- An auctioneer is busy selling off expensive furniture and art to a well-heeled bunch of buyers.
- When Thornhill comes in, he sees Eve sitting with Vandamm and Leonard in the audience.
- Thornhill approaches Vandamm and asks what his name is, saying they haven't been properly introduced.
- Vandamm asks if Thornhill has been brought there by "an overpowering interest in art," and Thornhill replies, "Yes. The art of survival." Nobody out-suaves Roger Thornhill.
- Eve tells Vandamm that Thornhill has followed her there from the hotel. Vandamm asks if this means Thornhill was in Eve's room, and Eve says yes. Vandamm gets suspicious and jealous.
- Thornhill finally learns Vandamm's name when the auctioneer calls it in response to a bid Vandamm makes.
- Vandamm accuses Thornhill of overacting and tells him his next "role" is going to be playing dead.
- Thornhill keeps taunting Vandamm and friends, asking whether they're going to have Eve kiss him and poison him to death. This prompts Eve to slap Thornhill across the face.
- Thornhill asks why they don't call the police, then realizes that's the last thing they'd want to do. Thornhill might tell the police something that the bad guys don't want them to know.
- Thornhill says this gives him that much more reason to go to the police. He thinks he'll have a better chance of survival in their hands, after all.
- He approaches the exit but sees the U.N. assassin—the creepy hired hand from back in New York—waiting for him.
- This gives him an idea. He starts acting the part of a yahoo, who thinks the bidding's in dollars rather than thousands of dollars and who loudly criticizes all the stuff they're selling.
- Thornhill manages to cause an uproar in the audience; people are furious with him for disrupting the stuffy proceedings.
- Eventually the auctioneer calls the cops, and his mission's accomplished. You can almost hear Vandamm thinking, "Curses! Foiled again!"