'He is acting for someone then?' I asked.
He nodded. 'The Contessa Forelli, I think. I have sent someone to try and find out.'
The auctioneer had grown tired of waiting. He poised his hammer. Mancini raised the bidding ten again.
'Cinquanta,' came the monotonous voice of Valdini.
'Sessanta.'
'Cento.'
'I do not understand it,' Mancini muttered angrily to me. 'They will pay through the nose and make a bad business of it. There are hidden reasons. That Forelli woman is up to something. She is too clever with men.'
The man who had slipped out for Mancini returned and whispered in his ear. 'Ma, perche?' I heard him ask.
The man shrugged his shoulders. Mancini turned and raised the bidding again. 'It is Forelli,' he said to me. 'But why I do not know. She must have a reason. If I knew it and it was worth the money, I would give her a defeat. But I do not throw money in the drain, you understand.' He was near the limit he would go. I felt sorry for him. He did not want me to think him unsporting or lacking in courage. He did not like an Englishman to see him defeated.
The bidding crawled slowly up to the one and a half million mark. Then Valdini astonished the whole room by changing his tactics. He jumped from one and a half to two millions. There was a note of triumph in his voice. He guessed the hotelier would not follow him to that figure.