“When you greeted me as another, I knew that it was the only way to insure the safety of your valuables. Had you suspected me you would not have trusted a stranger. Yours is the right to withdraw the sale. Otherwise, a check for the maximum value will go to you. Forgive me, Cinderella, and think gently of
Dantrè.”
Withdraw it? . . .
When I ran to the gate at sunset to hear Prince’s sequel, it was with high heart, for I felt that the day of the lady agent had waned. Martha was joyfully trolling a somber tune in the kitchen; ahead of me was the radiant vision of a new roof, a basket laden for Mrs. Petty, and sticks innumerable in the woodshed. The vision materialized, when Prince gravely placed a bank-book in my hand. His measures had been summary. He went first to Penwick’s hotel, and called him up to say that his estimate of Miss Legree’s antiques was too low; she had sold them.
“Oh, I am sorry! After all, he was a relative,” I said, regretfully.
“Stick to the past tense, please,” said Prince, briefly. “His language over the wire wasn’t publishable. He is safer at a distance, and I implied as much.”
“And—Dantrè?” I ventured.
“Banks conjure by that name. You did a wonderful stroke of business, Enid—for a woman.”
Had I? I hid a smile.
“Dantrè is a Richard Burton for wandering, and an infallible expert. Collectors swear by him. I heard an odd thing about the man today. It seems that Dantrè is not his name. His father was a notorious criminal speculator, and ruined many before he served his time in the penitentiary, Dantrè is equally keen on the trail of tricksters in collecting, but the disgrace made a recluse of him. He has gone again, and his agent was placing the Fierienti on exhibition today. I’ve no doubt that he turned up from the end of the earth just to get even with—” Prince hesitated. “You see, Enid, I remembered the name of the collector who bought old Mrs. Mace’s Romney. I hated to tell you. It was Cary Penwick.”
But memory swung back to a firelit hour and a dark, listening face upon a slender hand, with two swastikas—