Archie’s jaw fell.

“China figure?” he stammered feebly.

“Yes.  The companion to one you may have noticed on my mantelpiece upstairs.  I have been trying to get the pair of them for years.  I should never have heard of this one if it had not been for that valet of mine, Parker.  Very good of him to let me know of it, considering I had fired him.  Ah, here is Binstead."-He moved to greet the small, middle-aged man with the tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles who was bustling across the lobby.  “Well, Binstead, so you got it?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose the price wasn’t particularly stiff?”

“Twenty-three hundred.”

“Twenty-three hundred!” Mr. Brewster seemed to reel in his tracks.  “Twenty-three hundred!”

“You gave me carte blanche.”

“Yes, but twenty-three hundred!”

“I could have got it for a few dollars, but unfortunately I was a little late, and, when I arrived, some young fool had bid it up to a thousand, and he stuck to me till I finally shook him off at twenty-three hundred.  Why, this is the very man!  Is he a friend of yours?”

Archie coughed.

“More a relation than a friend, what?  Son-in-law, don’t you know!”

Mr. Brewster’s amiability had vanished.

“What damned foolery have you been up to now?” he demanded.  “Can’t I move a step without stubbing my toe on you?  Why the devil did you bid?”

“We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme.  We talked it over and came to the conclusion that it was an egg.  Wanted to get hold of the rummy little object, don’t you know, and surprise you.”

“Who’s we?”

“Lucille and I.”

“But how did you hear of it at all?”

“Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it.”

“Parker!  Didn’t he tell you that he had told me the figure was to be sold?”

“Absolutely not!” A sudden suspicion came to Archie.  He was normally a guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the part played by Herbert Parker had become apparent.  “I say, you know, it looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what?  I mean to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off—­ Bill, you know—­to go and bid for the thing.”

“Bill!  Was Bill there?”

“Absolutely in person!  We were bidding against each other like the dickens till we managed to get together and get acquainted.  And then this bird—­this gentleman—­sailed in and started to slip it across us.”

Professor Binstead chuckled—­the care-free chuckle of a man who sees all those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains untouched.

“A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster.  His method seems to have been simple but masterly.  I have no doubt that either he or a confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the auctioneer, and then he ensured a good price for it by getting us all to bid against each other.  Very ingenious!”