Frowning uneasily, he stepped to the bookcase.
It was a very deep one, occupying a recess. With nervous haste he removed "Egypt Under the Pharaohs," and his painful suspicion became a certainty.
Why, he had asked himself, should he run about London at the behest of Séverac Bablon? And here was the answer.
Placed between the books and the wall at the back, and seeming to frown upon him through the gap, was the stolen Head of Cæsar!
Sheard hastily replaced the volume, and with fingers that were none too steady filled and lighted his pipe.
His reflections brought him little solace. He was in the toils. The intervening hours with their divers happenings passed all but unnoticed. That day had space for but one event, and its coming overshadowed all others. The hour came, then, all too soon, and punctually at four-thirty Sheard presented himself in Hamilton Place.
Sir Leopold Jesson's collection of china and pottery is one of the three finest in Europe, and Sheard, under happier auspices, would have enjoyed examining it. Ralph Crofter, the popular black-and-white artist who accompanied him, was lost in admiration of the pure lines and exquisite colouring of the old Chinese ware in particular.
"This piece would be hard to replace, Sir Leopold?" he said, resting his hand upon a magnificent jar of delicate rose tint, that seemed to blush in the soft light.
The owner nodded complacently. He was a small man, sparely built, and had contracted, during forty years' labour in the money market, a pronounced stoop. His neat moustache was wonderfully black, blacker than Nature had designed it, and the entire absence of hair upon his high, gleaming crown enabled the craniologist to detect, without difficulty, Sir Leopold's abnormal aptitude for finance.
"Two thousand would not buy it, sir!" he answered.