Down by the docks there is a narrow street full of shops devoted to the sale of curios from foreign parts. I had gone there during the days when I was racketing about town to purchase a monkey for a chorus girl who demanded its immediate production as a pledge of affection. It was whilst I was in the shop that I had heard the aged proprietor explaining the properties of a small dried bundle of herbs which hung from one of the low rafters. At the first mention of the word poison I had listened intently, whilst apparently interested in the other articles scattered about the shop.
It was possible that the plant was no longer in its old place. At the same time it was not the sort of thing which was likely to be largely in demand, and it might hang there through a generation without being disturbed. I knew that the proprietor was a great dealer in Chinese cabinets and curiosities of all kinds. I decided to buy Miss Gascoyne something very rare, and took my way to the East End in a state of suspense as to whether the business had been moved. As I entered the street, however, I saw the cages and bird-stands outside the door as of yore. So little had changed that it seemed to give me assurance that the magic root was hanging in the old place. As soon as I entered the shop I looked anxiously at the place where it had been, and gave almost a sigh of relief as it caught my eye.
The wizened little old proprietor hastened forward from the back of the shop where he was inspecting some articles which were being displayed for his approval by a sailor. The latter, in no way disconcerted or offended at being left with such scant ceremony, took up a newspaper which lay on his patron’s desk and settled himself to read till such time as the proprietor should be free again. I explained that I wanted a Chinese cabinet; something quite new and original. The old man looked around puzzled.
“They’re very much of a muchness,” he said, “especially in our days, when we dealers have got to be as careful as the public that we are not cheated. There was a sailor as used to do the China trip twice a year, and he brought back some of the quaintest looking cabinets as ever I saw, but it turned out that he bought ’em all in this country, and that’s the way we’re took in.”
It did not strike the old gentleman that if the articles were genuine it could not matter very much whether they were bought in England or not.
I objected to everything which was shown to me, and made every effort to get him to go to his storerooms upstairs, suggesting that he might have something put away. He denied this, and continued to grope about amongst his treasures, while the bunches of Grobi root dangled temptingly above our heads.
While he was meandering I examined them very carefully, and studied how I could detach one of the bundles in the shortest space of time. Finally, the old man remembered that he had something which might tempt me in his back premises, and he went shuffling away to look for it.
As soon as his back was turned I took my penknife, which I had already opened in my pocket, and, glancing swiftly at the sailor occupied with his paper in the corner, reached up my hand and cut the string by which the bundle of dried root was attached to the ceiling. I thrust it into my great-coat pocket and looked again at the sailor. He appeared to have been quite ignorant of my proceeding. It was some minutes before the old gentleman shambled back into the shop, bearing in his hands a box of some scented wood, from which, where it had lain buried in cotton-wool, he lifted out a miniature cabinet of exquisite workmanship.
“I had forgotten all about this. I’ve had it by me for years.”
I shrewdly suspected that it was one of those things which had been brought to the old man by someone of whose honesty he was doubtful.