“You could trust him?” I inquired, recalling how Sarafoff had subsequently won fame by confessing to his most famous forgery.

“As much as one can anybody.  You see he doesn’t speak any civilised language, and at that time we couldn’t tell that the Tiara would spoil him as it did the entire deal.”

“But Schoenfeld’s coaching?” I suggested.  Vogelstein here winked solemnly and drank deeply from his tall glass.  “First I want to tell you all about Sarafoff,” he persisted, “of course we had him watched all the same, and whenever he got an evening off, which was seldom, we had him filled up with schnapps.  He was a quiet drunk which is an excellent thing, Sir.”  As I nodded assent to this great truth, he continued:  “Yes Schoenfeld, as I was saying, managed everything.  Wonderful scholar.  You would respect him I’m sure.  Why, every bit of the pattern of the Coronal was taken from some real antique, every word of the inscription too.”  “Wasn’t that a bit dangerous?” “With Schoenfeld in charge, not so very.  Everything was taken from little Russian museums that even you critics don’t visit.  Almost no published thing was used, you see.”

“Then there was Sarafoff”—­

“To give it all that quaint Scythian look,” Vogelstein added joyously.  “Yes, we had just the best brains and the best hands for the job, and it was beautiful.”  “Better than the Tiara?”

“Yes, far better.  The Tiara was all a mistake, as I told Schoenfeld; it was too big and too good to be true.  Except for Steinbach, who fell in love with its queerness and chipped in some money, we never could have sold it to a museum.  And it was a bad thing to have it there, it aroused opposition, it was bound to be exposed.  I was always against it, and sure enough it spoiled the game for us.  But the Balaklava Coronal that was just right.  It had a sort of well-bred modest beauty.  We should have begun instead of ending with it.  Yes, Sir, there never was a more beautiful thing, a more plausible thing, a finer object to sell than the Balaklava Coronal.”

As he bellowed the word and beat the table in confirmation, Brush looked over from his corner apprehensively.  “Quietly, Mr. Vogelstein,” I hinted, “this is between ourselves, and we might be overheard.”

“That’s right,” he admitted, and moodily lit another cigar.  “Where were we?” he asked uneasily.  “Oh yes, we were at the Tiara.  Now the Coronal and what we could have sold on the strength of it was worth ten of the Tiara, and if it hadn’t been for the cursed thing, we could have landed the Coronal as a starter in any one of half a dozen museums.”

“As a matter of fact they were all shy of it.”

“Of course.  Once the Tiara was being looked into, the museum game was up, and there was only Morrison left.”  Vogelstein lurched around nervously.  “He may drop in soon,” he explained.  “I’d like to make you acquainted.”

Ignoring the offer, I persisted, “You’ve got to the interesting point at last.  Tell me why there was only Morrison left.  To begin with Morrison knows something about such matters, and next he can have the best advice for the asking.  And yet you tell me that Morrison was the only great collector in the world to whom that notoriously false bauble could be sold.”