And he, too, vanished just as suddenly into the night. Luckily my business as a professional investigator of the odd, the queer, and the misunderstood in life had given me a stout nerve and an obedient brain, so, crushing down all the flood of idle speculation that rose in me as to the reason and connection of those two most extraordinary coincidences, I patiently retraced my steps, locked up my rooms, and turned into my bed. "Enough for the day is the worry thereof," I told myself as I mixed a glass of steaming grog. "I've got the money from this Spaniard, and I've got the commission to go to that auction, and when I am able to answer any or all the puzzling questions that this mysterious visit of Don Jose Casteno has suggested to me I'll ask them quickly enough--but not before. As for Mr Naylor, well, he's got his troubles. So have I. `One dog, one bone,' as my old groom used to say when any of the other servants tried to interfere with his prerogatives. I'll stick to my own lines, and that, at present, is nothing more formidable, in spite of his dark hints and tall talk, than the acquisition of these old manuscripts for Don Jose." And gulping down the hot jorum I had prepared I resolutely threw the bedclothes over my head, and soon was fast asleep. Next day, however, I turned up punctually at the mart in Covent Garden just before the hour the advertisement specified. To say I was not anxious about the result of my action would be foolish. I was--for always behind my business, you must remember, lurked those soft, shy, tender eyes of Doris Napier, which I wanted to shine on me alone. All the same, I had no idea of the strange and bewildering acts of trickery in which, contrary to my best efforts, I was destined to become a central figure. Had I known, of course, the sequel to them might have been very different, and maybe, too, this story would never have been written. As it was--but there! let the affair speak for itself. It happened like this: Directly I arrived in King's Street I found the huge wooden apartment, with its familiar roof of green opaque glass and its big staring advertisements in colour on the walls, known to curio lovers all over the world as the "Brom," crowded from end to end and door to door with foreigners. Now this was extremely unusual. In an ordinary way the same dealers and amateurs turn up at these functions time after time-- these people fall into methods of their own of quick and agreeable acquaintance--and the bidding is conducted with certain airs of old-world politeness and decorum, which men who love the work find very delightful and refreshing in themselves, and yet conducive to the best business results.