Explore "Paul Quentin" by Fred M. White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On the face of it, the commission looked simple, but from the very first Dugdale could not rid himself of the feeling that there was something sinister and underhand in it. Probably Quentin was a crank and a faddist, a china maniac who did not care about showing his hand. And so far as Dugdale could see, when he had traced the Dragon Vase, his mission was at an end. At the same time, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack and for the moment he was utterly unable to tell how to begin proceedings. He spent the best part of the day in thinking the matter out, deciding at length that Macpherson was the person most likely to help him. He found the genial Scotsman taking his ease at one of the minor literary clubs, and under the seal of secrecy disclosed the matter to him.
"It is very strange," Macpherson said. "Still nothing ought to surprise an old hand like myself, and I'll not say a word about it to anybody, my boy. What you want to get hold of is an expert in Oriental china. I don't mean a man who writes books which he gets up in the museums. You want an authority who is accustomed to handle these things. If you have got nothing particular to do this evening, I can put my hand on the very person you want."