one trusted him, and yet it was obvious that if he had advertised a sale every day, the room would have been packed. Burton watched the proceedings with the utmost interest. Once or twice people who recognized him came up and asked him questions, to which, however, he was able to return no satisfactory reply. At one o'clock precisely, the auctioneer, with a little sigh of relief, announced a postponement. Even after he had left the rostrum, the people seemed unwilling to leave the place.
"Back again this afternoon, sir?" some one called out.
"At half-past two," the auctioneer replied, with a smothered groan. _