T WAS on a dirty afternoon in late October that Dr. Anstruther turned out of the mud and crowds and traffic of New Bond Street into the Well known show-rooms of Messrs. Marshley & Waldron. That was when Marshley & Waldron were in their old premises, a short way up from Piccadilly, and when motor-omnibuses and cars were yet in the womb of Time, and on a day like this your trousers were splashed by the wheels of hansoms and such-like prehistoric vehicles.
"I'll just have a look round by myself, thank you."' he said to the young man who advanced, and strolled on slowly through the rooms.
The doctor was a tall, gaunt, large-boned Scotchman with a clipped gray mustache and ragged eyebrows and a dry, reserved manner; yet underneath the formidable brows and the caustic speech a very occasional twinkle in the eye and a flavor of geniality in his rare smile hinted at the reason why his friends, though few, were devoted.
It was that quality, in fact, of friendship which had first Jed him into Marshley & Waldron's. A retired Anglo-Indian and a confirmed bachelor, he had settled in the east coast hamlet of Chipping-Urby a few months after his old friend Colonel Barlow retired from the army and came to live at Urby Hall.
The pair had always been intimate cronies and by this time had grown to be inseparable; the more readily as, the doctor had no near relatives and the colonel only one, his nephew and reputed heir, Vincent Barlow, a young barrister living in London; while neighbors in that part of the world were almost non-existent.
Colonel Barlow was a man of ample means and a passionate collector, especially of rare china, but with a strong distaste for London and indeed for towns and town-life of any kind. Dr. Anstruther, on the other hand, liked to run up to town occasionally, and on these occasions used to look round the show-rooms and curiosity-shops on his friend's behalf. He himself was a collector in a modest way and an excellent and sagacious judge.
Such a valuable client was not apt to be left long alone, and he had hardly been there five minutes before Mr. Waldron himself came forward and greeted him affably, the Mr. Waldron of those days being a square-shouldered gentleman with a waxed red mustache and a pale, business-like eye.
"We happen," said he, "to have an article of vertu at present that the colonel might quite fancy. I have noticed his taste is generally for the odd and unusual; in fact, sir, one might almost say for the outré. I think that is so, doctor?"
Dr. Anstruther was a man of few words. He merely nodded and agreed that Colonel Barlow's taste did run that way.
"It's a quite remarkably outré article," said Mr. Waldron. "Quite unusually outré. In fact it's a little too much so for most people."
Both by profession and instinct the doctor was an observant man, and it struck him even at that moment that there was something a little curious in Mr. Waldron's laugh. He followed him through two or three show-rooms, and then, as they approached a wide shelf on which a space seemed to have been cleared round a single object, he was again struck, this time by a curious note in Mr. Waldron's voice.
"Tut, tut!" he exclaimed impatiently. "What bit of nonsense is this now?"
This single object was covered with a cloth thrown loosely over it, and as Mr. Waldron spoke, he plucked it off and threw it aside with an air of considerable irritation, the doctor noticed.
Dr. Anstruther himself was one of the most imperturbable and least fanciful of men, yet hardly was the cloth off when he was conscious of a curious wish that it were on again. The vase that stood revealed was tall and of a foreign and ornate design, but beyond the fact that it had, generally speaking, a kind of spiky appearance, he was hardly conscious of its details, his eye was so filled by one figure embossed on it in low relief, and the impression produced by this figure was so singular. For some moments he gazed at it in silence, and it was with a conscious effort that he turned away his eyes at last and spoke.
"I don't like it," he said. "What do they call the thing?"
"In our catalog we called it the Lutzingen Vase," said Mr. Waldron. "But that's only where it comes from—Lutzingen in Brandenberg. It has also a kind of popular name, so to speak, which means, I believe, 'The Devil's house.'"
"First part is suitable enough," muttered Dr. Anstruther, looking hard at the vase under his eyebrows, "but why 'house'?"
"Why it was called so I have no idea, but we are hoping to get some more information about its story, and if we do, I'll be happy to send it on to Colonel Barlow."