Part 21 (1/2)
Robbins started the bidding at ten dollars. A stout man, in an ecclesiastical garb, went to fifteen. A voice from another part of the crowd raised to twenty. The three bid alternately, raising by bids of five, until the offer was fifty dollars. Then the stout man dropped out, and Robbins, as a sort of _coup de main_, went to a hundred.
”One hundred and fifty,” said the other voice.
”Two hundred,” bid Robbins, boldly.
”Two-fifty,” called his compet.i.tor, promptly.
The reporter hesitated for the s.p.a.ce of a lightning flash, estimating how much he could borrow from the boys in the office, and screw from the business manager from his next month's salary.
”Three hundred,” he offered.
”Three-fifty,” spoke up the other, in a louder voice--a voice that sent Robbins diving suddenly through the crowd in its direction, to catch Dumars, its owner, ferociously by the collar.
”You unconverted idiot!” hissed Robbins, close to his ear--”pool!”
”Agreed!” said Dumars, coolly. ”I couldn't raise three hundred and fifty dollars with a search-warrant, but I can stand half. What you come bidding against me for?”
”I thought I was the only fool in the crowd,” explained Robbins.
No one else bidding, the statue was knocked down to the syndicate at their last offer. Dumars remained with the prize, while Robbins hurried forth to wring from the resources and credit of both the price. He soon returned with the money, and the two musketeers loaded their precious package into a carriage and drove with it to Dumars's room, in old Chartres Street, nearby. They lugged it, covered with a cloth, up the stairs, and deposited it on a table.
A hundred pounds it weighed, if an ounce, and at that estimate, according to their calculation, if their daring theory were correct, it stood there, worth twenty thousand golden dollars.
Robbins removed the covering, and opened his pocket-knife.
”_Sacre!_” muttered Dumars, shuddering. ”It is the Mother of Christ.
What would you do?”
”Shut up, Judas!” said Robbins, coldly. ”It's too late for you to be saved now.”
With a firm hand, he chipped a slice from the shoulder of the image.
The cut showed a dull, grayish metal, with a thin coating of gold leaf.
”Lead!” announced Robbins, hurling his knife to the floor--”gilded!”
”To the devil with it!” said Dumars, forgetting his scruples. ”I must have a drink.”
Together they walked moodily to the cafe of Madame Tribault, two squares away.
It seemed that madame's mind had been stirred that day to fresh recollections of the past services of the two young men in her behalf.
”You mustn't sit by those table,” she interposed, as they were about to drop into their accustomed seats. ”Tha.s.s so, boys. But no. I mek you come at this room, like my _tres bon amis_. Yes. I goin' mek for you myself one _anisette_ and one _cafe royale_ ver' fine. Ah! I lak treat my fren' nize. Yes. Plis come in this way.”
Madame led them into the little back room, into which she sometimes invited the especially favoured of her customers. In two comfortable armchairs, by a big window that opened upon the courtyard, she placed them, with a low table between. Bustling hospitably about, she began to prepare the promised refreshments.
It was the first time the reporters had been honoured with admission to the sacred precincts. The room was in dusky twilight, flecked with gleams of the polished, fine woods and burnished gla.s.s and metal that the Creoles love. From the little courtyard a tiny fountain sent in an insinuating sound of trickling waters, to which a banana plant by the window kept time with its tremulous leaves.
Robbins, an investigator by nature, sent a curious glance roving about the room. From some barbaric ancestor, madame had inherited a _penchant_ for the crude in decoration.
The walls were adorned with cheap lithographs--florid libels upon nature, addressed to the taste of the _bourgeoisie_--birthday cards, garish newspaper supplements, and specimens of art-advertising calculated to reduce the optic nerve to stunned submission. A patch of something unintelligible in the midst of the more candid display puzzled Robbins, and he rose and took a step nearer, to interrogate it at closer range. Then he leaned weakly against the wall, and called out: