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He must have been dead five or six hours when he was found.
This came as a great shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himself
bitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man's
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 dumfounded 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.


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