“Well, that gets me!” observed Mr. Longhurst.  “Who can have put up a shyster [1] like that?  Nobody with money, that’s a sure thing.  Suppose you tried a big bluff?  I think I would, Pink.  Well, ta-ta!  Your partner, Mr. Dodd?  Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir.”  And the great man withdrew.

[1] A low lawyer.

“Well, what do you think of Douglas B.?” whispered Pinkerton, looking reverently after him as he departed.  “Six foot of perfect gentleman and culture to his boots.”

During this interview the auction had stood transparently arrested, the auctioneer, the spectators, and even Bellairs, all well aware that Mr. Longhurst was the principal, and Jim but a speaking-trumpet.  But now that the Olympian Jupiter was gone, Mr. Borden thought proper to affect severity.

“Come, come, Mr. Pinkerton.  Any advance?” he snapped.

And Pinkerton, resolved on the big bluff, replied, “Two thousand dollars.”

Bellairs preserved his composure.  “And fifty,” said he.  But there was a stir among the onlookers, and what was of more importance, Captain Trent had turned pale and visibly gulped.

“Pitch it in again, Jim,” said I.  “Trent is weakening.”

“Three thousand,” said Jim.

“And fifty,” said Bellairs.

And then the bidding returned to its original movement by hundreds and fifties; but I had been able in the meanwhile to draw two conclusions.  In the first place, Bellairs had made his last advance with a smile of gratified vanity; and I could see the creature was glorying in the kudos of an unusual position and secure of ultimate success.  In the second, Trent had once more changed colour at the thousand leap, and his relief, when he heard the answering fifty was manifest and unaffected.  Here then was a problem:  both were presumably in the same interest, yet the one was not in the confidence of the other.  Nor was this all.  A few bids later it chanced that my eye encountered that of Captain Trent, and his, which glittered with excitement, was instantly, and I thought guiltily, withdrawn.  He wished, then, to conceal his interest?  As Jim had said, there was some blamed thing going on.  And for certain, here were these two men, so strangely united, so strangely divided, both sharp-set to keep the wreck from us, and that at an exorbitant figure.

Was the wreck worth more than we supposed?  A sudden heat was kindled in my brain; the bids were nearing Longhurst’s limit of five thousand; another minute, and all would be too late.  Tearing a leaf from my sketch-book, and inspired (I suppose) by vanity in my own powers of inference and observation, I took the one mad decision of my life.  “If you care to go ahead,” I wrote, “I’m in for all I’m worth.”

Jim read and looked round at me like one bewildered; then his eyes lightened, and turning again to the auctioneer, he bid, “Five thousand one hundred dollars.”