Reaching lazily over the telephone switchboard, and without rising from his seat, he asked surlily:
"What's the name?"
"Mr. Bennington."
The boy took the transmitter and spoke into it:
"A party called to see Mr. Underwood."
There was a brief pause, as if the person upstairs was in doubt whether to admit that he was home or not. Then came the answer. The boy looked up.
"He says you should go up. Apartment 165. Take the elevator."
In his luxuriously appointed rooms on the fourteenth floor, Robert Underwood sat before the fire puffing nervously at a strong cigar. All around him was a litter of objets d'art, such as would have filled the heart of any connoisseur with joy. Oil paintings in heavy gilt frames, of every period and school, Rembrandts, Cuyps, Ruysdaels, Reynoldses, Corots, Henners, some on easels, some resting on the floor; handsome French bronzes, dainty china on Japanese teakwood tables, antique furniture, gold-embroidered clerical vestments, hand-painted screens, costly Oriental rugs, rare ceramics—all were confusedly jumbled together. On a grand piano in a corner of the room stood two tall cloisonné vases of almost inestimable value. On a desk close by were piled miniatures and rare ivories. The walls were covered with tapestries, armor, and trophies of arms. More like a museum than a sitting room, it was the home of a man who made a business of art or made of art a business.
Underwood stared moodily at the glowing logs in the open chimneyplace. His face was pale and determined. After coming in from the restaurant he had changed his tuxedo for the more comfortable house coat. Nothing called him away that particular Sunday evening, and no one was likely to disturb him. Ferris, his man-servant, had taken his usual Sunday off and would not return until midnight. The apartment was still as the grave. It was so high above the street that not a sound reached up from the noisy Broadway below. Underwood liked the quiet so that he could think, and he was thinking hard. On the flat desk at his elbow stood a dainty demi-tasse of black coffee—untasted. There were glasses and decanters of whiskey and cordial, but the stimulants did not tempt him.