They paused opposite a mean house, entered an open door, and ascended a rickety, evil-smelling staircase. Tomlin pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked a door upon the second floor, and ushered Quinney into a biggish room filled with odds and ends of furniture. Quinney had been here before. It was one of Tomlin's many small warehouses. The centre of the floor had been cleared, and in this cleared space stood four chairs.
"Thunder and Mars!"
"Thought you'd be surprised," muttered Tomlin, pulling up a dirty blind.
The four chairs were carved like the chairs from Pevensey Court. They had horsehair seats much dilapidated, and the mahogany had been mercilessly treated, but to a connoisseur such as Quinney there was not a scintilla of doubt that they were carved by the same master hand which had designed and executed the set in Lark and Bundy's window.
"Where are the other four?" asked Quinney, on his knees before the chairs, running his hands over them, caressing them with tender touches.
"Where? Oh, where?" said Tomlin. Then he spoke curtly and to the point:
"Them four came out of Ireland. I paid fifty pound for 'em."
"You do have the devil's own luck, Tom."
"Not so fast. I can't find out anything about them. If I tried to sell 'em, as they are, Lark would see to it that fellows like Pressland crabbed 'em, as he did that commode o' yours."
Quinney gnashed his teeth. The history of that unhappy transaction was now known to him. He knew where the commode was, and what price had been paid for it.