The manager, however shrewd, had a vanity in such things, and before the conversation had gone much further had committed himself to very vast and universal claims to knowledge.
“This man Hendry whom I was inquiring about,” said Murrel, “was really a rather remarkable man. I never knew him myself, but I understand from my friend, Miss Ashley, that he was a friend of her father and of the old group that worked with William Morris.”
“He was a man who understood his subject very thoroughly, on the scientific as well as the artistic side. Indeed, I believe he had originally been a doctor and a chemical expert of some note, when he took up this particular business of producing the right pigments for the reproduction of medieval work.”
“He kept a little shop in the Haymarket but I believe that it was always full of his artistic friends, like Miss Ashley’s father. He knew nearly all the eminent men of his day, and some of them quite well. Now you would think a shopkeeper of that sort could hardly disappear entirely without leaving any trace at all. Wouldn’t you expect to be able to find a man of that sort and his wares turning up somewhere?”
“Yes,” said the other slowly, “I should expect to find him employed somewhere, certainly; I should expect to find he’d got a job in our works or in some of the big firms.”
“Ah,” said Murrel, and relapsed into reflective silence.
Then he said, suddenly: “If you come to that, a lot of our little squires and country gentlemen are pretty hard hit nowadays. But I suppose you could find them all acting as butlers and footmen to some of the dukes.”
“Oh, well . . . I suppose that would be a bit different,” said the manager awkwardly; not being quite sure whether he ought to laugh. He went into a back office to consult business records and books of reference. He left his visitor under the impression that he was looking up the letter “H” to find the name of Hendry. As a matter of fact, he was looking up the letter “M” to find the name of Murrel. But what he found out in the latter inquiry disposed him more favourably to the former. He plunged into a much more elaborate examination of the books, rang up and questioned all the older heads of various departments and after a great deal of this gratuitous labour actually came on a trace of the forgotten affair in question; which, to do him justice, he pursued when he had got it with something of the disinterested energy of a detective in a sensational novel. After some considerable time, he came back to Murrel, wearing a broad smile and rubbing his hands in triumph.
“Very good of you to have paid a compliment to our little attempts at organisation, Mr. Murrel,” said the manager in quite a gay and radiant manner. “There is really something to be said for organisation, you know.”
“I hope I haven’t caused a lot of disorganisation,” said Murrel. “I’m afraid my request was rather an unusual one. I suppose very few of your customers come to order dead pre-Raphaelites over the counter. Somehow it doesn’t seem to be the sort of place where one would drop in for a chat, merely to say you had a friend who was a friend of William Morris. It’s awfully good of you to bother.”