"Could you finish my catalogue by the twenty-seventh? That's a little more than three weeks."
"Well—it would depend rather on the number of notes you wanted. Let me see—there must be about fourteen or fifteen thousand books here—"
"There are fifteen thousand."
"It would take three weeks to make an ordinary catalogue; and that would be quick work, even for me. I'm afraid you must give me rather more time."
"I can't. I'm leaving England on the twenty-sixth."
"Couldn't I go on with it in your absence?"
"No, that would hardly do."
"If you could only give me another week—"
"I couldn't possibly. I have to join my father at Cannes on the twenty-seventh."
So she was Sir Frederick Harden's daughter then, not his wife. Her last words were illuminating; they suggested the programme of a family whose affairs were in liquidation. They also revealed Sir Frederick Harden's amazing indifference to the fate of the library, an indifference that argued a certain ignorance of its commercial value. His father who had a scent keen as a hound's for business had taken in the situation. And Dicky, you might trust Dicky to be sure of his game. But if this were so, why should the Hardens engage in such a leisurely and expensive undertaking as a catalogue raisonné? Was the gay Sir Frederick trying to throw dust in the eyes of his creditors?