"Where do you suppose he got it?"
"Search me."
"Some fellows have all the luck, don't they?"
Then the voices passed out of hearing.
6
I have not mentioned Mr. Alfred Mount lately though I saw him often on matters connected with the case. He was an interesting character. It was only by degrees that I realised what an extraordinary man I had to deal with. After our first meeting his manner towards me completely changed. He appeared to be sorry for his brusqueness on that occasion. Now he was all frankness and friendliness. Nothing crude, you understand, just the air of one man of the world towards another. I could not help but feel flattered by it.
While we worked together so amicably the mutual antagonism remained. I knew he still resented Miss Hamerton's having employed me without consulting him, and I believed that he was working independently. For my part, you may be sure, I told him nothing but what I had to. I found no little pleasure in blocking his subtle questioning by my air of clumsy innocence. I told him nothing about the cryptogram.
I never called at his office again. Sometimes he dropped into mine, his bright eyes wandering all around, but more often I called on him at his apartment over the store. For he occupied the second floor of the beautiful little building which housed his business. There was however nothing of the old-fashioned shop-keeper about his place. I never saw such splendour before or since. But it took you a while to realise that it was splendour, for there was nothing showy or garish. Everything he possessed was the choicest of its kind in the world. Even with my limited knowledge, when I stopped to figure up the value of what I saw, I was staggered. I saw enough at different times to furnish several millionaires.
Mount had a strange love for his treasures in which there was nothing of the usual self-glorification of millionaires. He had a modest, almost a tender, way of referring to his things, of handling them. I learned quite a lot about tapestries, rugs, Chinese porcelains, enamels, ivories and gold workmanship from his talk. He did not care for paintings.