Billy at once polished his star and cleaned and oiled his new 32-caliber “bull-dog.”  The promise of work ahead for the right man loomed more brightly than ever before in his exciting career.

While I discussed with Miss Caroline, that evening, the unpleasant mystery of her late caller, there came a note from him by messenger.  He offered six hundred and twenty-one dollars for her furniture, the sum being written in large letters, so that it had the effect of being shouted from the page.  He further expressed a wish to close the deal within the half hour, as he must leave town on the night train.

Had Miss Caroline been alone, she might have fallen.  Even I was staggered, but not beyond recovery.  The messenger bore back, at my suggestion, a refusal of the offer and a further refusal to consider any more offers that evening.  There was indicated a need for calm daylight consideration, and a face-to-face meeting with this variable Mr. Cohen.

“But he leaves on the night train,” said Miss Caroline.  “It may be our last chance, and six hundred dollars is—­”

“He only says he leaves,” I responded.  “And for three days, at least, Mr. Cohen seems to have been grossly misinformed about his own movements.  Perhaps he’s deceived himself again.”

At eight o’clock the following morning Clem served my breakfast for the first time since his illness, and I approached it with thanksgiving for his recovery.

A knock at the door took him from me just as he had poured the first cup of real coffee I had seen for nearly three months.  He came back with the card of one James Walsingham Price, whom I did not know; whereas I did know the coffee.

“Fetch him here,” I said.  “He can’t expect me to leave this coffee, whoever he is.”

Into my dining room was then ushered a tall, smartly dressed, smooth-faced man of perhaps middle age, with yellowish hair compactly plastered to his head.  He became, I thought, suddenly alert as he crossed my threshold.  I arose to greet him.

“This is—­” I had to glance at the card.

“Yes—­and you’re Major Blake?  I regret to disturb you, Major,”—­here his glance rested blankly upon the rich golden-brown surface of Clem’s omelette, and it seemed to me that the thread of his intention was broken for an instant by a fit of absentmindedness.  He resumed his speech only after an appreciable pause, as if the omelette had reminded him of something.

“The hour is untimely, but I’m told that you’re a friend of a Mrs. Lansdale, who has some pieces of Colonial furniture she wishes to let go.  I wondered, you know, if you’d be good enough to introduce me.  I rather thought some such formality might be advisable—­I understand that a shark named Cohen has already approached her.”

Even as he spoke I recalled that Mr. Cohen’s face, in profile, might provoke the vision of a shark to a person of lively imagination.