‘I’m afraid, M. Thévenet, I haven’t got the matter clear yet. It would oblige us both very much if you would be kind enough to tell us all you know about the sending out of that cask.’
‘With pleasure.’ He touched a bell and a clerk entered.
‘Bring me,’ he said, ‘all the papers about the sale of that group of Le Mareschal’s to M. Felix of London.’ He turned again to his visitors.
‘Perhaps I had better begin by explaining our business to you. It is in reality three businesses carried on simultaneously by one firm. First, we make plaster casts of well-known pieces. They are not valuable and sell for very little. Secondly, we make monuments, tombstones, decorative stone panels and the like for buildings, rough work, but fairly good. Lastly we trade in really fine sculpture, acting as agents between the artists and the public. We have usually a considerable number of such good pieces in our showroom. It was one of these latter, a 1400 franc group, that was ordered by M. Felix.’
‘Felix ordered it?’ burst in Burnley, ‘but there, pardon me. I must not interrupt.’
The clerk returned at this moment and laid some papers on his principal’s desk. The latter turned them over, selected one, and handed it to Burnley.
‘Here is his letter, you see, received by us on the morning of the 30th of March, and enclosing notes for 1500 francs. The envelope bore the London postmark.’
The letter was written by hand on one side of a single sheet of paper and was as follows:—
‘141 West Jubb Street,
‘Tottenham Court Road,