Trenmore's mouth set in a straight, obstinate line. "No, I'll not," he declared. "They cannot bully a Trenmore, and Viola says the same. But if I could I'd lay hands on the old villain that's after it the way he'd trouble us no more, so I would!"
"Have you tried the police?"
"To be sure."
"How about the auction rooms where you bought it? If this persecutor of yours is a collector, they might know him there by description."
"That I tried myself before I troubled the police. One young fellow remembered the old villain, and remembered him asking my name. They keep a register at the salesrooms. But as for the villain's own name, no one there seemed to know it."
"Well, then-" Drayton cast about in his mind somewhat vaguely. Then an idea struck him. "By the way, Terry, have you opened the vial and had the contents analyzed?"
Trenmore's blue eyes flashed wide. "I have not!" he exclaimed with considerable energy. "For why would I be intruding on such a matter? Surely, in the place where that Dust came from, they'd not be liking me to meddle with it!"
Drayton firmly suppressed a smile. The price of friendship is tolerance, and he was too grateful and too fond of his Irishman to express ridicule. "I really believe," he said gravely, "that, admitting the Purgatory part of the legend to be true, the Dust is too far separated from its origin, and too many centuries have elapsed since it was placed in this vial for any real danger to attach to it. And who knows? There may be diamonds, or some other jewels, hidden in that close-packed dust. If there is a question of the vial's authenticity as a Cellini it can't be the vial itself that your mysterious collector is ready to pay ten thousand for. Why not open it, anyway, and find out exactly where you are?"
The Irishman scratched his head with a curious expression of indecision. Physical dread was a sensation of which he was happily ignorant; but he possessed a strong disinclination to meddle with any affair that touched on the super-natural. He had bought the vial for the sake of its reputed creator, Cellini. Then his attention had become focused on the "Dust" and the uncanny description accompanying it, and while obstinacy forbade him to let the thing go by force, still it was to him a very uneasy possession. Had no one arisen to dispute its ownership, Trenmore would probably have rid himself of the Cerberus before this.
"Well," he said at length, "if you think opening it is the wise way to be doing, then let us do it and get it over. But myself, I dread it's a foolish trifling with powers we know little of!"