Part 16

THE old man, contrary to his practice, was a little late for the midday meal, and he had a poor appetite for it. As he tried to eat the cold mutton and the potato William had baked for him, his thoughts seemed a long way from his plate. William himself, who was too full of trouble to give much attention to food, now saw that the old man’s earlier ferocity, which had hurt him even more than it had puzzled him, had yielded to a depth of melancholy that was hardly less disturbing. But the master’s manner, on his return from the visit to Mr. Thornton, was far more in accordance with his nature, at least as William understood that nature; indeed, his voice had recaptured the note of pathos which seemed natural to it whenever the Van Roon was mentioned.

“I ought to tell you, boy,” he said, in a husky tone, towards the end of the meal, “that it looks as if there’ll be the dickens to pay over this job. A French detective from Paris has been here, and he’s coming again this afternoon to have a word with you.”

“With me, sir?”

The old man, whose eyes were furtively devouring the face of William, was quick to observe its startled look. “Yes, boy, you’re the one he wants to see. The Loov authorities have managed to get wind of this Van Roon of ours, and they say it’s the feller they’ve been looking for since 1898.”

Easy to gull William in some respects was, yet, he could not help thinking that the French Government took a little too much for granted.

“I think so, too--but there it is,” said the old man. “They have to prove the Van Roon is theirs, and that won’t be easy, as I told the detective this morning. But I understand that the question of identity turns upon certain marks, as well as upon similarity of subject.”

William allowed that the subject had an undoubted similarity with that of the picture stolen from the Louvre, but then, as he explained, every known Van Roon had a strong family likeness. In size they varied little, and they always depicted trees, water, clouds, and in some cases a windmill.

“Ours, I believe, had no windmill.”

“No, sir, only water and trees, and a wonderful bit of cloud.”

“I understand,” said the old man mournfully, “that the one that was stolen from the Loov had no windmill.”

“The other one in the Louvre has no windmill; there are two at Amsterdam that have no windmill; and there’s one at The Hague, I believe, that hasn’t a windmill.”

“May be. These are all points in our favour. But, as I say, the whole question will turn upon certain identification marks, and this French detective is coming here this afternoon to examine it. So it seems to me that the best thing you can do is to go off at once, and get it back from that hussy, because you can take it from me, boy, that we are going to be held responsible for the picture’s safety by the French police; and if when the detective calls again all we have to say is that it has vanished like magic, and we are unable to produce it, we may easily find ourselves in the lock-up.”

This speech, worded with care and uttered with weight, had the effect of increasing William’s distress. Underlying it was the clear assumption that he was in league with June, and this was intolerable to him, less because of her strangely misguided action, than for the reason that the master to whom he had been so long devoted found it impossible to believe his word.

“If only I knew where Miss June was, sir--” he said, miserably.

The old man, with the fragment of caution still left to him, was able to refrain from giving William the lie. It wasn’t easy to forbear, since he was quite unable to accept the open and palpable fact that his assistant was in complete ignorance of June’s whereabouts. So true it is that the gods first tamper with the reason of those whom they would destroy!

S. Gedge Antiques was in the toils of a powerful and dangerous obsession. He saw William in terms of himself; indeed, he was overtaken by the nemesis which dogs the crooked mind. For the old man was now incapable of seeing things as they were; the monstrous shadow of his own wickedness and folly enshrouded others like a pall. One so shrewd as William’s master, who had had such opportunities, moreover, of gauging the young man’s worth, should have been the last person in the world to hold him guilty of this elaborate and futile deceit; but the old man was in thrall to the Frankenstein his own evil thoughts had created.

He was sure that William was lying. Just as in the first instance the young man had given the picture to “the hussy”, he was now in collusion with her in an audacious attempt to dispose of it. S. Gedge Antiques was not in a frame of mind to sift, to analyze, to ask questions; it seemed natural and convenient to embrace such a theory and, urged by the demon within, he was now building blindly upon it.

About three o’clock William was engaged in the lumber room putting derelict pieces of furniture to rights, when his master came with a long and serious face, and said that the French detective wanted to see him. William put on his coat and followed the old man into the shop where he found two persons awaiting him. With only one of these was William acquainted. Mr. Thornton was well known to him by sight, but he had not seen before the French dealer, M. Duponnet.

With a nice sense of drama on the part of S. Gedge Antiques the Frenchman was now made known to William as M. Duplay of the Paris police. Midway between a snuffle and a groan, the old man, raising his eyes in the direction of heaven, besought his assistant to tell Mussewer all that he knew as to the picture’s whereabouts.

William, alas, knew no more than his master; and he found no difficulty in saying so. He was not believed, since the old man had had no scruple in the blackening of his character, and the Frenchman, with a skilful assumption of the manner of an official, which the others solemnly played up to, proceeded to threaten the assistant with the terrors of the law.

The French Government was convinced from the description, which had been given of the Van Roon by those who had seen it, that there could be little doubt it was their long missing property. Such being the case, the police were only willing to allow the young man another twenty-four hours in which to produce it for examination. If he failed to do that within the time specified, a warrant would be applied for, and he might find himself in prison.

In the face of this intimidation, William stuck to his story. He knew no more than the dead where the picture was; Miss June, to whom it had been given, had suddenly disappeared with it the previous night.

“Who is Mees June?” said the Frenchman sharply.

Miss June was the niece of Mr. Gedge.

“And he gave the picture to her?” The disappointed buyer, who felt that his suspicions in the matter were being confirmed, looked keenly from the young man to the old.

“No, sir,” said William, with the utmost simplicity. “I gave it to her myself.”

There was a pause, in which astonishment played its part, and then Mr. Thornton gravely interposed: “How do you mean you gave her the picture? It isn’t yours to give. It is the property of your master.”

“You are forgetting, boy,” said the old man in a voice in which oil and vinegar were wonderfully mingled, “that I would not allow my niece to have such a valuable thing, and that you then made it over to me to dispose of to the best advantage.”

“I gave it to Miss June,” persisted the young man simply, “but I told her that, as you had set your heart upon it, I hoped very much she would let you have it.”

While this odd conversation went on, the two dealers exchanged glances. Both were greatly puzzled. They were as one in being a little suspicious of the absolute bona fides of S. Gedge Antiques. Either this was a very clumsy method of establishing them, or there was more behind the picture’s disappearance than met the eye.

S. Gedge Antiques, whose brain was working at high pressure, was not slow to read their minds. He closed the discussion with a brevity which yet was not lacking altogether in persuasion. “There’s no time, boy, to go into all that,” he said. “The girl’s gone off with the picture, and wherever she’s to be found, you must go right away, and get it back from her, and bring it here to me, or we may both find ourselves in the lock-up. That is so, Mussewer Duplay--what?” And with a lively gesture the old fox turned to the Frenchman.

Puzzled that gentleman certainly was, yet he heartily agreed. If the Van Roon was not produced within the next four and twenty hours, a warrant would be issued.

“Where is the hussy? That’s what we want to know,” said the old man. “Tell us what has become of her.”

Frankly William did not know. He was not believed, at any rate, by his master who by now was deeper than ever in the coil of his own crookedness. As for the two dealers who, between them, had contrived, as they thought, to acquire one of the world’s treasures for an absurd sum, they did not know what to think. The comedy they were performing at the instance of S. Gedge Antiques was designed to bemuse the assistant, yet both men had an uneasy feeling at the back of their minds that master and man were engaged in a piece of flapdoodle for their private benefit. If so, the old man was a fool as well as a rogue, and the young one was a rogue as well as a fool. Scant was the comfort to be got out of this reflection. They seemed very far from the goal on which their hearts were set; and impatience of such methods was just beginning to show itself in the bearing of Messrs. Duponnet and Thornton when the affair took a new and remarkable turn.

LIII

A TALL man, quietly dressed, yet wearing a silk hat and an eyeglass, with a pleasant air of authority, came into the shop. For a moment he stood by the door, a rather cool gazed fixed upon the group of four; and then, an odd mingling of alertness and caution in his manner, he advanced to the proprietor.

“May I have a word with you,” said the visitor, with an air of apology for the benefit of the others whom he included in a smile which expressed little.

“Certainly you may, Sir Arthur,” said S. Gedge Antiques, an odd change coming into his tone. Taken by surprise, the old man had been slow to reckon up the situation. He was not able to detach himself from the group, and lead the rather unwelcome visitor out of earshot before that gentleman had divulged the business which had brought him there.

“You must be anxious about your niece, Mr. Gedge,” said Sir Arthur, who saw no need for secrecy.

The old man was very anxious indeed.

“You’ve heard from the Hospital, of course?”

It seemed that the old man had heard nothing; and Sir Arthur was proceeding to deplore this oversight on the part of those whom he had asked over the telephone to communicate with Number Forty-six, New Cross Street, when William, whose ear had caught the sinister word ‘Hospital’ could no longer restrain a painful curiosity.

The young man sprang forward with clasped hands and shining eyes. “Oh, sir, what has happened to Miss June?” he cried. “Tell me--please!”

Sir Arthur, his mission concrete in his mind, brought a steady eye to bear upon the young man before he slowly replied: “She has had a mental breakdown, and we were able to arrange for her to be taken late last night to St. Jude’s Hospital.” He then turned to the old man, who had either grasped the news more slowly, or was less affected by it, and said: “It’s a case for careful treatment, in the opinion of the doctor who saw her soon after she arrived at my house, and upon whose advice she was sent to the Hospital. I am very sorry now that I did not communicate with you myself!”

It was the young man, however, as Sir Arthur did not fail to notice, who seemed really to be troubled by what had befallen this unfortunate girl. S. Gedge Antiques, for his part, soon shewed that his inmost thoughts were centered upon something else.

“Can you tell me, sir,” he said, with an excitement he did not try to conceal, “whether the picture she took away with her is quite safe?”

Sir Arthur looked hard at the old man before he answered: “Mr. Gedge, the picture is perfectly safe.”

“Thank God!” The exclamation of S. Gedge Antiques was not the less heartfelt for being involuntary.

“And Miss June?” interposed William huskily. “Is she?... Is she...?” He was too upset to frame his question.

“She is very ill indeed, I’m afraid,” said Sir Arthur, in a kind tone, “but she is in the best possible hands. Anything that can be done for her will be done--I am sure you can count upon that.”

“Is she going to die?”

Sir Arthur shook his head. “When I last rang up the Hospital, I asked that question, but they will not give an opinion. They prefer not to go beyond the fact that she is critically ill.”

Tears gathered slowly in William’s eyes. Conscience was pricking him sharply. Had he not brought this unlucky picture into the house, such a terrible thing would not have occurred.

William’s brief talk with the visitor, whose unheralded appearance upon the scene was by no means welcome to S. Gedge Antiques, gave his master a much needed opportunity to decide upon the course of action. The two dealers knew now that the Van Roon was safe, but as far as William and Sir Arthur were concerned, the situation was full of complexity. Much cunning would be needed to smooth out the tangle; and to this end, as the old man promptly realized, the first thing to be done was to induce the Frenchman and his agent to quit the shop.

“You hear, Mussewer, that the picture is safe,” he said to the buyer, soapily. “I will go at once and get it from this gentleman. If you will come in again to-morrow morning, it shall be ready for you.”

M. Duponnet seemed inclined to await further developments, but S. Gedge Antiques had no scruples about dismissing his fellow conspirators. Without more ado, he ushered both dealers gently but firmly to the door. This new turn in the game had made them keenly curious to learn more of the affair, yet they realized that they were on thin ice themselves, and the peremptory manner of S. Gedge Antiques enforced that view. “To-morrow morning, gentlemen--come and see me then!” he said, opening the shop door determinedly, and waiting for these inconvenient visitors to pass out.

This task accomplished, the old man had to deal with one more delicate. He had to remove from the minds of William and Sir Arthur Babraham all suspicion in regard to himself. He came to them with his most sanctimonious air: “I can’t tell you, sir,” he assured Sir Arthur, “what a relief it is to know that my niece is in good hands. But I am afraid she is a very wicked girl.” Then he turned abruptly to William, and said in a low tone that he wished to have a private conversation with Sir Arthur.

For once, however, the young man shewed less than his usual docility. He was most eager to learn all that had happened to June, and to gain a clue, if possible, to her strange conduct; besides the painful change in his master now filled him with distrust.

The shrewd judge of the world and its ways upon whom the duty had fallen of holding the balance true was quick to note the reluctance of the younger man; and even if the nature of the case would compel him in the end to take the word of the proprietor against that of the servant, he was influenced already, in spite of himself, by that open simplicity which had had such an effect upon his daughter.

“Is there anything, Mr. Gedge, we have to say to one another, which this young man may not hear?” said Sir Arthur quietly, and then, as the old dealer did not immediately reply, he added coolly, “I think not.” Turning to William he said: “Please stay with us. There are one or two questions I have to put which I hope you will be good enough to answer.”

This did not suit the book of S. Gedge Antiques, but he decided to play a bold game. “I’m very much obliged to you for your kindness in taking care of the picture,” he said, with a smirk to his visitor. “As you know, it is a thing of great value. Had anything happened to it, the loss would have been terrible. Perhaps you will allow me to go at once and fetch it, for I don’t mind telling you, sir, that until I get it back again my mind will not be easy.”

Sir Arthur looked narrowly at the face of unpleasant cunning before him, and then he said very quietly: “I am sorry to have to tell you, Mr. Gedge, that your niece claims the picture as her property.”

The old man was prepared for a development which he had been able to foresee. “I am afraid she is a very wicked girl,” he said, in the tone of a known good man whose feelings are deeply wounded. “I ask you, sir, is it likely that a thing of such immense value would belong to her?”

Sir Arthur had to agree that it was not, yet remembering his daughter’s deep conviction on the subject, he was careful to assert June’s claim.

“Moonshine, I assure you, sir.”

Sir Arthur, however, did not regard this as conclusive. In the light of what had happened he felt it to be his duty to seek a clear proof of the picture’s ownership; therefore he now turned to William and told him that the girl in the Hospital declared that he had given her the Van Roon. A plain statement of fact was demanded, and in the face of so direct an appeal the young man did not hesitate to give one. Originally the picture was his property, but a week ago he had given it to his master’s niece.

“What have you to say to that, Mr. Gedge?” asked Sir Arthur.

The heart of William seemed to miss a beat while he waited painfully for the answer to this question. To one of his primitive nature, his whole life, past, present and future seemed to turn upon the old man’s next words; and a kind of slow agony overcame him, as he realized what these words were in all their cynical wickedness.

“The Van Roon is mine, sir,” said S. Gedge Antiques, in a voice, strong, definite and calm. “It was bought with my money.”

Sir Arthur fixed upon the stupefied William an interrogating eye. In his own mind he felt sure that this must be the fact of the matter, yet it was hard to believe that a young man who seemed to be openness itself was deliberately lying. “What do _you_ say?” he asked gently.

William was too shocked to say anything. His master took a full advantage of the pause which followed. “Come, boy,” he said, in a tone of kindly expostulation, “you know as well as I do that you were given the money to buy a few things down in Suffolk in the ordinary way of business on your week’s holiday and that this little thing was one of your purchases.”

Sadly the young man shook his head. The cold falsehood was heavier upon him than a blow from the old man’s fist would have been, yet it roused him to the point of blunt denial. Quite simply he set forth the true facts.

“The master gave me twenty pounds to attend a sale by auction at Loseby Grange, Saxmundham, and I bought things to the value of twenty pounds one and ninepence.”

In a voice which was a nice mingling of humour and pathos the old man interposed. “This picture, which I admit was bought for a song as the saying is, was among them.”

“No, sir,” said William, “I bought this picture with my own money from an old woman in a shop at Crowdham Market.”

So much for the issue, which now was quite clearly defined. Sir Arthur, however, could only regret that the supremely difficult task of keeping the scales of justice true had developed upon him.

“What did you pay for the picture, may I ask?”

“Five shillings,” said William, unhesitatingly.

“Five shillings!”

“It was as black as night when I bought it, sir, with a still life, which must have been at least two hundred years old daubed over it.”

“Black enough, I allow,” said the old man, “but it can’t alter the fact that the picture’s mine.”

“Let me be quite clear on one point,” said Sir Arthur. “You maintain, Mr. Gedge, that the picture was bought at a sale with your money, and this young man declares it was bought at a shop with his.”

“That is so,” said the old man.

“Do you happen to have kept a list of the things that were bought at the sale?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t one.”

Here, however, the old man’s memory was at fault, and this material fact William went on to prove. Under the counter was a file containing a mass of receipted bills, and from among these the young man was able to produce a document which told heavily in his favour. It was a list of his purchases at Loseby Grange, carefully written out, with the sum paid opposite each item, and at the foot of it, immediately beneath the figures “£20.1.9” was written in a rather shaky but businesslike hand, “Audited and found correct. S. Gedge.”

This lucky discovery went some way towards establishing William’s case. The paper contained no mention of a picture, other than a print after P. Bartolozzi, which William took at once from the shop window. Finished dissembler as he was, the old man could not conceal the fact that he was shaken, but like a desperate gambler with a fortune at stake, he hastily changed his tactics. He began now to pooh-pooh the receipt, and declared that even if his unfortunate memory had played him a trick as to where the picture had been actually bought, it did not affect the contention that it had been purchased with his money.

Sir Arthur Babraham, in his search for the truth, could not help contrasting the bearing of the claimants. Avarice was engraved deeply upon the yellow parchment countenance of S. Gedge Antiques, whereas so open was the face of William that it went against the grain to accuse its owner of baseness. In spite, of this, however, Sir Arthur could not help asking himself how it had come about that a young man so poor, who was yet clever enough to pick up such a treasure for a few shillings had parted with it so lightly.

Upon the answer to that question he felt much would depend.

“I suppose when you gave this picture away you did not realize its great value?”

“As a matter of fact, sir, I hardly thought about it at all in that way. I only saw that it was a very lovely thing, and Miss June saw that it was a very lovely thing. She admired it so much that she begged me to let her buy it.”

“Did you take her money?”

“No, sir. She accepted it as a gift. I asked her not to let us think of it as money.”

“Could you afford to do that?” Involuntarily the questioner looked at the young man’s threadbare coat and shabby trousers, and at once decided that he, of all people, certainly could not.

William’s answer, accompanied by a baffling smile, gave pause to the man of the world. “I hope, sir, I shall always afford the luxury of not setting a price on beauty.”

The dark saying brought a frown to the face of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who said in his slow voice: “But surely you would not give away a Van Roon to the first person who asks for it?”

“Why not, sir--if you happen to--to----”

“If you happen to what?”

“To like the person.”

Although the young man blushed when he made this confession, such an ingenuousness did his cause no harm. Sir Arthur Babraham, all the same, was puzzled more than a little by such an attitude of mind. This indifference to money was almost uncanny; and yet as he compared the face of the assistant with that of the master, the difference was tragic. One suffused with the light that never was on sea or land, the other dark as the image of Baal whose shadow was cast half across the shop.

LIV