“Ah,” said Stillman, encouragingly.  “To study, eh?”

“Yes.  I’ve taken up medicine.  There’s a college up town that has night classes.  I have been attending the lectures there and reading during the day.  There’s a big chance for physicians who can speak Yiddish.  Not only to make money, but to do good.”

“I see.”  The coroner regarded him reflectively for a moment.  “Now, Mr. Brolatsky, having worked for Hume for some years, you must have picked up some details as to his business and himself.  Suppose you tell us all you know about both.”

The dark face of Brolatsky became thoughtful.

“Mr. Hume was a hard man to get along with,” he said.  “He seemed ready to quarrel at any time with anybody.  I don’t recall a customer ever coming into the store that he didn’t have some kind of trouble with before they went out.  But he had a great knowledge of the things he dealt in.  People came from far and near to get his opinion on items in their collections.  His fees,” with appreciation, “were large.

“But there is one thing that I noticed about him.  While he knew all about objects of art, he did not seem to care for them.  He had no love for his trade, no sympathy, I may say, for the collectors who came to him.  I wouldn’t be going far from the truth if I said that he thought them all fools for paying their money for such things.  And I know that he mocked them.”

“Humph!” Stillman looked at Ashton-Kirk, with surprise upon his face.  “That seems odd.  Men usually go into Hume’s business through love of it.”  He turned once more to Brolatsky.  “And he had no hobby of his own, no collection that he fancied more than another?”

Brolatsky nodded amusedly.

“Yes,” he replied.  “I was just coming to that.  He did have a collection that he called his own.  And he never sold an item from it as long as I was with him.  Indeed, I think if anybody had offered to buy, he would have come to blows with him.”

Ashton-Kirk bent forward.  For the first time since entering the room, he spoke.

“And what was the nature of that collection?” he inquired eagerly.

“Portraits,” answered Isidore Brolatsky.  “Prints, lithographs, mezzo-tints, engravings, paintings, it made no difference.  And all of the same person.  He had hundreds, I guess, and every one of them was of General Wayne.”

Ashton-Kirk leaned back in his chair with a faint breath of triumph.

“When a portrait of General Wayne was offered him,” continued Brolatsky, “he never haggled over it.  He paid the price asked and seemed quite delighted to get it.  It was a standing joke in the trade that if you wanted to get even with Mr. Hume for driving a hard bargain with you, all you had to do was to offer him a portrait of General Wayne.  I never saw him refuse one.  Even if he had dozens of duplicates, which often happened; still he’d buy.”

A look of great acuteness had settled upon the face of the young coroner.