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ill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached that
topic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities.
He was dumbfoundered to learn that it was sold.
Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken upstairs,
had been to write to the mad clergyman who had offered five pounds for
the crystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a violent hunt in
which her daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of his
address. As they were without the means required to mourn and bury Cave
in the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven Dials inhabitant
demands, they had appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Great
Portland Street. He had very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at
a valuation. The valuation was his own and the crystal egg was included
in one of the lots. Mr. Wace, after a few suitable consolatory
observations, a little off-handedly proffered perhaps, hurried at once
to Great Portland Street. But there he learned that the crystal egg had
already been sold to a tall, dark man in grey. And there the material
facts in this curious, and to me at least very suggestive, story come
abruptly to an end. The Great Portland Street dealer did not know who
the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observed him with sufficient
attention to describe him minutely. He did not even know which way this
person had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr. Wace remained in
the shop, trying the dealer's patience with hopeless questions, venting
his own exasperation. And at last, realising abruptly that the whole
thing had passed out of his hands, had vanished like a vision of the
night, he returned to his own rooms, a little astonished to find the
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