is fair in love and the detection
of crime, and he simply had to get hold of those bottles by some daring
yet plausible ruse.

"Now--I wonder!" he muttered, as Elkin's step sounded on the stairs.

"There you are!" grinned the horse-dealer. "Take a dose of the last one.
It'll stir your liver to some tune."

Furneaux drew the corks out of both bottles, and sniffed the contents.
Then he tasted, with much tongue-smacking.

"Um!" he said. "Stale laudanum, for a start. I expected as much. Bought
by the gallon and sold by the drop. Is that the dogcart with my
pictures?"

"Yes."

"Hail your man. He can give me a lift."

"But there's lots of things I want to ask you--"

"Probably. I'm here to put questions, not to give information. I've gone
a long way beyond the official tether already. If you've a grain of
sense, and I think you're not altogether lacking in that respect, you'll
keep a close tongue, and act on the tips thrown out. You'll find pearls
of price among the rubbish-heap of my remarks generally. Good-by. See you
on Wednesday."

And Furneaux climbed into the cart, holding the pictures so that they
would not rattle, and perhaps loosen the old gilded frames.

"Drive me to the chemist's" he said to the groom; within five
minutes, he was explaining his purchase to Siddle, and requesting, as
a favor, that the latter should wrap the set of prints in brown
paper, making two parcels, and tying each securely, so that they
might be dispatched by train.

Siddle examined one, the first of the series, which depicted the
Aylesbury Steeplechase.

"Rather good," he said. "Where did you pick them up?"

"At Elkin's."

"Indeed. What an unexpected place!"

"That's the only way a poor man can get hold of a decent thing nowadays.
The dealers grab everything, and sell them as collections."

"Art is not in my line, though anyone can see that these are excellent."

"Yes. But you're looking at 'The Start.' Have a peep at this one,
'The Finish.' The artist _would_ have his joke. You see that the dark
horse wins."

"How did you persuade Elkin to part with them?"

"By paying him a tempting price, of course. I'm a weak-minded ass in
such matters."

The chemist busied himself to oblige the detective, wrapping and tying
the packages neatly. Furneaux insisted on paying sixpence for the paper,
string, and labor. There was quite a friendly argument, but he carried
his point.

The dog-cart then brought him to the station, whe