"Well--it would depend rather on the number of notes you wanted. Let
me see--there must be about fourteen or fifteen thousand books here--"

"There are fifteen thousand."

"It would take three weeks to make an ordinary catalogue; and that
would be quick work, even for me. I'm afraid you must give me rather
more time."

"I can't. I'm leaving England on the twenty-sixth."

"Couldn't I go on with it in your absence?"

"No, that would hardly do."

"If you could only give me another week--"

"I couldn't possibly. I have to join my father at Cannes on the
twenty-seventh."

So she was Sir Frederick Harden's daughter then, not his wife. Her
last words were illuminating; they suggested the programme of a family
whose affairs were in liquidation. They also revealed Sir Frederick
Harden's amazing indifference to the fate of the library, an
indifference that argued a certain ignorance of its commercial value.
His father who had a scent keen as a hound's for business had taken in
the situation. And Dicky, you might trust Dicky to be sure of his
game. But if this were so, why should the Hardens engage in such a
leisurely and expensive undertaking as a catalogue _raisonné_? Was the