padour. It was the skull of a fighting
man, for all that frontally it was marked by a high intellectuality. This
sort of head generally gives the possessor yachts like _Wanderer II_,
tremendous bank accounts; the type that will always possess these things,
despite the howl of the proletariat.

The face was sunburned. There was some loose flesh under the jaws. The
nose was thick and pudgy, wide in the nostrils, like a lion's. The
predatory are not invariably hawk-nosed. The eyes were blue--in repose, a
warm blue--and there were feathery wrinkles at the corners which suggested
that the toll-taker could laugh occasionally. The lips were straight and
thin, the chin square--stubborn rather than relentless. A lonely man who
was rarely lonesome.

His body was big. One has to be keen physically as well as mentally to
make a real success of anything. His score might have tallied sixty. He
was at the peak of life, but hanging there, you might say. To-morrow
Anthony Cleigh might begin the quick downward journey.

He had made his money in mines, rails, ships; and now he was spending it
prodigally. Prodigally, yes, but with caution and foresight. There was
always a ready market for what he bought. If he paid a hundred thousand
for a Rembrandt, rest assured he knew where he could dispose of it for the
same amount. Cleigh was a collector by instinct. With him it was no fad;
it was a passion, sometimes absurd. This artistic love of rare and
beautiful creations was innate, not acquired. Dealers had long since
learned their lesson, and no more sought to impose upon him.

He was not always scrupulous. In the dollar war he had been sternly
honest, harshly just. In pursuit of objects of art he argued with his
conscience that he was not injuring the future of widows and orphans when
he bought some purloined masterpiece. Without being in the least aware of
it, he was now the victim, not the master, of the passion. He would have
purchased Raphael's Adoration of the Magi had some rogue been able to
steal it from the Vatican.

Hanging from the ceiling and almost touching the floor, forward between
the entrance to the dining salon and the owner's cabin, was a rug eight
and a half by six. It was the first object that struck your eye as you
came down the companionway. It was an animal rug, a museum piece; rubies
and sapphires and emeralds and topaz melted into wool. It was under glass
to fend off the sea damp. Fit to hang beside the Ardebil Car