Before I quite knew what had happened bids had poured in from a hundred eager voices, and the figures had miraculously climbed up, up, up with the rapidity of lightning, so that before I had interposed five times I believe they were actually all trembling on the brink of a thousand pounds!
And this for three dirty, crisp rolls of parchment!
All the same, I must admit that my determination to get possession of those records seemed to have been carefully noted by my rivals. In fact, I was continually made conscious of those looks of veiled hostility which continued to be shot at me from every direction as time after time I topped the bids. Meanwhile, too, a steady hubbub began to arise around me, above which I found it was increasingly difficult to make oneself heard or noted. Also, during a lull in the contest, the crowd appeared to sway and part, and all at once, to my astonishment, I found that the Hunchback of Westminster himself was standing beside me, and with him the dearest friend and fellow-collector I had ever had, the Earl of Fotheringay, and when I came to examine them I was stupefied to find that both men’s faces were deadly white.
“For God’s sake, for your own sake, Glynn,” whispered Lord Fotheringay in my ear impressively, “end this mad rivalry with us; you have no idea what terrible havoc you are making of things by your wild bids at this momentous juncture. Stand down, man, stand down, or you’ll ruin all.”
But, with my teeth set hard, I glared at him defiantly. “What was my business to him?” Indeed, my blood was up—I knew I was bound in honour—and I nodded again to the auctioneer, who saw me instantly, and repeated aloud: “Mr Glynn says twelve hundred and fifty pounds. Is there any advance?”
The hunchback now turned on me with a snarling expression like a tiger’s.
“Fool,” he hissed, “you won’t be warned,” and, raising his arm, he made a sign with his hand.
Almost instantly the crowd appeared to rise up en masse and to roll right over us, but as I stumbled backward, headlong from my foothold, I was astonished to see a man, got up to resemble me exactly in every feature, scramble on to my place on the upturned case, and in a voice that seemed my very own, to cry out to the auctioneer: “That, sir, is the most I can do. I now retire.” And as a cheer broke out from the crowd he too skipped down instantly out of sight.
“Ah, this is indeed treachery,” I told myself. And, gripping my teeth hard, I let my fists go; next, with a mighty effort, I sprang forward to roll the surging human mob out of my path—to make my voice heard, to regain my old position, to take command of the situation again, for I heard the bids still mounting higher, higher, higher.
In vain.