"Fainted, good Lord!" muttered Bullard, and took a step towards a
cabinet in the corner. He checked himself, came back and picked up the
message. He read:

"Just arrived with valuable goods to sell. Shall I give first offer to
Christopher or to you and Bullard? Reply c/o P.O., Tilbury. Edwin
Marvel."

"Damnation!" said Bullard.




CHAPTER I


Despite its handsome and costly old furnishings, the room gave one a
sense of space and comfort; its agreeable warmth was too equable to have
been derived solely from the cheerful blaze in the veritable Adam's
fireplace, which seemed to have provided the keynote to the general
scheme of decoration. The great bay-window overlooked a long, gently
sloping lawn, bounded on either side by shrubbery, trees, and hedges,
terminated by shrubbery and hedges alone, the trees originally there
having been long since removed to admit of a clear view of the loch, the
Argyllshire hills, and the stretch of Firth of Clyde right down to Bute
and the Lesser Cumbrae. Even in summer the garden, while scrupulously
tidy, would have offered but little colour display; its few flower beds
were as stiff in form and conventional in arrangement as a jobbing
gardener on contract to an uninterested proprietor could make them. And